INDEPENDENT NEWS

Cablegate: Turkey: 8th Annual Tip Report: Investigation And

Published: Tue 4 Mar 2008 03:19 PM
VZCZCXYZ4113
PP RUEHWEB
DE RUEHAK #0425/01 0641519
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 041519Z MAR 08
FM AMEMBASSY ANKARA
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 5462
INFO RUEHZL/EUROPEAN POLITICAL COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEAHLC/HOMELAND SECURITY CENTER WASHDC PRIORITY
RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHDC PRIORITY
RUEHC/DEPT OF LABOR WASHDC PRIORITY
RUEAWJA/DEPT OF JUSTICE WASHDC PRIORITY
UNCLAS ANKARA 000425
SIPDIS
SENSITIVE
SIPDIS
DEPT FOR: G/TIP, G, INL, DRL, PRM, EUR/SE, EUR/PGI
DEPT FOR USAID
E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: KCRM PHUM KWMN SMIG KFRD ASEC PREF ELAB TU
SUBJECT: TURKEY: 8TH ANNUAL TIP REPORT: INVESTIGATION AND
PROSECUTION
REF: SECSTATE 2731
1. (U) Sensitive but unclassified. Please protect
accordingly.
2. (U) Post's responses are keyed to reftel questions. This
is part 2 of 3 (septels).
INVESTIGATION AND PROSECUTION OF TRAFFICKERS
--------------------------------------------
A. (U) Chapter 1, Article 80 of the Turkish Penal Code (TPC)
specifically defines human trafficking and prescribes
penalties for traffickers and their accomplices. The law
covers both internal and transnational forms of trafficking.
Penalties range from eight to twelve years of imprisonment
(up from five to ten years in earlier versions of the law),
and, at judicial discretion, an additional penalty of up to
ten thousand days. Trafficking crimes can also be (and have
been) prosecuted under statutes of the Law on Combating
Benefit-Oriented Criminal Organizations, Turkish Citizenship
Law, Labor Law, Law on Motivating for Prostitution, Law on
Working Permits for Foreigners, and the Law on the Prevention
of Money Laundering.
Under the amended Article 4 of the Terrorism Prevention Act,
a crime, such as TIP, committed by a terrorist organization
can be prosecuted as a terrorist crime. The terrorist PKK,
for example, is known to fund its terrorist operations though
human trafficking and other transnational crimes.
The Highway Transport Law (July 19, 2003) and the Highway
Transport Regulation (February 25, 2004) include provisions
that limit the ability of human traffickers to use transport
vehicles to traffic persons.
In December 2006, the Turkish parliament passed and the
Turkish President signed into law amendments to two key
articles in the TPC. Lawmakers added forced prostitution to
Article 80, the primary anti-trafficking article, and removed
forced prostitution from the Law on Motivating to
Prostitution (Article 227), the prostitution and pimping
article.
Chapter 1, Article 80: Human Trafficking (as amended
December 19, 2006):
(1) A person who procures or kidnaps persons or who takes or
transports persons from one place to another or who harbors
persons with a view to force them to work or to provide a
service, made them be involved in prostitution or to subject
them to slavery or similar practices or to donate their
organs by exerting threats, pressure, force or violence, by
abusing his authority, by deceit or by obtaining their
consent through taking advantage of the opportunities they
have to control them or of their helplessness shall be
sentenced to imprisonment for a term of eight to twelve years
and a judicial fine imposed equivalent of up to ten thousand
days.
(2) In the event of actions which are undertaken for the
purposes referred to in the first paragraph and which
constitute an offense, the consent of the injured party shall
be deemed void.
(3) Where juveniles under eighteen years of age are procured,
kidnapped, taken or transported from one place to
another or harbored for the purposes referred to in the first
paragraph, the perpetrator shall be sentenced to the
penalties referred to in the first paragraph, notwithstanding
that none of the acts instrumental to the offense has been
resorted to.
(4) Security measures shall be taken for legal entities on
account of the above-mentioned crimes.
On June 1, 2005, Article 80 replaced the following
anti-trafficking statutes in effect since August 3, 2002
(some court cases initiated before the current reporting
period have continued under this article during the reporting
period):
Article 201(b):
(1) Those who provide, kidnap, take or transfer from one
place to another and house other individuals with the
intention of making them work or serve by force, subject them
to slavery or similar treatment, threaten, pressure, use
force or coercion to persuade them to give up their bodily
organs, use undue influence, secure their consent by
deception or by using the desperation of such individuals
shall be sentenced to five to ten years of heavy imprisonment
and a heavy fine of not less than one thousand lira ($833).
(2) If the actions that constitute a crime attempted with the
intentions laid out in the first paragraph exist, the
victim is assumed not to have given his/her consent.
(3) If children below the age of eighteen are provided,
kidnapped, taken or transferred from one place to another or
housed with the intentions specified in paragraph one, even
when no intermediary actions in relation to the crime are
committed, the penalties foreseen in paragraph one shall
still be applied to the perpetrator.
(4) If the crimes listed in the paragraphs above are
committed in an organized manner, the penalties foreseen for
the perpetrators shall be doubled.
Turkey has adopted the following international conventions:
- ILO Convention 182 (ratified 2001);
- ILO Convention 29 and 105 on Forced or Compulsory Labor
(ILO Convention 29 went into effect on January 27, 1998 and
ILO Convention 105 on December 21, 1960);
- Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the
Child on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution, and Child
Pornography (ratified May 9, 2002);
- The Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish
Trafficking-in-Persons, especially Women and Children,
Supplementing the UN Convention Against Transnational
Organized Crime (ratified March 18, 2003).
B. (U) The amended TPC Article 80 provides penalties for
traffickers of eight to twelve years imprisonment and, at
judicial discretion, a judicial fine equivalent to ten
thousand days imprisonment. The penalties apply to both
traffickers of human beings for sexual exploitation and
traffickers of human beings for labor exploitation.
C. (U) Labor exploitation can be prosecuted under Article
80, which carries penalties of eight to twelve years
imprisonment plus the possibility of an additional judicial
fine equivalent to ten thousand days imprisonment (see
above). No evidence has been reported to us that Turkey is a
forced labor source country. Turkey is not a significant
forced labor destination country.
The Ministry of Labor and Social Security is authorized to
prevent uncontrolled employment of foreign labor and to grant
work permits under the Law on Work Permits for Foreigners
(number 4817) (effective September 6, 2003).
Under law 4817, foreigners must be formally permitted to work
in Turkey and registered with social security or they and
their employers can be subject to a fine. 4817 stipulates
that employment contracts must be written in Turkish and the
language of the foreign employee. The GOT is authorized to
reject permits for employment that threatens "general health
and/or morals." The Ministry of Labor (MOL) undertook active
investigations of illegally employed foreigners during the
reporting period, reporting that it investigated over 103,000
workplaces and 584,000 employees between October 2006 and
2007. 243 illegal foreigners were identified; they were all
screened by TNP for evidence of trafficking.
D. (U) Chapter 1, Section 6 of the TPC provides varying
degrees of penalties for sexual assault, rape, and sexual
abuse of adults and minors, as noted below. Penalties may
range from two years to life imprisonment, depending upon the
circumstances. Penalties for rape can be less or more than
penalties for trafficking, depending on the situation.
Section 6: Offenses Against Sexual Integrity
Article 102: Sexual Assault
(1) The perpetrator who violates the physical integrity of
another person by means of sexual conduct shall be imprisoned
for a term of two to seven years upon the complaint of the
victim.
(2) Where the act is committed by means of inserting an organ
or similar object into the body, the perpetrator shall be
imprisoned for a term of seven to twelve years. If the act
is committed against the spouse, legal investigation and
prosecution shall be initiated if the victim lodges a
complaint.
(3) If the offense is committed,
a) Against a person who is physically or mentally incapable
of defending him/herself,
b) By breaching of duties and/or abusing the functions
pertaining to the official status,
c) Against a person of first, second, or third degree blood
relation or a relative by marriage,
d) By using weapons and with the cooperation of more than one
person, penalties imposed in accordance with articles above
shall be increased by half.
(4) In case excessive violence is exerted on the victim
during the commitment of the offense, the perpetrator shall
also be punished for deliberate wounding.
(5) In case the offense causes damage to the physical or
mental health of the victim, the perpetrator shall be
imprisoned for a term of not less than ten years.
(6) If, as a result of the crime, the victim enters into a
vegetative state or dies, the sentence will be strict life
imprisonment.
Article 103: Sexual Abuse of Children
(1) The perpetrator of child abuse shall be imprisoned for a
term of three to eight years. Sexual abuse means:
a) any act of a sexual nature against a minor who has not
reached fifteen years of age, or, if over fifteen years of
age, lacks the competence to perceive the legal meaning and
consequences of such acts.
b) sexual acts against other minors depending on use of
force, threat, deception, or by any other reason affecting
the will of the child.
(2) Where the sexual assault occurs as a result of insertion
of an organ or similar object into the body, a
penalty imprisonment from eight to fifteen years shall be
imposed.
(3) Where the sexual assault is committed by a first, second
or third degree blood relative, step-father, the
person who has adopted the person concerned, guardian, tutor,
teacher, caretaker, or other person in charge of providing
health services or who bears the obligation for protection or
supervision, or through abuse of the service relation, the
penalty to be imposed, in accordance with the above
paragraphs, shall be increased by half.
(4) Where the sexual assault is committed against a minor
indicated in paragraph 1(a) as a result of force or threat,
the penalty to be imposed, in accordance with the above
paragraphs, shall be increased by half.
(5) Where the force and compulsion used with the aim of
sexual assault lead to aggravated consequences of the offense
of deliberate wounding, provisions of the offense of
deliberate wounding shall apply additionally.
(6) In case the offense results in damage to the physical or
mental health of the victim, the perpetrator shall be
imprisoned to strict life imprisonment.
(7) Where the offense leads the victim into a vegetative
state or to death, the perpetrator shall be sentenced to
strict life imprisonment.
E. (U) Prostitution in Turkey is legal and regulated. Sex
workers must have Turkish citizenship; foreign citizens
cannot legally practice prostitution. Trafficking, smuggling
with the intent to traffic, pimping, enforcing, or in any
other way supporting the activities of a trafficking
operation is illegal. The law also prohibits and provides
punishment for individuals who own, operate or work to
support the operation of brothels associated with human
trafficking. The minimum age for prostitution in Turkey is
18.
F. (SBU) According to figures provided by the Ministry of
Interior, security forces apprehended 308 suspected human
traffickers in 2007. 175 were placed under arrest after
initial judicial processing, 83 were freed to be tried on
release, 47 suspects are being sought on arrest warrants, and
three were released without charges.
According to charts provided by the MOJ's Judicial Records
Statistics Bureau via the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA),
Turkish prosecutors launched 163 Article 80 investigations in
2007 (119 in the last three quarters of 2007). 23 such
investigations were carried over from 2006.
According to charts provided by the MOJ's Judicial Records
Statistics Bureau via MFA, Turkish courts opened 88 Article
80 cases (files), involving 422 suspects, and continued work
on 75 cases, involving 397 suspects, in 2007. (76 cases,
involving 354 suspects, were opened in the last three
quarters of 2007.) In 2007, the courts resolved 72 cases
involving 355 suspected traffickers. According to the charts
received so far, the majority of suspects were acquitted or
the cases referred to other courts or combined with other
proceedings. Four traffickers were reported convicted, and
received imprisonment plus a judicial fine. ****MFA has
notified post by diplomatic note that MOJ statistics are
incomplete. We will follow-up with the final statistics as
soon as they become available.***
First quarter 2008 judicial statistics were not yet available.
Post was unable to obtain specific data on time served by the
reporting deadline. The GOT does not have a central database
or tracking system for incarcerated individuals and must seek
information from each province by fax. We will provide the
information if and when it becomes available.
No evidence was reported to us that Turkey is a labor source
country. Labor exploitation can be prosecuted under Article
80, which carried penalties of eight to twelve years
imprisonment and heavy fines (see part C).
G. (U) The GOT has broadly, and the Turkish National Police
(TNP) specifically, institutionalized TIP-related training
and conducts regular train-the-trainer sessions within its
respective agencies. TNP also participates in training with
various countries at the Turkish Academy to Fight Against
Drugs and Organized Crime (TADOC) and through the Southeast
Europe Cooperation Initiative (SECI). TNP reported that
about 659 law enforcement officials received TIP training in
2007 -- hundreds more when regional and EC training is
included. TIP training in Turkey includes: victim
identification, national and international regulations,
international coordination, victim sensitivity, NGO
cooperation, investigative techniques, data collection and
database management. TNP estimates that since 2004, over
5,000 police have received TIP-specific training. Judges and
prosecutors also continued to receive TIP training.
During the reporting period, Turkish law enforcement,
judicial authorities, other government agencies, media
representatives, IOM, NGOs, municipalities and other local
government officials participated in a series of regional TIP
workshops and seminars, including the northeast Black Sea
region (May 24-25, 2007), and in Antalya (July 9-10, 2007).
During the reporting period the TNP engaged in continued
efforts to educate the media on TIP, namely the difference
between prostitution and exploitation, as well as the
difference between TIP and human smuggling. While still
prone to inaccuracy, the media has greatly improved its TIP
reporting during the rating period; most major media outlets
now refer to victims as "victims," and no longer as
"Natashas." The media is also an important source of tips to
the TIP helpline (see part 1, septel).
During the reporting period the Jandarma continued training
its personnel via its mobile training unit using a course
titled, "The Importance of the Fight Against Trafficking and
Necessary Measures." It distributed 3,280 copies of its
"Guide to Fight Human Trafficking Crimes" to Jandarma
officers in 2007. The guide discusses national and
international legal documents, TIP awareness during an
investigation, how evidence should be collected for the
investigation, protection of witnesses, and victim
sensitivity.
In July 2007, the TNP, in conjunction with other taskforce
agencies, and in partnership with the Berlin Police and the
Ludwig Boltzmann Institute of Human Rights, Austria,
concluded a European Union (EU) "twinning project" on
"Strengthening the Institutional Capacity in the Fight
Against Human Trafficking." The 1.2 million Euro project's
aim was to raise Turkish standards in the fight against TIP
by strengthening institutions, raising public awareness,
improving victim assistance, strengthening the legal
framework, and training. The comprehensive strategy which
emerged from the "twinning project" contributed to the
development of a new national action plan, currently awaiting
the Prime Minister's signature and translation into English
(see part 1, septel). According to TNP Deputy Director and
Project Leader Mehmet Tokgoz, the project entailed 90
activities, including 238 Turkish, German, Austrian, and EC
experts, and reached 1,100 different Turkish personnel.
One TNP and one MOJ official, along with one employee from
each of the two NGOs operating Turkey's dedicated
TIP-shelters, participated in a Department-sponsored TIP IVLP
program with Georgian counterparts during the reporting
period.
H. (SBU) The GOT has concluded MOUs or Protocols on TIP with
the following countries: Belarus (2004), Georgia (2005),
Ukraine (2005), Azerbaijan (2005), Moldova (2006), and
Kyrgyzstan (2006). The TNP had planned to send a delegation
to Georgia in late 2007 to discuss improving anti-TIP
cooperation, but was delayed due to political events there.
The delegation is now expected to visit Georgia in March
2008. The TNP hosted a delegation of Ukrainian experts and
law enforcement during the reporting period. Turkish law
enforcement and judicial authorities cooperate actively with
other governments in the investigation and prosecution of
trafficking cases. From sustained joint investigations to
simple information exchanges, such international cooperation
is extensive and normal. As reported part 1, septel, the GOT
also organized and participated actively in numerous regional
conferences and workshops on TIP.
The TNP reported particularly strong bilateral cooperation
with Moldova, Ukraine and Belarus, but has complained that
source countries do not always conduct thorough
investigations of alleged traffickers in response to Turkish
law enforcement requests. They also report that source
country law enforcement officials sometimes interrupt a
Turkish investigation when asked for investigative
assistance, and do not always share information. The GOT
further notes that identified trafficking victims returning
to their countries sometimes return to Turkey soon after they
are returned home, with an intent to engage prostitution, and
are again victimized. IOM reported that Georgian victims, in
particular, often waive the IOM/shelter referral mechanism
and choose to return across the border directly to Georgia.
Such victims are more likely to be re-victimized. The TNP
has also complained that illegal migrants (as opposed to
identified victims) returned by Turkey to source countries,
often claim trafficking victimization when they return home,
so as to avoid penalties for violating their own countries'
migration laws.
I. (U) The GOT is prohibited by law from extraditing its own
nationals charged with a crime abroad, including trafficking.
The universal jurisdiction norm is recognized by the Turkish
Criminal Code on the basis of certain offenses and crimes.
Included in this norm are migrant smuggling and trafficking
in human beings. A foreigner or Turkish
trafficker is indictable and punishable in Turkey. The
Turkish Minister of Justice may request a trial process be
launched in Turkey against an accused person who has already
been through the legal system in conjunction with these
offenses in another country.
J. (SBU) The GOT does not tolerate official involvement in
trafficking and we have no evidence to suggest such tolerance
or involvement at senior levels. There were scattered media
reports about low-level police and Jandarma officials
arrested for crimes related to trafficking during the
reporting period.
K. (SBU) MFA reported that between 2004-2007, 32 public
officials were subject to judicial action for assisting
traffickers, mediating prostitution and/or accepting bribes.
L. (SBU) The GOT did not report that any Turkish
peacekeepers deployed abroad were engaged in or facilitated
severe forms of trafficking or exploited victims of such
trafficking.
M. (SBU) We do not have evidence suggesting Turkey is a
source or destination country for organized child sex
tourism, or that Turkish citizens travel to other countries
to engage in child sex tourism. Turkish law severely
punishes sexual abuse and/or trafficking of minors (see paras
A and D).
Visit Ankara's Classified Web Site at
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WILSON
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