Men, women and children from Russia and from other countries—such as Belarus, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine and Moldova—are subjected to conditions of debt bondage and forced labor, including in the construction industry, in textile shops, and in the agricultural and fishing sectors.
The number of child trafficking victims in these cities is decreasing; experts credit this to aggressive police investigations and Russian cooperation with foreign law enforcement.
Although there have been instances in which government officials were investigated, prosecuted, and convicted for trafficking in recent years, allegations of widespread complicity persist.
[12] More commonly, people guilty of human trafficking are charged under Article 240 and 241, which involve affiliation with prostitution and brothels, as these crimes are easier to prove in court.
[2] In 2009, police conducted 102 trafficking investigations under Article 127, and prosecuted 99 individuals, 76 of whom were convicted and prescribed sentences ranging from six months' to 13 years' imprisonment.
Russia has since withdrawn giving federal statistics involving human trafficking to the US State Department, however various NGO's and other organizations are still cooperating with foreign agencies.
[7] Corruption has been identified as both an "underlying root cause and a facilitating tool" for human trafficking, ensuring that it "remains a low-risk, high profit crime".
In February 2010, several media sources reported on one allegation that a high-level official in the Ministry of Internal Affairs was involved in a forced labor trafficking ring spanning from 2006 through 2008.
In January 2010, a senior district police commissioner in Astrakhan was convicted and sentenced to eight years' imprisonment for taking passports and travel documents from migrants and forcing them to work as agricultural laborers.
Very big Russian criminal syndicates like Solntsevskaya Bratva don't involve themselves in human trafficking as dealers, but as buyers of victims, to put to work in their casinos, restaurants and brothels.
The FBI claims that Russian mafia syndicates function on the whole territory of US, with a 2006 report revealing 8,000 women forced into prostitution from Slavic republics of former USSR, and 3,000 criminals involved in sexual exploitation.
In November 2009, the government failed to allocate funding to prevent the closure of the IOM-run shelter and rehabilitation center in Moscow.
The shelter and rehabilitation center opened in March 2006 with foreign funding and assisted 423 victims of both sex and labor trafficking, including men and women, through November 2009; its closing created a significant void in the availability of medical, rehabilitative, and reintegration services for trafficking victims.
However, the quality of these shelters varied and they were often ill-equipped to provide for the specific legal, medical, and psychological needs of trafficking victims.
In March 2010, a news report alleged that a victim of forced labor from North Korea, who had previously fled from a logging camp, was approached by several men in plain clothing, and told to get into a vehicle before he was able to meet with officials from the international community to seek assistance; the article noted the possibility that the victim could be deported to North Korea, where he faced possible torture, imprisonment, and execution for escaping from the logging camp.
The government did not support efforts to develop a labor trafficking awareness campaign in advance of the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.