Kazakhstan is actively fighting human trafficking. According to Kanat Nurmagambetov, Acting Head of the Department for Combating Organized Crime of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, about 100 criminal cases of this category are initiated annually by law enforcement agencies.
For example, in December last year, 17 members of a transnational criminal group involved in human trafficking, including minors, were convicted.
“They were sold to the Kingdom of Bahrain for sexual exploitation,” Nurmagambetov said at a briefing on the topic of preventing and combating human trafficking. – According to the UN, the most widespread form of human trafficking in the world is sexual exploitation, which accounts for 54% of cases related to human trafficking. Kazakhstan, unfortunately, is no exception.”
According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, 35 victims of sexual exploitation were identified in Kazakhstan in 2019, 67 in 2020, and 16 in 2021.
At the same time, Nurmagambetov stressed that Kazakhstan does not have a separate law on combating human trafficking. However, the bill should be developed by April 2023.
