Ukrainian woman arrested for child trafficking in Georgia
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A Ukrainian woman has been arrested for child trafficking in Georgia, announces the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Georgia.
The detainee faces 14 to 17 years of imprisonment.
The detention took place in a Kutaisi hospital on April 25.
A police report states that the woman arrived in Georgia with 10 children from Russia on April 8 and was going to move to the occupied territory of Abkhazia.
All the ten children have the woman’s surname. However, four of them were born in 2017, which raised suspicions of trafficking. An interrogation of the witnesses revealed that the woman was aggressively treating the children, which served as grounds for issuing a restraining order.
A test will be conducted to determine the biological connection of the children and the detainee,
For the protection of the children's safety and health, two elder children still remain at the hospital, while the remaining eight children have been taken to a shelter.
The US Department of State reads in its 2018 Trafficking in Persons Report that the government of Georgia fully meets the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking.
Georgia has been ranked among Tier 1 nations in the Trafficking in Persons Report 2017; an annual report issued by the United States (US) State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.
The MIA says they will continue investigating trafficking cases involving adolescents and will "react strictly” even if the victim and offender are close relatives.
Georgia is among several countries taking steps to improve anti-trafficking legislation, policy and practice according to today’s report of the Council of Europe’s (CoE) anti-trafficking expert group (GRETA).
Georgia has ruled to transfer the children taken to Georgia by Ukrainian citizen Yulia Suslyak to Ukraine. Ukrainian authorities showed readiness to take responsibility for the children’s guardianship.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has sent a plane to Georgia to return ten children to Ukraine, whose mother, Ukrainian citizen Yulia Suslyak, was charged in Georgia in April with human trafficking.
Tbilisi City Court has denied bail to 37-year-old Ukrainian citizen Yulia Suslyak, who was charged with child trafficking in April after being found with 10 children, four of them being born in one and the same year.
Georgia has released Ukrainian national Yulia Suslyak, who was detained for child trafficking by Georgian police earlier in April. Suslyak’s lawyer Zurab Todua said the Georgian Prosecutor’s Office released her as there were not enough evidence to keep her in prison. Todua says the Prosecutor’s Office plans to send case materials to the Prosecutor’s Office of Ukraine for further investigation.
Ukrainian citizen Yulia Suslyak, who was charged with trafficking in Georgia in April 2019 and was released on July 19, was not allowed to enter Georgia yesterday.
The lawyer of Ukrainian national Yulia Suslyak, who was arrested in April and later released by Georgian police in July for alleged child trafficking, says that his client is suffering from psychological issues. Lawyer Zurab Todua says that Suslyak is currently undergoing psychological rehab in the Ukrainian town of Khmelnytskyi. He said medical experts have confirmed that Suslyak is suffering from psychological issues.