The key facts

  • The woman was taken to Turkey under the pretext of working as a nanny and sold; she was held for eight years and forced into prostitution
  • When she resisted, boiling water was poured on her child; the two children born there had no documents
  • She was found during a police operation in Turkey and returned through the International Organization for Migration; rehabilitation took six months

Case recounted by the center

Dilfuza Shodieva, deputy director of the Center for Combating Human Trafficking, told Kun.uz about the case of one of the victims of human trafficking. According to her, at the beginning of this year a citizen of Uzbekistan was returned from Turkey. A relative of hers took her to Turkey with a promise of arranging work as a nanny, after which the woman was sold. For eight years she was forced into prostitution and held in a basement. When she resisted, pressure was exerted on her through her child — boiling water was poured on the child. According to the center's representative, the woman returned with a very low weight — 32 kilograms, she was young and had given birth to two children there, who had no documents.

Return and rehabilitation

The woman was discovered during a police operation in Turkey and returned to Uzbekistan through the International Organization for Migration. After her return, specialists worked with her and with the children separately: for six months she underwent examinations by a psychologist, a psychotherapist and a psychiatrist. Meetings with her family were hard: the woman's parents, who had considered her missing, died, and she blames herself for this. Work was also carried out with the children, as they showed some developmental delays. Now the older child has been placed in a kindergarten, the older child's documents have been processed, and the restoration of the second child's documents is ongoing.

Overall picture of appeals

According to the center's representative, Uzbeks returning from Kazakhstan and Russia most often seek help with complaints of labor exploitation. In cases of sexual exploitation, women who suffered in Turkey, India and the United Arab Emirates turn to the center.