Volunteers from the movement Alternativa, which assists victims of forced labour, reported that they had helped free a Belarusian citizen who had been held against his will on a farm in Chechnya for nine months.
According to the organisation’s press release, they were recently contacted by volunteers from the Belarusian search-and-rescue group Angel, who asked for help in returning a missing man named Yuri Anatolyevich (surname not disclosed). The search team said that he had been listed as missing in the federal database for nine months and was discovered by chance in the Russian republic of Daghestan.
Law enforcement officers in Daghestan reportedly found Yuri during a routine document check. He explained that he had travelled from Moscow to Chechnya, where he met a man who offered him accommodation. His relatives had been searching for him online but were unable to reach him.
After meeting with Alternativa volunteers in Moscow, a clearer version of events emerged. According to them, Yuri had come to the Russian capital for personal reasons. He was fined at a train station for smoking in a restricted area, but as he did not have any cash, the police asked him to accompany them to the station. After that, the volunteers said, he was unable to find the people he had been travelling with.
‘He was soon taken to a workhouse, where he was offered agricultural work without being told where he would be going. That was how he was taken to Chechnya. At first, he was repairing a house and later helped on a farm — tending to chickens and bees. Of course, they promised him he would be paid, and they claimed they were trying to find his relatives. He really believed them and waited, hoping to receive his wages and return home’, the volunteers stated.
According to Alternativa, Yuri Anatolyevich finally returned home on 15 October.
Cases of labour exploitation, coercion, and conditions resembling slavery are not uncommon in the North Caucasus. In Daghestan, numerous reports have described men being forced to work without pay or identity documents on brick factories and construction sites. Many were held under threat of violence if they tried to escape.
According to the Global Slavery Index, Russia ranks among the top three countries in Europe and Central Asia in terms of the prevalence of modern slavery. An estimated 13 people per 1,000 are subjected to forced labour or forced marriage.
Aida Mirmaksumova
