| Slavery in the North Caucasus Cases in Dagestan in 2016-2021 |
| Direct Translation via Google Translate. Heavily Edited. Kidnapping of people in Russian cities for the purpose of their further export to Dagestan has become a fairly common practice in recent years. "Recruiters" are looking for potential employees at train stations in Moscow, Saratov and other large cities. Most often, the victims of slave traders are people from the provinces who come to large cities to work. In addition to Dagestan slavery, it is worth remembering that in the 1990s, there was a practice of kidnapping people in Chechnya for the purpose of ransom. The abducted were then also used as forced laborers. If you look into the more distant past, you can see that the use of slave labor was a typical phenomenon in the history of the Caucasus. Cases in Dagestan in 2016-2021 2021 A resident of Udmurtia, Ivan Yakovlev, was able to escape from labor slavery in Dagestan twice. First he worked in a brick factory, then on a farm as a shepherd, the anti-slavery movement "Alternative" reported on 31 July. Volunteers of the movement helped him to leave for Moscow. On July 25, "Alternative" wrote about the release of a resident of the Rostov region, Mikhail Ratkov and a resident of Stavropol, Alexander Bukreev. They were found in the suburbs, without documents, where they were exploited in workhouses. Ratkov and Boukreev got there with the help of recruiters. Ratkov managed to visit the suburbs in labor slavery in Dagestan, Ingushetia and Chechnya. 2020 On April 21, the Ministry of Internal Affairs for Dagestan announced that a check had begun on information that two men were tricked into working in a koshara in the Tarumovsky district. The victims, that an acquaintance in Moscow tried to "sell their labor to one of the sheepfolds in the Tarumovsky district of Dagestan," initially offering them to work on a farm in the Stavropol Territory. The police learned about the incident from a passenger of the Moscow-Makhachkala bus, who witnessed "the coercion of two men, the same passengers of the specified bus, to work on the koshara," the Interior Ministry said. Victor Bogdanov was born in 1950. Since 1991, he was actually in the position of a forced laborer, passing from hand to hand of different owners. "We can say that this grandfather has a typical story. Documents and money, now one owner, then the other. Someone paid him something, someone just brutally exploited for food. So he hung : on for a couple of years, the other, "I tried to leave, but failed," said the employee of "Alternative" Alexei Nikitin. Spouses Sergey and Olga had to work for free on a farm near Karabudakhkent for several months. They practically did not know anyone by their last names and only some by their first names, since there was no opportunity to communicate with other people. The married couple did not escape from slavery, but left the farm due to lack of work, according to the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Dagestan. "Lacking information that someone else, a specific person with a first and last name, wants to leave there, we, and the police, can just come to this farm, see how they will all deny that their They are forced to do something, and nod that they themselves gave their documents “for safekeeping.” And that's all. Modern slavery is exactly at the expense of this and keeps on. You can only help someone who wants to get out of such a situation and is not afraid to ask for help," explained the head of "Alternative," Oleg Melnikov. 2019 Two men managed to escape from Dagestan, where they were in labor slavery, according to the "Alternative" activists.One of those who escaped, instead of the promised work in greenhouses near Makhachkala, worked for two and a half months for free at a quarry in the village of Novye Vikri. Earlier, the man came to work in Moscow, where his friend invited him to go to Dagestan. Another man was going to work at a construction site for 20 thousand a month in Makhachkala, but for half a month grazed livestock for free in the Khasavyurt district. "The men fled from the 'slavery' ride to get to Makhachkala, but already there our employees to help them now, they're on their way to Moscow.", according to "Alternative." Labor slavery is a problem characteristic of all of Russia , and every year the number of appeals to Alternative is growing, Oleg Melnikov told the Caucasian Knot in May 2019. "In Kalmykia we saw about 20 such cases, in Dagestan, a little more in Chechnya, a little less, in Ingushetia. There were five to seven cases: in the Krasnodar Territory, about 40, in the Rostov region, somewhere 20-30," he specified. 2018 A man named Alexey fell into labor slavery in 2013 after he lost his documents and was looking for odd jobs in Moscow. Near the station, a recruiter offered him a job in Dagestan with a salary of 8,000 rubles and bonuses. Alexey, along with nine other people, was sent by bus to Dagestan, where they were met by the owner of a brick factory in Kaspiysk. Twice the man tried to leave the factory, but he was caught, beaten and returned. Only in the winter of 2014, Alexei managed to escape, but near Makhachkala he was stopped by security forces to check his documents, after which, "taking advantage of the victim's desperate situation," they offered him to work with one of their relatives. After that, according to the man, for several years he grazed livestock for free for the owners, until one of the residents of Dagestan secretly took him to an Orthodox church, where Alexei was given a temporary shelter, and later called the "Alternative", whose representative helped the man to leave for Moscow. 2017 According to the wife of 38-year-old Igor Klyushin from Ryazan, on February 16, her husband left for bread and did not return. He had neither his phone nor documents with him. Five months later, he called her and said that when he left for bread, he met a man who offered him a job, the woman said. After drinking with a new acquaintance, Igor Klyushin, according to his wife, woke up in Makhachkala and was able to escape only five months later. 2016 Nicholas, a resident of Volgograd, who was forcibly held in one of the koshars in Dagestan, was able to return home, together with his wife and newborn daughter, according to a representative of the Alternative movement. According to him, activists of the movement complained to the police about the attack of the owner of the kennel, who did not want to let Nikolai go home. Modern slavery in Dagestan The region for which modern slavery has become a reality is Dagestan. In May 2014, officers of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Dagestan began an investigation into the message of blogger Zakir Magomedov about the existence of a slave market at a bus stop in Makhachkala. Zakir Magomedov wrote in his Twitter that the Piramida bus station is a "black market where slaves are bought." According to the blogger, you can buy a man for only 15,000 rubles and a girl for 150,000. Most of the identified cases of forced labor in Dagestan are associated with factories producing building materials. At the same time, the republic demonstrates a high growth in unemployment. Slaves in Dagestan are a cheap labor force that are lured to the Caucasus mainly by fraudulent means. Video "Slavery of the XXI century (Dagestan)" The video blog of the "Caucasian Knot" shows a story about a joint raid by the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Dagestan and the "Alternative" youth movement, carried out in May 2013, as a result of which four workers were released. According to the workers, from the moment they arrived at the site, the shop owner took their documents from them and never paid their salaries, and when some expressed dissatisfaction with the work and conditions, he said that he paid 15,000 rubles for each of them, and they must work. Quotes from the film "Slavery of the XXI century (Dagestan)" Vladimir: " They say they bought me for 15 pieces. I was traveling with documents, and some were transported in the luggage compartment, like slaves in the hold." Alexei: "In Moscow, slaves are caught at the Kazansky and Yaroslavsky railway stations. They offer work, give them alcohol, feed them and put them in a carriage. And when you come to Dagestan, buyers come here. They say they paid 15,000 for me." Magomedshapi Magomedov (employer, shop manager): "I buy them everything they ask for food. Then I deduct everything from their salary. We had a verbal agreement with them like this. I don't have any permissions or licenses - that's how everyone works here." However, not everyone is inclined to qualify what is happening in Dagestan as slavery. For example, the Dagestani lawyer Rasul Kadiev, commenting in May 2013 on stories about forced labor in the republic, noted: "We must distinguish between illegal detention, abduction and forced labor. A man from Bashkiria came to us this week. He said that he worked in a brick factory. He was not paid, and he quit his job and left. In this case, it is difficult to say that it was just slavery. No one kept him, no one guarded him, he simply did not get paid." Meanwhile, according to the lawyer, "there is work that the Dagestanis do not go to." Labor in building materials factories is hard and low-paid. As for the facts of forced labor, this is a "labor dispute" when "people are forced to work, they are not paid." Stories of "Caucasian captives" Anton Kuznetsov In June 2009, soldier Anton Kuznetsov returned from Dagestan to the Lipetsk region, who had been considered missing for five years. According to him, he spent all this time in slavery , where the unit commanders sold him. A conscript from the Lipetsk region, Anton Kuznetsov, left for military service in 2003, and in the spring of 2005 disappeared from the unit. The documents indicated that Anton Kuznetsov had deserted in an unknown direction. According to Kuznetsov, the commanders of one of the Makhachkala military units, where he served, handed the soldier over to the owners of a private brick factory for "eternal use", and then "forgot" about him. Upon his return, Kuznetsov was taken into custody. As it turned out, he was no longer a conscript. According to the documents, immediately after arriving in Dagestan, he signed a contract. However, the soldier himself, according to him, did not sign any documents. Sergey Khlivnoy On September 26, 2014, in the Volgograd Region, police officers removed a 43-year-old man without documents from a Makhachkala-Moscow bus route. The detainee claimed that he had spent the last 18 years in slavery in Dagestan, where his passport was taken away. After giving explanations to law enforcement officers, the man was released and hitchhiked to Moscow, according to the Alternative volunteer organization. The bus passenger, who introduced himself as Sergei Khlivny, said that he was from Murmansk, but spent the last 18 years in forced labor in Dagestan. He said that he came to Makhachkala to work in 1996. As soon as he got off the bus, unknown persons took away all his documents and forced him to work at a brick factory in the village of Petropavlovskoye. For his labor, the man, according to him, received only food and old clothes, and he himself was kept locked up. A few months later, Khlivnoy attempted to escape, but he was caught and forced to graze cattle in the village of Talovka. From 2000 to 2004, a man grazed cattle in the village of Yurkovka. From 2004 to 2007 he was in the village of Kazayurt, A resident of Murmansk in Dagestan was discovered by the volunteer organization "Alternative". An employee of the organization, Alexei Nikitin, decided to take the man out of Dagestan by bus. According to the volunteer, his companion passed the posts in Dagestan and Kalmykia without problems, and already near Volgograd he was detained by law enforcement officers pending identification. In 1996-1997, Sergei's relatives filed a complaint about his disappearance with the police, however, apparently, the law enforcement agencies did not look for the missing person. Blogger Oksana Velva gives on her page the main chronology of S. Khlivny's being held captive, recorded from his words: Summer 1996 - autumn 1996 brick factory in Kaspiysk Oksana Velva also claims that Sergei Khlivnoy kept himself from his owners, "repeatedly tried to escape and made about 20 attempts to escape, but he was caught either by the owners or" future owners "and taken to farms or shepherds to graze cattle." Svetlana Gannushkina's opinion: "The information of Sergei Khlivny and representatives of "Alternative " requires a thorough check and police investigation." Human rights activist Svetlana Gannushkina was questioned by the fact that the person had been in slavery for such a long time and had not escaped. Gannushkina gave an example she knew when a non-local man who had lived for several years in Ingushetia with a local farmer returned to the North Caucasus after a short stay in his homeland. He asked to return to the farmer due to the fact that he could not adapt to Russian realities. Under the influence of the farmer's working environment, he gave up drinking and smoking and did not want to leave anywhere else. Also, according to Svetlana Gannushkina, residents of other Russian regions who could not find work and housing, who were released with the help of the "Alternative" activists from Dagestan, turned to her. "I suspect that they were better in Dagestan - they arrived clean, well-fed," Gannushkina said. Voluntary slavery Andrey Popov The story of Private Andrei Popov, who disappeared in October 2000, was actively discussed on the Internet and in the blogosphere. Returning home in August 2011, Popov said that he had been forcibly held for 11 years in brick factories in Dagestan . In 2011, conscript soldier Andrei Popov from the city of Ershov, Saratov region, stated that since 2000 he had been in slavery in Dagestan, where he worked illegally at a brick factory until he fled. On August 17, 2011, Andrei Popov, after escaping from Dagestan, came to the police and was immediately arrested. He was later charged with desertion. The Main Military Investigation Department disseminated information that the soldier admitted the fact of desertion and asked to consider his case in a special order. Popov's relatives, as well as he himself denied this, but before the start of the hearing, Popov said that he admitted his guilt. Human rights activists believe that pressure was exerted on him. During the trial at the Saratov Garrison Military Court, Andrei Popov stated that he had been beaten at brick factories in Dagestan. "Some scars on my body were received during the period when I was in Dagestan. As a result of beatings from the Dagestanis. Sometimes I refused to work. It was in a brick factory. There were several cases. They beat me with truncheons, kicked me. When you fall, you can and run into a brick," said Popov. When asked by Judge Igor Surovtsev about work at the last brick factory in Dagestan, the defendant said that control over the workers was exercised by so-called foremen from among the local residents. "The Dagestani brigade leaders made sure that they did not break away from work, that there was no downtime. Otherwise, they could be beaten," the defendant noted. According to him, he lived on the territory of the plant in a dormitory, where there were a little more than a dozen sleeping places, while there were about 200 employees. "The rest slept on the floor. There were guards, the hostel was closed at night," Popov added. He said that the brick factory was run by a man named "Doctor Magomed. "They didn’t give money to their hands. They promised to give it to everyone at the end of the season. They promised it, but few received it," he said. In September 2011, investigators, together with Andrei Popov, visited brick factories where, according to the serviceman, he was held in slavery . Magomed Radjabov, director of the Caspian brick factory LLC Stroyservice, accused Popov of disseminating false information. Video "Private Popov - a slave or a deserter?" The video blog of the "Caucasian Knot" presents a story about the results of an inspection by investigators of the military prosecutor's office of one of the brick factories in Dagestan, where, according to Andrei Popov, he was held in slavery for 11 years. The owner of the Kaspiysk brick factory denies this information, calling this information a lie or a slander. Video "Andrey Popov in Dagestan" Continuation of investigative actions in Dagestan. Andrei Popov, accused of desertion, accompanied by investigators from the military prosecutor's office, visits brick factories near Kaspiysk and the village of Mekegi, Levashinsky district, where, according to him, he was held in slavery. Fight against slavery in Dagestan The "Caucasian Knot" has repeatedly reported cases of the release of people who were illegally detained at enterprises in Dagestan. In particular, in June 2014, it was reported about the release of three people from labor slavery in Dagestan, including two citizens of the Republic of Belarus. According to statistics from the International Organization for Migration, in 2010, 103 cases of slavery were recorded in the country and with Russians outside Russia. In 2011 - 50, the same - for nine months of 2012. However, human rights activists are sure that there are hundreds and thousands of slaves in Russia. According to the UN, Russia has one of the world's largest slave trade markets. According to the leader of the public organization "Alternative" Oleg Melnikov, almost all of the abducted people got to Dagestan in the same way: people approached them at bus stops, offered them good jobs. Those who did not want to go got drunk, or had sleeping pills in their food. So they ended up in Dagestan. According to Melnikov, there are several participants in the criminal gang: "The person who finds people in Moscow and brings them to the bus gets at least a thousand rubles for each." Drivers, according to Melnikov, are also "in the share." "At the checkpoints, it is the drivers who negotiate with the inspectors," Melnikov said. In Makhachkala, these people are bought by those who need cheap labor. On average, abductees spend more than a year in Dagestan. Hired workers are kicked out if they can no longer physically work. According to the correspondent of "Komsomolskaya Pravda" Dmitry Steshin, volunteers involved in the liberation of slaves, trying not to inform the police about their raid in advance because "there were situations when the very same police warned criminals - and slaves hid." According to Zakir Ismailov, head of the Dagestan branch of the Alternative movement, "There were cases when people managed to escape, but they were immediately caught by patrol traffic police and taken to the department." And then returned to the owners of the factories. However, according to the prosecutor's office of the Republic of Dagestan , "the facts of coercion in any form to work were not established by the prosecutor's check." The check took place at brick factories in the cities of Makhachkala, Kizilyurt, Kizlyar, as well as in other regions of the republic. According to the prosecutor's office, explanations were taken from all employees of the factories about the circumstances of their arrival in the republic, their employment, living and working conditions, the official website of the department says. Kidnapping, slave trade and forced labor in Chechnya (1990s) New Russia faced the problem of slavery in the Caucasus in the early 1990s, when power in Chechnya passed into the hands of Dzhokhar Dudayev and his supporters. Later, when Chechnya became an enclave excluded from the Russian legal field, forced labor became a part of everyday reality in the republic. In total, in Chechnya in the 1990s, more than 46,000 people were enslaved or used for forced labor, from collecting wild-growing wild garlic to building roads to Georgia through Itum-Kale and Tazbichi. Often wage earners deception involved in Chechnya under the pretext of making money, but the payment for the work they have not received. Not only slave labor, but also kidnapping for ransom served as one of the sources of income for organized crime in Chechnya. Ramazan Labazanov was the first in Chechnya (at the beginning of 1994) to kidnap people for ransom. With the outbreak of hostilities in December 1994, the belligerents practiced the sale and exchange of prisoners and dead to each other. In the first year of the military campaign, the militants freed captured soldiers and officers mainly for propaganda purposes. After the Russian troops were withdrawn from Chechnya in the fall of 1996, the bandits began to take hostage people who collaborated with the federal authorities and the Doku Zavgayev regime. Since mid-1997, when the journalists of NTV and ORT were kidnapped and a huge ransom was paid for them, the abductions were put on stream. Initially, the law enforcement agencies of Chechnya tried to deal with this business, but then themselves involved in brokering of the slave trade, and even the kidnapping started. Slavery in the Caucasus: a history According to Johann Blaramberg, a 19th century geographer and military topographer who served in the Russian Imperial Army, either prisoners of war or those who were taken away during raids into enemy territory fell into slavery in those days. In peacetime, people could only be kidnapped secretly, otherwise the kidnapper was subjected to blood feud. The captives ended up in Anapa, Sukhum-Kala (Sukhum), Poti and Batum for sale to Turkish traders who took them to Istanbul, and from there to Egypt and the ports of the Levant (eastern Mediterranean coast). In the "Memorandum of the Chief of the Dagestan Region to the Commander-in-Chief of the Caucasian Army, Prince Baryatinsky," dated March 30, 1861, it is reported that in the Caucasus the slave class "was formed for the most part from Christian prisoners captured in predatory raids, and is in the most humiliating state that can be created. for a person." Slaves and female slaves were considered "the property of their owners, like any other domestic animal, with which the owner has the right to do as he wants." "They take care of their slaves because, having lost a slave, they will incur material damage," said the note. The Caucasus was home to the largest slave markets in the Middle East. In particular, such a fair was located in the village of Endirey (now a village in the Khasavyurt district of Dagestan). The historian Semyon Mikhailovich Bronevsky (1763-1830) called Andirey "the main fair for prisoner bargaining." The Andireans bought captives from the highlanders in exchange for gunpowder, bread, salt, and sometimes for money. From Endireya chained prisoners carried large convoys "through earth Chechen, Ingush and Circassian secretive roads by Russian guard to Anapa." In addition, the slave trade, practiced in the region for centuries, caused the emergence of intermediaries in the person of merchants, who turned the slave trade into a special craft. Pre-revolutionary historians wrote: "The Armenians were intensively engaged in this kind of trade, who did not abandon this craft even with the appearance of the Russians in the Caucasus." Taking advantage of their position, they helped the highlanders to steal people within our borders, receiving an appropriate reward from the highlanders for this, and then helped the Russian government in negotiations with the highlanders on the ransom of the same prisoners, also not without a fee, or they themselves ransomed them in order to resell them to the Russians. The slave trade in the North Caucasus continued to exist until the 60-ies of XIX century 18. Follow the hyperlinks to notes in the original article. All in Russian. Notes: Slavery of the XXI century (Dagestan) // Caucasian Knot-Youtube, 15.05.2013. ↑ Slave-owning regions of Russia // Free Press, 16.05.2013. ↑ Private Popov - a slave or a deserter? // Caucasian Knot-Youtube, 08.09.2011. ↑ Andrey Popov in Dagestan // Caucasian Knot-Youtube, 09/14/2011. ↑ The stories of Russian slaves: from the Dagestan plant to the Moscow electric trains // NEWSru . com , 03.01.2013. ↑ Slaves are brought to Dagestan from Moscow // "Echo of Moscow", 05/18/2013. ↑ Russian slaves are used in brick factories in Dagestan // Vesti FM , 05/30/2013. ↑ Slavery. The modern look of Dagestan // Political News Agency, 09.09.2014. ↑ Ways of Peace in the North Caucasus / Independent Expert Report, ed. V.A. Tishkov. M., 1999.S. 18; Losses of the armed forces of Russia and the USSR in armed conflicts in the North Caucasus (1990-2000) // Ryazantsev S.V. Demographic and migration portrait of the North Caucasus. Stavropol: Service School, 2003.S. 26-77. ↑ Slaves of the Argun Gorge. On the eve of the XXI century, Chechnya became a place of human trafficking // Nezavisimaya gazeta, 25.05.2000. ↑ Evloev M. Redemption and death // Results, 28.12.1999, p. 14; Losses of the armed forces of Russia and the USSR in armed conflicts in the North Caucasus (1990-2000) ... ↑ Evloev M. Ransom and death ... ↑ Blaramberg I. Topographic, statistical, ethnographic and military description of the Caucasus (Nalchik: El-Fa, 1999) // Eastern Literature. ↑ Blaramberg I. Topographic, statistical, ethnographic and military description of the Caucasus ... ↑ TSGARD F. 120 Op. 2 D. 71a; Inozemtseva E. On the issue of trade in "human goods" in the context of the Caucasian policy of Russia in the North-East Caucasus in the 17th - first half of the 19th centuries. // Historical Bulletin, vol. VIII. Nalchik: Publishing House of the Institute for Humanitarian Research of the Government of the KBR and KBSC RAS, 2009. ↑ Bronevsky S.M. The latest geographical and historical news about the Caucasus. Ch. 2. M., 1823; Inozemtseva E. On the issue of trade in "human goods" in the context of the Caucasian policy of Russia in the North-Eastern Caucasus in the 17th - first half of the 19th centuries ... ↑ Shamray V.S. Historical background to the issue of yasyrs in the North Caucasus and in the Kuban region and documents related to this issue. B. m. B. g .; E. Inozemtseva On the issue of trade in "human goods" in the context of the Caucasian policy of Russia in the North-Eastern Caucasus in the 17th - first half of the 19th centuries .... ↑ Ramazanov Kh.Kh. On the issue of slavery in Dagestan // Scientific notes of the IIYAL Dag. F. Academy of Sciences of the USSR. T. 9. Makhachkala, 1961; Inozemtseva E. On the issue of trade in "human goods" in the context of the Caucasian policy of Russia in the North-Eastern Caucasus in the 17th - first half of the 19th centuries ... ↑ |
Saturday, September 11, 2021
Slavery in the North Caucasus Cases in Dagestan in 2016-2021
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment