Contemporary Slavery in Russia: Sales Markets, Human Cost, Testimonies of Slaves and "Slave Owners"

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Every day, thousands of people from the regions and neighboring countries rush to Moscow to earn money. Some of them disappear without a trace, not having time to leave the capital's station. Novaya Gazeta studied the Russian labor slavery market.

Those who fight

Oleg asks not to name the place of our meeting and even the region. It takes place in an industrial area of a small town. Oleg "leads" me by phone, and when I reach the signboard "Tire fitting", he says: "Wait, I'll come right now." Comes in 10 minutes.

“It's not easy to find you.

- This is the whole calculation.

The conversation takes place behind a plywood shed. Around - garages and warehouses.

“I started to fight slavery in 2011,” says Oleg. - A friend told me how she ransomed a relative from a brick factory in Dagestan. I didn’t believe it, but it became interesting. I went myself. In Dagestan, I went to factories with local guys, posing as a buyer of bricks. At the same time, he asked the workers if there were any forced laborers among them. It turned out yes. With those who were not afraid, we agreed to escape. Then they managed to take out five people.

After the release of the first slaves, Oleg sent out a press release to the media. But the topic did not arouse interest.

- Only one activist from the League of Free Cities movement got in touch: they have a small newspaper - they probably read about two hundred people. But after the publication, a woman from Kazakhstan called me and told me that her relative was being held in a grocery store in Golyanovo (a district in Moscow. - I. Zh.). Remember this scandal? Unfortunately, he was the only one, and even ineffectual - the case was closed.

About how much the topic of human trafficking worries Russians, Oleg says:

- Over the past month, we collected only 1,730 rubles, and spent about seventy thousand. We invest our money in the project: I work at a factory, there is a guy who works as a loader in a warehouse. The Dagestan coordinator works in the hospital.

^{Oleg Melnikov in Dagestan. Photo: Vk.com}

Now there are 15 activists in "Alternative".

“In less than four years, we have freed about three hundred slaves,” says Oleg.

According to the estimates of "Alternative", in Russia every year about 5,000 people fall into labor slavery, in total in the country there are almost 100,000 forced laborers.

How to get into slavery

The average portrait of a Russian forced laborer, according to Oleg, is this: he is a person from the provinces who does not understand labor relations, who wants a better life and is ready to work with anyone for this.

- A person who came to Moscow without a definite plan, but with a definite purpose, is immediately visible, - says Oleg. - Recruiters are working at the metropolitan railway stations. Most active - in Kazan. The recruiter approaches the person and asks if he needs a job? If necessary, the recruiter offers good earnings in the south: from thirty to seventy thousand rubles. The region is not named. They say about the nature of the work: "handyman" or something else that does not require high qualifications. The main thing is a good salary.

The recruiter offers a drink for the meeting. Not necessarily alcohol, you can also tea.

- They go to the station cafe, where there are agreements with the waiters. Barbiturates are poured into the recruited person's cup - under these substances a person can be unconscious for up to one and a half days. After the drug has started to work, the person is put on a bus and taken away in the right direction.

Oleg tested the scheme of falling into slavery on himself. For this, he lived for two weeks at the Kazansky railway station, disguising himself as a homeless person.

- It was in October 2013. At first I tried to portray a visitor, but it looked unconvincing. Then I decided to play a bum. Usually, slavers do not touch the homeless, but I was new at the station, and on October 18, a man approached me who introduced himself as Musa. He said that he has a good job in the Caspian Sea, three hours a day. He promised 50,000 a month. I agreed. On his car we went to the shopping center "Prince Plaza" near the Teply Stan metro station. There Musa handed me over to a man named Ramadan. I saw how Ramadan gave money to Musa. How much exactly - I could not see. Then Ramazan and I went to the village of Mamyri, next to the village of Mosrentgen in the Moscow region. There I saw a bus to Dagestan and refused to go, they say, I know that there is slavery. But Ramadan said that the money had already been paid for me and it was necessary either to return it, or to work it out. And to calm me down, he offered me a drink. I agreed. We went to the nearest cafe, drank some alcohol. Then I hardly remember. All this time my activist friends watched us. At the 33rd kilometer of the Moscow Ring Road, they blocked the road to the bus, they took me to the Sklifosovsky Institute, where I lay under an IV for four days. I got the antipsychotic azaleptin. A criminal case was opened, but a check is still underway on it …

“As such, there are no markets, sites where people could be bought,” says Zakir, the coordinator of the Alternative in Dagestan. - People are taken "to order": the owner of the plant told the slave trader that he needed two people - they would bring two to the plant. But there are still two places in Makhachkala, where slaves are brought most often and from where they are taken by the owners: this is the bus station behind the Pyramida cinema and the North Station. We have a lot of evidence and even video recordings in this regard, but the law enforcement agencies are not interested in them. They tried to contact the police - they received refusals to initiate cases.

“In fact, the slave trade is not only Dagestan,” says Oleg. - Slave labor is used in many regions: Yekaterinburg, Lipetsk region, Voronezh, Barnaul, Gorno-Altaysk. In February and April of this year, we freed people from a construction site in Novy Urengoy.

Returned

^{Andrey Erisov (foreground) and Vasily Gaidenko. Photo: Ivan Zhilin / "Novaya Gazeta"}

Vasily Gaidenko and Andrey Yerisov were released from the brick factory by the “Alternative” activists on August 10. For two days they traveled from Dagestan to Moscow by bus. With the activist Aleksey, we met them in the morning of August 12 at the parking lot of the Lyublino market.

Andrei has four children, he fell into slavery recently - on June 23rd.

- I came to Moscow from Orenburg. At the Kazansky railway station, he approached the guard and asked if they needed employees? He said that he didn’t know and that he would ask the boss, who wasn’t present at the moment. While I was waiting, a Russian guy came up to me, introduced himself as Dima and asked if I was looking for a job? He said that he would arrange me as a security guard in Moscow. He offered to drink.

Andrei woke up already on the bus, two more slaves were traveling with him. All were brought to the Zarya-1 plant in the Karabudakhkent region of Dagestan.

- At the plant, everyone works where the owner says. I drove bricks on a tractor. I also had to work as a loader. The working day is from eight in the morning to eight in the evening. Seven days a week.

- If someone gets tired or, God forbid, injury, - the owner does not care, - says Vasily and shows a huge ulcer on his foot. When Dzhangiru (that was the name of the owner of the plant, he died a month ago) showed that my leg was swelling, he said: "Put the plantain."

Nobody treats sick slaves in brick factories: if the condition is very serious and a person cannot work, he is taken to the hospital and left at the entrance.

“The common food of a slave is pasta,” says Vasily. - But the portions are large.

At Zarya-1, according to Vasily and Andrey, 23 people were forced to work. We lived in a barrack - four in one room.

Andrey tried to escape. He did not go far: the brigadier caught him in Kaspiysk. He returned to the factory, but did not beat him.

The relatively mild conditions at Zarya-1 (they feed tolerably well and do not beat them) are due to the fact that this plant is one of four legally operating in Dagestan. In total, in the republic, according to the "Alternative", there are about 200 brick factories, and the vast majority of them are not registered.

In illegal factories, slaves are much less fortunate. In the archive "Alternative" there is a story of Olesya and Andrei - two prisoners of the plant, codenamed "Crystal" (located between Makhachkala and the Caspian Sea).

“I was not beaten, but strangled once,” says Olesya under the video. - It was Brigadier Kurban. He told me: "Go, carry buckets, bring water to the trees." And I replied that I would now rest and bring it. He said that I could not rest. I continued to be indignant. Then he began to choke me, and then promised to drown me in the river."

Olesya was pregnant by the time she got into slavery. “Having learned about this, Magomed, the plant manager, decided not to do anything. After a while, due to hard work, I had problems in the female part. I complained to Magomed for over two weeks before he took me to the hospital. The doctors said that there was a very high probability of a miscarriage, and demanded to leave me in the hospital for treatment. But Magomed took me back and made me work. When I was pregnant, I carried ten-liter buckets of sand."

Volunteers of "Alternative" managed to free Olesya from slavery. The woman saved the child.

“Liberating people does not always resemble some kind of action-packed detective story,” activists say. “Often the owners of factories prefer not to interfere with us, because the business is completely illegal and does not have serious patrons.”

About patrons

According to the volunteers of "Alternative", human trafficking in Russia does not have a serious "roof".

“Everything happens at the level of district police officers, junior officers, who simply turn a blind eye to problems,” says Oleg.

The Dagestani authorities expressed their attitude to the problem of slavery in 2013 through the mouth of the then Minister of Press and Information Nariman Hajiyev. After the release of the next slaves by the “Alternative” activists, Hajiyev said:

“The fact that slaves work at all factories in Dagestan is a cliche. Here is the situation: activists said that citizens from central Russia, Belarus and Ukraine are being held in captivity at two factories in the village of Krasnoarmeisky. We asked the operatives of the Ministry of Internal Affairs for the Republic of Dagestan to check this information, which was done within literally a few hours. The operatives arrived, gathered teams, found out who the newcomer was. And the word "slaves" turned out to be more than inappropriate. Yes, there were problems with salaries: people, in general, were not paid, some really did not have documents. But they worked voluntarily."

Money? I buy everything for them myself

Volunteers of "Alternative" handed over to the correspondent of "Novaya" two telephones, one of which belongs to the owner of a brick factory, where, according to activists, involuntary labor is used; and the second - to a reseller of people.

- I absolutely do not understand what you mean. I help people find a job, - a reseller named "Maga-merchant" reacted violently to my call. - I do not work at factories, I do not know what is happening there. They just ask me: help me find people. And I'm looking.

The "merchant", according to him, had not heard anything about barbiturates mixed into drinks for future slaves. For "help in the search" he receives 4-5 thousand rubles per capita.

Magomed, nicknamed "Komsomolets", who owns a plant in the village of Kirpichny, having heard the reason for my call, immediately hung up. However, in the archives of "Alternative" there is an interview with the owner of a brick factory in the village of Mekegi, Levashinsky district, Magomedshapi Magomedov, who describes the attitude of the owners of the factories to forced labor. Four people were released from Magomedov's plant in May 2013.

“I didn't hold anyone by force. How can you talk about retention when the plant is right next to the road? - says Magomedov on record. “I met them in the parking lot at the Pyramid cinema and offered them a job. They agreed. I took the documents, because they are drunk - they will lose more. Money? I bought everything for them myself: here they give me a list of what they need - I buy them everything."

Officially

Law enforcement agencies officially confirm the fact of low activity in the fight against the slave trade. From the report of the Main Directorate of Criminal Investigation of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation (November 2014):

“In the fall of 2013, the Australian human rights organization Walk Free Foundation published a rating of countries regarding the situation related to slave labor, in which Russia was assigned the 49th position. According to the organization, there are about 500 thousand people in Russia in one form or another of slavery.

An analysis of the results of the activities of the law enforcement agencies of the Russian Federation in combating trafficking in persons and the use of slave labor shows that since the introduction in December 2003 of Articles 127-1 (trafficking in persons) and 127-2 (use of slave labor) into the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, the number of persons recognized as victims under the aforementioned articles of the Criminal Code remains insignificant - 536.

In addition, since 2004, that is, over the past 10 years, 727 crimes have been registered under Article 127-1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, which annually amounts to less than one tenth of a percent of all registered crimes.

Analysis of the state of crime in the field of human trafficking and the slave trade indicates a high latency of these criminal acts, therefore the official statistics do not fully reflect the actual state of affairs."

Press center of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Russia:

In January-December 2014, officers of the internal affairs bodies registered 468 cases of illegal imprisonment (Article 127 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation), 25 cases of human trafficking (Article 127-1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation) and 7 crimes under Art. 127-2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.

In total, during the reporting period, 415, 35 and 10 crimes were preliminarily investigated, respectively, including previous years.

388 criminal cases under Art. 127, 127-1, 127-2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. 586 persons who have committed crimes have been identified.

According to the preliminary results for the first half of 2015, it can be judged that the employees of the internal affairs bodies are effectively fighting crime. So, for example, as of June 2015, during the reporting period (January-June), 262 crimes have already been registered under articles 127, 127-1, 127-2 of articles of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation. Of these, 173 were sent to court with indictments, 207 were preliminary investigated, including those of previous years. Revealed 246 persons who have committed crimes under Art. 127 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, 21 - under Art. 127 - 1 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, 6 - 127-2 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation.