VZCZCXYZ0009
PP RUEHWEB

DE RUEHAK #0458/01 0600942
ZNR UUUUU ZZH (CCY TEXT AD8ADA20 VSG0282)
P 010942Z MAR 07
FM AMEMBASSY ANKARA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 1141
INFO RUEAHLC/HOMELAND SECURITY CENTER WASHDC
RUEAWJA/DEPT OF JUSTICE WASHDC
RUEHC/DEPT OF LABOR WASHDC
RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHDC

UNCLAS ANKARA 000458 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
SENSITIVE 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR G/TIP, G, INL, DRL, PRM 
DEPARTMENT FOR IWI, EUR/SE, EUR/PGI 
DEPARTMENT FOR USAID 
C O R R E C T E D  C O P Y  (TEXT) 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KCRM PHUM KWMN SMIG KFRD ASEC PREF ELAB TU
SUBJECT: TURKEY 7TH ANNUAL TIP REPORT:  OVERVIEW AND 
PREVENTION 
 
REF: A. 06 ANKARA 6672 
     ¶B. 06 SECSTATE 202745 
 
¶1.  (U)  Sensitive but unclassified.  Please protect 
accordingly. 
 
¶2.  (U)  Post's responses are keyed to questions in Reftel A. 
 This is part 1 of 3 (septel).  Embassy point of contact is 
Cathy Westley, telephone number 90-312-455-5555 X 2513, fax 
number 90-312-468-4775.  Westley (FS-03) spent approximately 
80 hours in preparation of this TIP report.  Istanbul 
political officer Christopher Friefeld (FS-04) spent 
approximately 10 hours in preparation of this report.  Deputy 
Political Counselor Kelly Degnan (rank: FS-02) spent 
approximately 2.5 hours in preparation of this report. 
 
-------- 
Overview 
-------- 
 
¶A.  (SBU)  Turkey remains a destination and transit country 
for women and children trafficked for the purposes of sexual 
exploitation and some forced labor.  Though no territory 
within the country is outside government control, porous 
borders and a liberal visa regime provide a comfortable 
environment for traffickers smuggling victims to, within, and 
through Turkey. 
 
There are no reliable estimates of the number of internally 
or internationally trafficked victims beyond formally 
identified victims.  The GOT and IOM keep reliable numbers of 
identified victims. 
 
The Istanbul Shelter NGO, Human Resources Development 
Foundation (HRDF), the Ankara Shelter NGO, Foundation for 
Women's Solidarity (FWS), and the International Organization 
for Migration (IOM) combined to repatriate 191 foreign 
victims in 2006, a decline from 220 in 2005. 
 
The Ministry of Interior reports 246 identified victims in 
¶2006.  Of the 191 assisted by IOM in 2006, the source 
countries were distributed as follows:  Moldova (59), Russia 
(39), Ukraine (33), Kyrgyzstan (24), Uzbekistan (16), 
Azerbaijan (9), Turkmenistan (4), Georgia (2), Bulgaria (2), 
Kazakhstan (1), Belarus (1), Armenia (1). 
 
According to IOM statistics, the most vulnerable group of 
persons are women between the ages of 18 and 24 who are 
trafficked for the purposes of sexual exploitation. 
 
¶B.  (SBU)  The GOT continues to take the issue of trafficking 
in persons seriously and has taken significant measures 
within the rating period to prevent, combat and prosecute 
trafficking. 
 
The Turkish President signed into law amendments (passed by 
the Turkish parliament on December 5) to two key articles in 
the Turkish Penal Code (TPC) that will improve 
anti-trafficking efforts in Turkey once implemented (ref b 
and septel).  Lawmakers added forced prostitution to Article 
80, the primary anti-trafficking article, and removed forced 
prostitution from Article 227, the prostitution and pimping 
article.  Up to now, prosecutors had tended to use the less 
stringent Article 227 to try cases against traffickers as a 
majority of trafficking crimes in Turkey involve forced 
prostitution.  With the amendments, lawmakers have ensured 
that traffickers will be tried under the appropriate, tougher 
provision, Article 80.  Now, victims will be assured of 
automatic protection, legal counseling and health care. 
Traffickers will be subject to stricter sentencing 
requirements of eight to twelve years.  Statistics on 
prosecution of TIP-related crimes will be more reflective of 
the real story as most TIP crimes are tracked under Article 
80 prosecutions.  The Ministry of Foreign Affairs estimates 
the change to be reflected in implementation by March. 
 
Law enforcement forces launched investigations against 422 
individuals in 2006, up from 379 in 2005.  Convictions of 
traffickers rose to 17 cases involving 36 persons according 
to statistics through June 2006, up from 9 convictions 
between January and September, 2005. 
 
During the rating period, the GOT signed a bilateral 
cooperation protocol to fight trafficking with Kyrgyzstan in 
 
September 2006, in addition to previously signed protocols 
with Belarus, Georgia, Ukraine and Moldova.  The MFA claims 
good cooperation via these protocols with Moldova 
particularly, and to a lesser extent Ukraine and Belarus. 
The GOT is undertaking a series of visits to Georgia in 
February and March to improve law enforcement cooperation 
with Georgia. 
 
The GOT continued to support a focused public awareness 
campaign reaching out to victims, law enforcement, and 
customers.  A toll-free 24-hour hotline for victims of 
trafficking continues operating.  Since May 2005, calls to 
the hotline have resulted in 109 rescued individuals.  During 
the rating period, the GOT continued to support the 
IOM-implemented public awareness campaign begun in 2005:  one 
advertising the hotline, and the other appealing to the 
strong sense of family in Turkey by revealing that one-third 
of the women trafficked to Turkey are mothers. 
 
Most victims enter Turkey willingly and some arrive with the 
knowledge that they will work illegally in the sex industry. 
Most, however, initially expected to work as models, 
waitresses, dancers, domestic servants, or in other regular 
employment.  Many such victims are trafficked by persons from 
their home country in cooperation with Turkish traffickers. 
Once in Turkey, traffickers typically confiscate the victims' 
personal documents and passports and force victims into 
confinement where they are raped, beaten into submission, and 
intimidated by threats of retaliation against the victims' 
family members. 
 
¶C.  (SBU)  There are credible reports that some law 
enforcement officials received bribes either to smuggle 
aliens or turn a blind eye to illegal prostitution.  Salaries 
for police officers are relatively low.  The GOT does not 
lack the resources to aid victims; it provides funding 
directly to the two trafficking shelters in Istanbul and 
Ankara (septel). 
 
The Ministry of Health provides free medical and psychiatric 
services to victims of trafficking and assisted 155 victims 
admitted to shelters in 2006. 
 
¶D.  (SBU)  The MFA, which chairs the National Taskforce, 
updates its counter-trafficking website periodically, at 
least every six months after a taskforce meeting.  The GOT, 
however, has had limited success in implementing a 
government-wide system for reliably monitoring and assessing 
its anti-trafficking efforts, particularly regarding arrests, 
prosecutions, convictions, and sentencing of traffickers. 
The MFA provides a yearly assessment of its anti-trafficking 
efforts to the USG. 
 
---------- 
Prevention 
---------- 
 
¶A.  (U)  The Government of Turkey acknowledges that 
trafficking is a problem in this country. 
 
¶B.  (U)  Government agencies involved in anti-trafficking 
efforts include the Ministries of Foreign Affairs, Health, 
Interior (which includes the Turkish National Police and the 
Jandarma (paramilitary rural police)), Justice, and Labor; 
the Directorate General for Social Services and Child 
Protection; and the Directorate General on the Status of 
Women.  The MFA serves as national coordinator for the 
government's task force on human trafficking. 
 
¶C.  (U)  Turk Telecom and the GOT began operation in May 2005 
of a new toll-free hotline number, 157, for victims of 
trafficking.  Operators who speak Russian, Romanian, English 
and Turkish man the hotline 24 hours a day, seven days a 
week. 
 
In conjunction with the hotline, the IOM conducted an 
international trafficking campaign from June 2005 to 
September 2006 that promoted prevention of TIP across the 
Black Sea region.  In addition to the USD 600,000 funding 
from the USG, the GOT contributed USD 100,000. In August 
2006, IOM began implementing a similar project with funds 
from the Government of Norway and the Swedish Interational 
Development Agency, with the full cooperation of the GOT. 
 
In Turkey, authorities continued to distribute small passport 
inserts to travelers entering the country at key border 
crossings, although during the rating period IOM and the 
Istanbul shelter HRDF suggested that the insert campaign 
should be examined to determine whether it was the most 
effective outreach method to potential victims.  Turkish 
consulates continued to hand out the inserts to visa 
applicants in source countries.  The passport inserts 
publicized the hotline and included warning signs of 
trafficking.  Billboards in major sea ports and regional 
airports in Turkey, Moldova and Ukraine also advertised the 
hotline.  The campaign also included stepped up training for 
law enforcement, and medical, psychological and direct 
assistance to trafficked individuals. 
The IOM began a trafficking awareness campaign entitled "Have 
You Seen My Mother?" in February 2006.  At the heart of the 
campaign was a 30-second commercial, filmed in Moldova with 
four Moldovan children, asking where their mothers are 
because the children miss them.  It appealed to the Turkish 
strong sense of family and especially to potential clients. 
Poster space was donated by the Istanbul, Ankara, Trabzon, 
Antalya, and Izmir municipalities, as well as by airport 
authorities in Istanbul, Trabzon and Antalya.  Embassy 
officers observed that these posters remained on display 
throughout the rating period. 
 
The Turkish National Police and Jandarma continued 
comprehensive training programs for their cadres during the 
reporting period (septel). 
 
¶D.  (U)  The GOT supports programming to keep children in 
school.  UNICEF and the Ministry of Education continued its 
"Haydi Kizlar Okula" (Let's go to school, girls) campaign 
across the country.  The goal of the campaign was to close 
the gender-gap in primary school enrollment. 
 
With a USD 6 million grant from the U.S. Department of Labor, 
the Turkish Ministries of Labor and Education, the 
International Labor Organization and IMPAQ International 
continued a project combating exploitive child 
labor through education in Turkey that began in September 
¶2005.  Objectives of the project include raising awareness of 
the importance of education  for all children and improving 
and mobilizing a wide array of actors to improve and expand 
educational infrastructures; strengthening formal and 
transitional education systems that encourage working 
children and those at risk of working to attend school; 
strengthen national institutions and policies on education 
and child labor; and ensuring the long-term sustainability of 
these efforts. 
 
In June 2006, the Turkish Directorate General on the Status 
of Women organized a regional conference called "Assessment 
of Regional Needs and Tendencies in Combating Human 
Trafficking -- the Role of NGOs" in Antalya, Turkey. It 
sought to seek the contributions, cooperation and services of 
civil society in preventing TIP and assisting trafficking 
victims.  Participants included representatives from Moldova, 
Ukraine, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, Russia, Uzbekistan, 
Belarus and NGOs with TIP expertise. 
 
¶E.  (SBU)  IOM reports good cooperation with the Task Force 
and law enforcement.  HRDF and FWS continue to be impressed 
and pleased with the cooperation of law enforcement contacts. 
 
 
¶F.  (SBU)  The GOT does not monitor immigration and 
emigration patterns for evidence of trafficking.  Passport 
inserts advertising the 157 hotline continue to be 
distributed at some points of entry, including the Istanbul, 
Trabzon and Antalya airports and the Istanbul and Trabzon 
seaports. 
 
¶G.  (U)  The Director General for Consular Affairs at the 
Turkish MFA spearheads the GOT's anti-trafficking 
initiatives, and is the National Coordinator for the GOT's 
Counter Trafficking Task Force.  The Taskforce, chaired by 
the MFA since its establishment in 2002, is composed of 
representatives from the Ministries of Health, Interior, 
Justice, and Labor, plus the Directorate General for Social 
Services and Child Protection, and the Directorate General on 
the Status of Women, State Planning Organization, Office of 
the Prime Minister-Human Rights Presidency, IOM, HRDF, FWS, 
 
as well as Ankara and Metropolitan Municipalities. 
 
The Government also participates in anti-trafficking 
initiatives through the OSCE, the Southeast European 
Cooperative Initiative (SECI), the Council on Europe, NATO, 
the International Center for Migration Policy Development, 
Interpol, Europol, the Berne Initiative, the Budapest 
Process, the Global Commission on International Migration and 
Core Group of States, the Issyk-Kul Dialogue, the European 
Committee on Migration, CIREFI, MEDA, and the Stability Pact 
Task Force on Trafficking in Human Beings. 
 
During the past year, the Government implemented bilateral 
and multilateral protocols with neighboring countries and 
regional groups to encompass anti-trafficking law enforcement 
agreements, including the cooperation protocols first signed 
with Georgia in March 2005 and Ukraine in June 2005, Moldova 
in February 2006, Ukraine in June 2005. The GOT signed a 
bilateral cooperation protocol to fight trafficking with 
Kyrgyzstan in September 2006. 
 
The Prime Ministry Public Employees Ethics Board, established 
in 2004, monitors all public employees, with the exception of 
the President, parliamentarians, ministers, armed forces 
members, the judiciary and university employees. 
 
¶H.  (U)  The Taskforce recommended and the government adopted 
a National Action Plan for TIP in March 2003.  All members 
(including NGOs) of the Taskforce were involved in developing 
the action plan.  The 2003 action plan has been disseminated. 
 A new action plan will be formulated with the conclusion of 
a Twinning Project with Germany and Austria on "Strengthening 
Institutions in the Fight Against Trafficking in Human 
Beings" (septel). 
 
Visit Ankara's Classified Web Site at 
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/eur/ankara/ 
 
WILSON