Armenia

Background

With its central location to Eastern Europe, Asia and the Middle East, Armenia is a source and, to a lesser extent, destination country for men, women, and children subjected to sex and labor trafficking. Women and children are increasingly subjected to sex and labor trafficking and forced begging within Armenia. Armenian victims sometimes end up trafficked to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Turkey, whereas Chinese women sometimes are trafficked into Armenia. Children often work, making them vulnerable to trafficking. As Figure 2 shows, the country has experienced every rating on the tier scale, consistently graduating from bottom to top with the policy index also indicating accompanying success. The gains have been particularly pronounced during the regime of President Serzh Sargsyan.

Direct diplomacy

Scorecard diplomacy on trafficking was a high priority for the US embassy, and meetings were frequent and at a high level and the embassy worked to build strong interlocutors. Meetings included the deputy prime minister and minister of territorial administration, the deputy foreign minister, members of parliament, the deputy defense minister, a presidential national security adviser and on several occasions the cables not that the issue rose to the level of the president. The documentation through the cables available begins in 2002 and is most intensive in the years 2002-2006. The cables that discuss TIP constitute 5 percent of the overall available cables, suggesting that TIP was a highly discussed topic in general. In the early years, the US pushed domestic officials to take ownership of the trafficking issue. The TIP report and local embassy pressured the government to address official complicity in trafficking and to increase prosecutions. Initially some officials were in denial. Lack of official recognition of the problem within many sectors of the government, however, contributed to the overall lack of progress. In 2005 the Minister of Justice declared that “trafficking does not exist as a phenomenon in Armenia.”³ Scorecard diplomacy also focused on reorganizing the domestic administration and oversight of TIP policy, increasing inter-agency anti-TIP cooperation, and ensuring that the TIP commission had clout and was staffed well. The embassy also offered input into the content of anti-trafficking law and pushed for stricter penalties and full criminalization. Scorecard diplomacy also included legislative assistance offered through the OSCE and a resident legal advisor, as well as grants to support the strengthening of law enforcement and victim referral.

Indirect pressure

Multiple international organizations and actors were at work in Armenia. The US cooperated extensively with and funded the IOM and the OSCE efforts. They praised the work of the OSCE, which with US support helped organize an exhibition in Yerevan to raise awareness about TIP.⁴ The US also funded a survey on TIP that the IOM initiated and carried out, an IOM program for a hotline to assist victims, another program to provide safe havens, and yet another for writing a manual for the diplomatic core offering guidelines for interviewing and repatriating TIP victims.⁵ As noted, the US also funded the OSCE legislative assistance efforts to advise on the substance of legislative reforms. It has also interacted frequently with the NGO community, which has been aggressive in fighting TIP and skeptical of the government efforts, using NGOs as a source of information on TIP and funding research.⁶ The Armenian government, knowing this, sought to sometimes pressure and at other times work with the NGOs, who had to walk a fine line between influencing and being pressured. As the government became more accepting of the TIP problem, collaboration with NGOs became more constructive.⁷

The media also enhanced scorecard diplomacy in Armenia by covering the report and being specific about its criticisms,⁸ although at times the government has also used the media to criticize the report’s integrity.

Concerns

The government was candid that it was motivated to improve its Tier rating. For example, after the 2004 report came out, the head of the Armenian government’s Migration and Refugees Department told local media that Armenia’s Tier 3 rating in the first 2002 report shocked the government into action: “This assessment of Armenia was like a cold shower, as their approach was very strict and unexpected. In any case, we were not disappointed ending up in such a situation, but were given an incentive and concentrated all our efforts on making the fight against trafficking more organized.” He displayed reputation- as-image concern as he continued, “It is clear to the world that in Armenia, not only do we understand the importance of fighting trafficking, we also take certain effective steps,” noting specifically Armenia’s desire for “integration into European structures.” ⁹ Armenian officials also echoed this sentiment directly to the US officials, whom they told that Armenia was “anxious to portray itself as an ally to UN and other International arenas in this fight”¹⁰ and that they hoped for US support in Armenia’s efforts to join the UN Commission on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice.

It was clear that Armenia saw their TIP report ranking as an issue where status vis-à-vis other countries was relevant. In 2007 the Armenian government drew up a detailed report to compare Armenia’s report with that of Azerbaijan, Turkey, and Georgia, “highlighting differences in the three countries’ performance which seemed decisive in Armenia’s neighbors being graded higher than Armenia.”¹¹

Officials’ concern with image was also evident in officials’ repeated practice of agreeing privately with the US while publically criticizing the report.¹² In 2005 the US downgraded Armenia to the watch list, criticizing, among other things, trafficking penalties as too mild. The US allegations of official complicity in trafficking motivated the government to clear its reputation. Although the prosecutor denied any evidence of such official complicity,¹³ prosecutions in general increased in the fall of 2005.¹⁴ Armenian officials and NGOS met specifically to discuss trafficking in advance of the embassy’s submission of the 2006 TIP Report and urged all agencies to submit information to the embassy.¹⁵ Tellingly, after the 2006 report, the government dismissed the accuracy of the report in public, but President Kocharian called a high- level meeting to discuss the issue, and officials privately remained very accepting and appreciative of the legal advice on the legislation.¹⁶

Illustrating the “status maintenance” mechanism discussed in chapter 1, domestic attention has continued on keeping the Tier 1 rating earned in 2013. In 2015 the media reported widely on the report, noting, “The Republic of Armenia has maintained its Tier I status for a third year in a row in the US State Department’s 2015 Trafficking in Persons assessment.” They once again stressed the reputation-as-image concern, continuing, “Armenia is among just 31 countries out of 188 to have achieved Tier I status.”¹⁷

Finally, the case also suggests the officials may take personal pride in an issue as discussed in Chapter 2 of the book. One cable updating Washington on the TIP situation notes that “The GOAM finally took our advice on this in 2008, appointing the Deputy Prime Minister/Minster of Territorial Administration Armen Gevorgian as chair, and this new structure has indeed energized government efforts. Gevorgian seems to have taken on the TIP issue as something that will fro personally, and has engaged himself energetically in the policy issues.”¹⁸

The US also provided great assistance to Armenia, which may have influenced government responses. As a former US ambassador explained, “It was an embassy mostly about assistance. So the threat to assistance was taken very seriously by us and by the Armenians.”¹⁹ Local Armenian media speculated that the threat of sanctions could have contributed to the creation of the commission.²⁰ That said, no public documented discussions of sanctions between US and Armenian officials exist.

Outcomes

Conditioning factors

Major obstacles to TIP progress in Armenia included the scope of the problem, extensive official complicity, and poor domestic capacity. In several cases the government was slow to prosecute suspected officials. The US also had to push hard to get the government to allocate resources to the problem. An internal political crisis of 2008 slowed progress further.⁴⁴ The embassy enjoyed strong relationships with many dedicated officials and cultivated “reliable anti-TIP interlocutors,”⁴⁵ but complained that these interlocutors lacked sufficient authority.⁴⁶ These factors all worked against US scorecard diplomacy.

However, several factors also facilitated engagement. The embassy was heavily engaged and prioritized the issue at a high-level, leading to the development of consistent relationships. The authority of reliable interlocutors rose with the ascension to power of Deputy Prime Minister Gevorgian, who also became Chairman of the newly established Ministerial Council to Combat Trafficking and with whom the embassy had good relations.⁴⁷ The ascension of Gevorgian facilitated greater attention to the issue and subsequent progress. In addition, the US had some leverage through its sizeable assistance program, including assistance targeted at TIP problems. US efforts to use scorecard diplomacy were also bolstered by Armenia’s concern for its international and domestic reputation, demonstrated by its sometimes vigorous attacks on the US report in the media while privately cooperating. Finally, the case was helped by cooperation with IGOs, especially the OSCE and the IOM, and local NGOs.