Examining the Challenges to the Anti-Human-Trafficking Movement in Russia

This paper examines the success of the anti-human trafficking movement in curbing the enslavement and trade of Russians to other parts of the country and world. This paper outlines how and why human trafficking is a major human rights and security issue for Russia and the “destination” countries to which traffickers send their victims. The anti-trafficking movement in Russia, which gained strength in the late 1990s through grassroots organization and international backing, successfully lobbied the Russian government to pass the country’s first anti-trafficking legislation in 2003. This paper analyzes the many challenges this law has faced, while also focusing particularly on whether Russian legislation has had any effect on sex trafficking to the United States through a regression analysis of immigration data from the U.S. Census. Finding that the law has had very little effect on decreasing trafficking from Russia to the United States, this paper offers some concluding policy recommendations for Russia and the United States