In December 2003, Russia passed laws criminalizing human trafficking. This project traces the process by which law enforcement agents have adapted to and implemented these new laws by exploring what incentivizes Russian law enforcement agents have to choose human trafficking laws over other Criminal Code statutes that pre-existed the human trafficking laws. With regard to trafficking for sexual exploitation, there are two major findings. First, despite perceptions that Russian law enforcement has done little to fight trafficking, they are in fact investigating cases and imprisoning traffickers, but they are prosecuting human traffickers, not human trafficking. Second, implementation practice has changed over time, and varies by region and type of case (domestic vs. international). This research can help policymakers better understand how the laws have been implemented in this specific context, identify potential problems for legal implementation in other country contexts and suggest more effective ways for encouraging Russia to continue fighting human trafficking a primary US foreign policy goal for the past decade.
Download the pdf at the top of this page for the full brief.
Lauren McCarthy, of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was a 2011 Regional Policy Symposium [9] participant.
