Azernews.Az

By Nigar Orujova

484 human trafficking cases including ten cases of forced labor have been recorded in Azerbaijan in the past six years, Deputy Interior Minister Vilayat Eyvazov has said.

363 traffickers were brought to trial, 225 criminal groups were detected on related charges, with eight neutralized, since 2006, Eyvazov said at an international conference in Baku on Thursday.

Each year funds worth $500,000 are allocated from the state budget to combat human trafficking, Eyvazov noted.

US Ambassador to Azerbaijan Richard Morningstar, participating in the conference, which focused on stepping up cooperation in combating human trafficking and forced labor, said that according to the International Labor Organization (ILO) report for 2012, 21 million people are unfree labor and sexual exploitation victims worldwide, 2 million of whom fall to East and West Europe and CIS.

According to the UN, most of the human trafficking victims are engaged in forced labor, Morningstar said.

Branding human trafficking as a form of slavery, Morningstar said about 14.2 million people are unfree labor victims, which is triple the sexual exploitation rate.

Human trafficking brings outlaws $32 million in profit per year, which is used to finance international terrorism.

According to the ILO Special Action Programme to Combat Forced Labour (SAP-FL), global profits from forced trafficked labor exploited by private agents are estimated at $44.3 billion per year. About 70 percent of this amount, or $31.6 billion, come from trafficked victims. Nearly half of this sum - more than $15 billion - comes from industrialized countries.