Migrant slaves from Uzbekistan found in Khust district

Employees of anti-trafficking department of Transcarpathian police received information that at a private greenhouse in a village of Khust district an owner illegally keeps people whom he does not pay for work done.

This information came from the Ukrainian branch of the International Organization for Migration (IOM). It was about the citizens of Uzbekistan, who the Embassy of the State in Ukraine petitioned for. Immigration control police and anti-trafficking department stuff had got engaged into the verification of the information. Having arrived in the appointed village in Khust district, the police indeed found in the greenhouse nine workers from Uzbekistan, aged 19-43, including one woman. The owner of the greenhouse is a native of Azerbaijan, a Russian citizen A., who intends to temporary reside in Ukraine.

According to the workers, they have been working in the greenhouse since last September and all this time the owner hasn’t been paying them for their work. But the owner denies this. According to the man, in his greenhouses (where cucumbers are grown) more than hundreds of local villagers are employed, but since it was not enough he turned to his friend B., a citizen of Uzbekistan, who brought his countrymen, 9 employees (the woman was to work as a cook), to Transcarpathia at his request. The owner of the greenhouse says he paid the Uzbeks, but then the countryman disappeared with the money. It was up to several thousand dollars. By the way, the workers themselves have admitted that recently (after the disappearance of the fellow countryman) the owner of the greenhouse have started to pay them for their work.

Transcarpathian law enforcement officers are now trying to find out the details of this complicated case. The greenhouse owner has been taken to Khust City Police Department for questioning and the fraudster is being searched. What concerns the workers, the matter of their transfer to Mukachevo border detachment is now being under consideration – says CCA Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine in Transcarpathian region.