Information on Safe Migration
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revealing her personal potential, professionally
assisting in the realization of civil and social rights
Combating human trafficking: how to recognize a recruiter
The most vulnerable groups of people in the context of human trafficking are women, children, migrants, and people who are looking for work abroad or are already working there illegally. The first people in the human trafficking chain that a potential victim encounters are recruiters. Their task is to deceive, manipulate, and blackmail the victim into going abroad under the pretext of employment, study, or marriage. However, the stated conditions and type of study/work, salary, and sometimes even the country the person is going to will not be true. In reality, the person ends up in labor or sexual slavery, is subjected to various forms of exploitation, and may even be used for the purpose of organ trafficking.
In the case of migrants, recruiters can operate directly in the country they are moving to. Migrants become easy targets for criminals if they are in an oppressed psychological state and leave "for nowhere."
How are people recruited into slavery?
Nowadays, recruiters often contact those they want to recruit directly: through social networks on the internet, and sometimes through personal acquaintances. Recruiters can also operate through fictitious agencies (for example, travel or modeling) and employment agencies.
We remind you that for safe employment, it is best to use the services of licensed companies. The list of licensees can be found at the link on the website of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Republic of Belarus.
The recruiter must convince their victim to go abroad or assist in the forced transportation of the person to a place where they will be exploited. Perpetrators usually do not disclose the exact requirements for the "worker" and the tasks they will perform; the conditions of the предполагаемой "work" are vague and расплывчаты. Instead, they promise a large salary, free accommodation, and three meals a day. The recruiter will psychologically pressure the victim to make them feel obligated to the criminals.
The main goal is to drive the victim into debt. For example, a recruiter may promise to cover all the victim's expenses, because in the future she will pay them back from her salary in a "new high-paying job." The work that is offered to be performed, as a rule, does not require any special knowledge and experience: recruiters invite victims to get jobs as housekeepers, sellers, waiters, workers on construction sites and enterprises, nurses, harvesters, dancers, models. Sometimes it is directly stated that the job involves sex services or escorts. The promised salary is often higher than the market average.
The further development of events is as follows: the victim's documents, money, and phone are being taken away. But not always. Victims may receive threats that their registration will be revoked, or they may promise to sign an employment contract every day, but they will have to postpone it. Money is also not always taken away: in this case, the promised meals are not provided, and the person is forced to pay for the food out of their own money until the savings run out. But in any case, resistance is suppressed by psychological, physical, and/or sexual violence, threats to life, and blackmail.
People who are enslaved are not always kept in cages without the opportunity to escape, call their relatives, and return to their country. Sometimes victims of the slave trade are in such a depressed psychological state and difficult life situations that, even working in terrible conditions, without days off or wages, they still stay and hope for some kind of change.
A similar story happened to Vladimir (name changed). The man was recruited right next to the job center, offering a job as a monolithic contractor in Russia. The man was promised a salary of up to 60,000 Russian rubles (almost 2,000 white rubles) with accommodation, three meals a day and official registration. Vladimir was in a very difficult financial situation: he had debts on loans and communal services, and his wife was ill and received a small pension. Therefore, out of desperation, he agreed.
In reality, he was looking for a job without an employment contract for 12 hours without days off (on good weeks, with one day off). I had to live in a cold and damp trailer with 5 more people, and I had to eat overdue food, which was thrown out of the Pyaterochka store. As a result, after three months of grueling work, Vladimir earned 24,000 Russian rubles and hitchhiked home.
You can read about the assistance available to victims of human trafficking in Belarus in our material «How to help a person who has become a victim of human trafficking».
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