Dagestani authorities get interested in case of labour slavery

The head of the Investigating Committee of the Russian Federation (ICRF) has ordered to conduct a check after a video appeared in social networks about the release of a Belarusian resident from labour slavery near the city of Kaspiysk. According to the Belarusian, who is a resident of Minsk, he had agreed to a job offer that was made to him at a railway station in Moscow, but at the destination, they took away his documents and demanded that he work off the sum for which he had been "bought out."

"The man was illegally kept at a brick factory in Kaspiysk, where he was forced to work and his passport was taken away. Then, a female volunteer helped him. When she took him out of the factory, unknown people began chasing her car and blocking the road. A number of other workers are in the same situation," ICRF's post has stated.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that the "Alternativa" anti-slavery movement had repeatedly reported cases of people being freed from the labour slavery practised in the North-Caucasian and Southern Federal Districts (NCFD and SFD). Thus, on June 13, 2023, it became known about the liberation of Mukhamet Khudaiberdin and Mikhail Giska, who were forced to work for free at a construction site in the Kayakent District of Dagestan. After their release, they refused to apply to the police. Khudaiberdin explained that he was afraid of retaliation from business owners.

On June 19, 2023, it became known that Victor Ryzhkov, a resident of the Altai Territory, was freed from slavery at a brick factory in Dagestan. He also refused to write an application against the people who held him in captivity, the "Alternativa" then reported. The brick factory, where cases of labour slavery were discovered, had been checked by law enforcers more than once, but people still end up in captivity there, said Alexei Nikitin, an activist of the "Alternativa" movement.

Earlier, Oleg Melnikov, the head of the "Alternativa", stated that help to get out of labour slavery can only be given to those who themselves declare that they are forced labourers. There are criminal articles for slave labour, but they practically do not work, Abusupyan Gaitaev, an advocate, has confirmed.