CASE OF F.M. AND OTHERS v. RUSSIA

THIRD SECTION

CASE OF F.M. AND OTHERS v. RUSSIA

(Applications nos. 71671/16 and 40190/18)

JUDGMENT

STRASBOURG

10 December 2024

FINAL

10/03/2025

This judgment has become final under Article 44 § 2 of the Convention.
It may be subject to editorial revision.

In the case of F.M. and Others v. Russia,

The European Court of Human Rights (Third Section), sitting as a Chamber composed of:

 Ioannis Ktistakis, President,
 Peeter Roosma,
 Lətif Hüseynov,
 Oddný Mjöll Arnardóttir,
 Diana Kovatcheva,
 Úna Ní Raifeartaigh,
 Mateja Đurović, judges,
and Milan Blaško, Section Registrar,

Having regard to:

the applications (nos. 71671/16 and 40190/18) against the Russian Federation lodged with the Court under Article 34 of the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (“the Convention”) by two Kazakhstani nationals, Ms F.M. and Ms A.M. (“the first and second applicants”), and two Uzbekistani nationals, Ms G.N. and Ms B.K. (“the third and fourth applicants”), on 25 November 2016, and by Ms N.I., a Kazakhstani national, on 15 August 2018 (“the fifth applicant”);

the decision to give notice to the Russian Government (“the Government”) of the applications;

the decision not to have the applicants’ names disclosed;

the observations submitted by the applicants;

the comments submitted by the AIRE Centre, which was granted leave to intervene by the President of the Section;

the decision of the President of the Section to appoint one of the elected judges of the Court to sit as an ad hoc judge, applying by analogy Rule 29 § 2 of the Rules of Court (see Kutayev v. Russia, no. 17912/15, §§ 5-8, 24 January 2023);

Having deliberated in private on 12 November 2024,

Delivers the following judgment, which was adopted on that date:

INTRODUCTION

1.  The case concerns the respondent State’s alleged failure to comply with its positive obligations under Article 4 of the Convention to protect female migrant workers from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan who were victims of human trafficking and labour exploitation.

THE FACTS

2.  The applicants’ details are set out in the appendix.

3.  The facts of the case may be summarised as follows.

4.  The applicants submitted a copy of the case file of preliminary inquiries conducted by the Russian investigation authorities into the applicants’ alleged trafficking between 2002 and 2016 from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to Russia for labour exploitation lasting between several months and ten years at convenience stores in the Golyanovo district of Moscow (“the Golyanovo stores”) belonging to nationals of the Russian Federation – the sisters Zhanar I. (Z.I.)[1] and Zhansulu I. (Zh.I.)[2] and their respective husbands, Rashid M. (R.M.) and Saken M. (S.M.). The applicants also submitted medical documents, articles published in the media and other material in relation to their cases. The relevant documents can be summarised as follows.

5.  On 11 June 2010 the mission of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Moscow transmitted the following information concerning the labour exploitation of Kazakhstani nationals in Moscow, received from its partner channels in Kazakhstan, to the head of the Moscow Directorate General of Internal Affairs (Главное управление внутренних дел по городу Москве). On an unspecified date in May 2007, the first and second applicants, who are sisters, had been recruited in Kazakhstan by Ms M.M., a Kazakhstani national, to work at a convenience store in Uralskaya Street in Moscow (“store U”). They had been transported to Russia by Mr R.M., the store owner, who had taken their identity documents away upon their arrival in Moscow. The store owners had exploited the applicants along with other workers (approximately 12 individuals), confining them in the store, giving them spoilt food and forcing them to drink alcohol. During official inspections the workers had been hidden, except for a few of them who had been given fake Russian identity documents. On 11 January 2009 the first applicant had given birth to a boy on the store premises and had then been taken to a hospital (presumably Moscow municipal clinical hospital no. 13). The store owners had misappropriated the birth registration documents and, two months later, had taken the boy away from his mother, announcing that he would be sent to southern Kazakhstan. The first applicant was unaware of the whereabouts of her son and sister. After her return to Kazakhstan, on the IOM’s recommendation the first applicant had submitted complaints to the police and the prosecutor’s office in Shymkent, at her place of residence. The IOM provided details about the applicants’ and their alleged traffickers’ identities and the location of the store, inviting the police to conduct an inquiry, to suppress possible criminal actions and to establish the whereabouts of the first applicant’s child and the second applicant. The IOM asked to be informed of the results of the inquiry in order to be able to notify the first applicant. The applicants’ dates of birth as provided in the communication indicated that at the time of their recruitment, they had been aged 18 years (the first applicant) and 17 years and between six and seven months (the second applicant).

6.  Police officers of the Moscow Directorate General of Internal Affairs and the police department of the East Administrative Circuit of Moscow carried out a preliminary inquiry. They visited store U in the Golyanovo district of Moscow and on 13 July 2010 interviewed its manager, R.M., who acknowledged that the first applicant had worked in his store in the past. He denied any wrongdoing on his part. Several individuals presented as employees of the store gave similar statements (records of 26 July 2010). No traces of the workers living on the store premises were found. The police officers reported to their superiors that no evidence of unlawful confinement or the use of slave labour had been established. The results of the inquiry were transferred to the Golyanovo district police department, which on 5 August 2010 refused to institute criminal proceedings. On 12 August 2010 the Preobrazhenskiy inter‑district deputy prosecutor set the decision aside on the grounds that the inquiry had not been thorough and that it was necessary to interview the applicants. On 8 September 2010 the Golyanovo police department again decided to dispense with criminal proceedings, stating that the first and second applicants were in Shymkent, Kazakhstan, at the place of their permanent registration and could not therefore be interviewed. On the same day the prosecutor set the decision aside, on the grounds that it had been taken by an unauthorised body, and ordered that a preliminary inquiry be carried out by the Preobrazhenskiy inter‑district investigation unit of the Investigative Committee of Moscow (“the Preobrazhenskiy investigation unit”).

7.  On 17 September 2010 the investigator from the Preobrazhenskiy investigation unit refused to institute criminal proceedings for lack of the elements of the offences of abduction and unlawful deprivation of liberty. On 13 October 2010 the prosecutor wrote to the head of the unit, stating that the investigator had failed to establish the circumstances of the case and his decision was unfounded. The next day the recipient replied that it was obvious that an additional inquiry would not lead to a different outcome and that any shortcomings could be addressed without setting aside the investigator’s decision. On 13 November 2010 the Preobrazhenskiy investigation unit instructed the Golyanovo police department to establish the circumstances of the first applicant’s employment at the store and to collect relevant documents (a permit for the employment of foreign migrant workers, a contract of employment, and documents relating to salary payments and accommodation). The Golyanovo police neighbourhood officer interviewed R.M., who stated that the first applicant’s contract of employment, including the information about the duration of her employment, had been destroyed (record of 17 December 2010).

8.  On 28 July 2010 the Ministry of the Interior of Kazakhstan sent a legal assistance request to the General Prosecutor’s Office of Russia in relation to a criminal investigation in a case opened on 3 July 2010 into a complaint by the first applicant concerning offences allegedly committed against her and her minor sister, the second applicant. The request stated that in June 2010 the first applicant had run away from store U and had returned to Kazakhstan by train, without any identity documents. The measures sought in the request included, inter alia: interviewing the store owners; establishing the circumstances of the applicants’ recruitment, transportation, exploitation and the physical abuse to which they had allegedly been subjected in store U; establishing the location of and seizing the applicants’ identity documents; identifying all individuals employed in store U and interviewing them as witnesses, if necessary in the presence of a representative of the embassy of Kazakhstan in Russia; and obtaining documents relating to their employment and migrant status.

9.  On 7 December 2010 the investigator from the Preobrazhenskiy investigation unit questioned R.M. as a witness and inspected store U in R.M.’s presence, within the framework of the legal assistance request from the Ministry of the Interior of Kazakhstan. R.M. confirmed that the first and second applicants, both of whose parents had died, had been employed by him in the past. He denied committing any offences against them. He stated that the first applicant’s residence in Moscow had been registered and documents for her employment had been in place; however, all the documents had been destroyed. He asserted that all his employees were now Russian nationals employed in accordance with the labour legislation. His wife, Z.I., a national and permanent resident of Russia, was the co-owner (along with R.M.) of the company running the store. She was currently in Kazakhstan. The investigator inspected the store premises, which were located on the ground floor of an apartment block. He also inspected a basement room, noting that it had no lighting and could not sufficiently be lit with a pocket light. He concluded that there were no premises that were used as accommodation.

10.  The results of the preliminary inquiry were communicated to the Ministry of the Interior of Kazakhstan. The investigation in Kazakhstan was suspended.

11.  Between 10 a.m. and 11 a.m. on 30 October 2012, Mr O.M. from Alternativa, an organisation of volunteers helping victims of slavery, arrived at a convenience store on Novosibirskaya Street in the Golyanovo district of Moscow (“store N”) together with other volunteers, journalists, in particular from the Novaya Gazeta newspaper and various television channels, and two women, who had arrived from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in order to help their daughters – the fourth applicant and Ms Z.A. – who had allegedly been exploited in store N for many years. The group entered the store and, filming the premises and staff and overcoming the resistance of the store owners – Zh.I. and S.M. – and their assistants, took a group of nationals of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan outside, including the fourth applicant and Ms L.A. As for Ms Z.A., she, together with her baby, was taken outside another store located nearby.

12.  According to eyewitnesses’ statements, in the course of the intervention Zh.I. left by car, taking with her one of the workers, Ms R.K., and four children, including the fourth applicant’s son, Ms L.A.’s son and two children of a former female worker, whose whereabouts were unknown. Zh.I.’s attempts to take away two other workers, Ms M.A. and Ms Z.B., failed owing to the journalists’ intervention.

13.  The activists alerted the police that the owner of store N had forcefully kept women in the store and kidnapped their children. At midday officers from the Golyanovo district police department examined the store and seized two recorders, which were part of a video-surveillance system installed in the store premises, and a towel with stains resembling blood. On the same day the seized items were transferred to the Preobrazhenskiy investigation unit, which was responsible for conducting the inquiry.

14.  Mr O.M. and other volunteers accompanied the workers to the Golyanovo district police station, where they lodged complaints and were interviewed.

15.  In their complaints the fourth applicant and Ms L.A., an Uzbekistani national, alleged that Zh.I. and S.M. had forced them to work without pay for ten years, confining them in store N under the threat of physical violence. They had lived in the store without passports and registration. They also complained about the abduction of their children earlier that day.

16.  According to a record of her interview by a Golyanovo police officer on 30 October 2012, the fourth applicant stated, inter alia, that in November 2002 Zh.I. had recruited her (at the age of 25), promising a salary of between 800 and 1,000 United States dollars, and arranged for her travel from Uzbekistan to Moscow by train, together with Ms L.A. Upon their arrival in Moscow, Zh.I.’s driver had picked them up at a railway station and taken them to store N, where S.M. had taken away their passports under the pretext of registration of their residence in Moscow. They had been forced by Zh.I. and S.M. to work without pay, registration of residence or a work permit, being subjected to regular beatings and confined in the store under the threat of violence. The fourth applicant had given birth, at Moscow municipal clinical hospital no. 36, to two children, whom Zh.I. had taken away from her. Her daughter, K., born in May 2003, had been sent at the age of a few months to Zh.I.’s relatives in Kazakhstan, where she had allegedly died of an unspecified disease. The applicant had rarely seen her son, who had been held in one of Zh.I.’s flats nearby. According to a record of her interview at 9.50 p.m. on the same day at the Golyanovo police station by the investigator from the Preobrazhenskiy investigation unit, the fourth applicant stated that all workers had slept in the store premises on foam mats, which had been stored during the day in a van. Her employment had not been based on any documents. Zh.I. had constantly beaten her up. Her body had always been bruised and scarred. She had repeatedly asked the store owners to let her return home. They had kept saying that they would let her go soon and would pay her for the whole period of her work. She wished to receive her unpaid salary.

17.  According to a medical certificate issued by the trauma centre of polyclinic no. 222 in Moscow, the fourth applicant was examined at 3 p.m. on 30 October 2012; the dislocation of a finger joint and multiple contusions of soft tissue of the ribcage and both shins were recorded.

18.  When interviewed by a police officer at 1.45 p.m. on 30 October 2012, Ms L.A. gave similar statements about her recruitment in Uzbekistan in 2002 (at the age of 16), her transportation to store N in Moscow together with the fourth applicant, her exploitation without pay and the physical violence to which she had been subjected for ten years by the same couple. Ms L.A. complained about the disappearance of her daughter, born in 2008, whom Zh.I. had taken to Kazakhstan six months previously, announcing later that the girl had been a victim of an accident. According to the record of her interview at 9.20 p.m. on 30 October 2012 at the Golyanovo police station by the investigator from the Preobrazhenskiy investigation unit, Ms L.A. stated that she had been dependent on the store owners and had therefore been unable to do anything to change her situation. Zh.I. and S.M. had many relatives and friends in Moscow who organised their businesses in the same way, notably by confining foreign migrant workers in their stores and making them work without pay. One such example was a store on Uralskaya Street in Moscow owned by M., whose workers were kept in the store, working without pay and being subjected to beatings.

19.  According to statements by Ms Z.B., a Kazakhstani national, she had been recruited in Kazakhstan by S.M.’s sister, who in mid-October 2012 had bought her a flight ticket and taken her (at the age of 23) to Moscow. A driver sent by S.M. had picked them up at an airport and taken them to store N, where she had been received by Zh.I. and S.M., who had seized her passport under the pretext of registering her residence and obtaining other documents. He had also taken away her mobile phone, saying that workers were not allowed to call relatives. She had found herself among eight or nine other migrants who had been locked up in the store, working without pay and being subjected to beatings by S.M. and Zh.I. She had seen Zh.I. beating the fourth applicant, Ms L.A. and Ms R.K.

20.  Two male workers, Kazakhstani nationals, gave similar statements to the police on 30 October 2012. One of them stated that upon his arrival at store N in December 2011, S.M. had seized his passport and mobile phone. He had been working without pay or any contract of employment. He had been living in the store premises along with seven other workers who, like him, had worked without pay. Zh.I. had regularly beaten him up. Another male worker stated that he had lived in the store along with other workers, whose identity documents had been kept by Zh.I. Three children had been confined in the store and ill-treated by Zh.I.

21.  At the police station Ms M.A., an Uzbekistani national, felt unwell and was taken to a hospital by the ambulance (see paragraph 33 below).

22.  On the same day at the Golyanovo police station, the investigator from the Preobrazhenskiy investigation unit interviewed the fourth applicant’s mother, Ms T.K., an Uzbekistani national. She stated that her daughter had left for Moscow ten years earlier and that she had unsuccessfully tried to find her daughter since then. On 15 October 2012 she had learnt from a woman who had escaped from store N that her daughter had been unlawfully held and exploited in store N without pay, and had been dispossessed of her passport. Ms T.K. had travelled to Moscow together with Ms T.A., whose daughter had been in a similar situation. On 28 October 2012 they had met with Mr O.M., who had promised to help. On 30 October 2012 she had entered the store together with Mr O.M. and others and taken her daughter out. She said that the store owner had subjected her daughter to beatings and forced labour.

23.  The investigator also interviewed Mr O.M., who stated that on 28 October 2012 he had met with Ms T.A. and another woman, who had complained that their daughters and other girls from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan had been unlawfully held in store N and beaten up, and that their identity documents had been seized by the store owner. After a preliminary visit to the store Mr O.M. had contacted his collaborators and journalists. He described in detail the events of the morning of 30 October 2012, as a result of which a group of women had been taken out of the store and sheltered in a minibus before calling the police. On the same day one of the journalists who had participated in the visit to the store gave a statement in which she recounted the events of that day and the released women’s experiences. She noted that the enslaved women had several times complained to the Golyanovo district police department. However, instead of examining their complaints, police officers had returned them to the store owners, who had subjected them to severe beatings. The police had known about the unlawful situation of the workers and had sided with the store owners.

24.  At 1.05 p.m. on 30 October 2012 a police officer of the Golyanovo district police department interviewed R.M., who stated that he knew nothing about the abduction of children. At 11 a.m. that day S.M., his relative, had called him and asked to look after store N because all the sales assistants had been taken to the Golyanovo police station.

25.  At 6 p.m. on 30 October 2012 D.Kh., a neighbourhood police officer of the Golyanovo district police department, interviewed Ms S.I. She stated that she had learned about the abduction of children from the television news and had discussed the matter with her sister Z.I., who had called her at about 3.30 p.m. that day. She knew nothing more about the abduction. As regards her other sister, Zh.I., S.I. had not been in contact with her for a while after a quarrel. Zh.I. had not called her that day.

26.  According to a report by a deputy head of the criminal search unit of the Golyanovo police department to his superior, at 6.10 p.m. on 30 October 2012 he received a call on his mobile phone from a woman who gave an address where the children could be found. He and two other police officers located the children and took them to the Golyanovo district police station, where they were reunited with their mothers (the fourth applicant and Ms L.A.).

27.  According to S.M.’s statements to the police on 30 October 2012, he was in possession of his workers’ documents, which he kept in the store. Between 10.30 p.m. and midnight on 30 October 2012 the investigator from the Preobrazhenskiy investigation unit searched store N in S.M.’s presence. According to the record of the search, passports were found in a safe and seized. Mattresses were found in two vans parked near the back entrance to the store. S.M. explained that the mattresses were used by his workers to sleep on in the store.

28.  The events of 30 October 2012 were widely reported in the media. In an article published on 2 November 2012, Novaya Gazeta described those events, together with photographs and the stories of seven released workers including the fourth applicant (relating her ordeal, including the removal of her daughter K., born in 2006), Ms L.A., Ms Z.A., Ms M.A. and Ms Z.B. It was reported that the interviews at the police station had lasted for 11 hours, after which the administration of the Golyanovo police department had decided to detain the released workers pending their deportation, prohibiting the women and children from leaving. Only after midnight had the workers been allowed to leave the police station owing to the journalists’ intervention.

29.  After leaving the police station, the workers and their children were provided with shelter and meals by members of Alternativa and other volunteers. Next day the Civic Assistance Committee (Комитет «Гражданское Содействие» – “the CAC”), a charitable non-governmental organisation (NGO) helping migrants and refugees, was contacted. The CAC provided the workers with accommodation, financial aid for basic needs, and legal, medical and other assistance.

30.  On 31 October 2012 investigators from the Preobrazhenskiy investigation unit continued their interviews at the unit office. The fourth applicant and Ms L.A. confirmed their previous statements. Ms Z.A. gave similar statements about her exploitation in store N since 2006, when she had been brought to Moscow from Kazakhstan at the age of 14. Her birth certificate had been taken away by Zh.I., who had forced her by means of beatings to work without pay, along with ten other workers who had been prohibited under the threat of violence from leaving the store. Z.A.’s mother, Ms T.A., a Kazakhstani national, was also interviewed, recounting her efforts to help her daughter.

31.  Ms T.A. had previously complained to the Golyanovo district police department, and in May 2012 she had solicited the assistance of the Kazakhstani embassy in Moscow, which had requested the Golyanovo district police department, in a letter of 2 May 2012, to conduct an inquiry into her complaints. On 4 May 2012 D.Kh., a neighbourhood police officer from the Golyanovo district police department, had dismissed Ms T.A.’s complaints about her daughter’s forceful confinement at store N. His refusal to institute criminal proceedings had been based on statements by Ms Z.A. and Ms L.A. (who was Z.A.’s aunt) denying any criminal conduct on the part of the store owners, and Ms T.A.’s withdrawal of her application (see paragraphs 71 and 90 below).

32.  According to records of their interviews on 31 October and 1 November 2012 by the investigators from the Preobrazhenskiy investigation unit, Zh.I. and S.M. were Russian nationals who had immigrated to Russia from Kazakhstan in 1986 and 1993 respectively and had owned the company operating store N since 1999. They acknowledged that they had been employing migrant workers from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan “unofficially”, without employment contracts. S.M. acknowledged that the workers had given him their identity documents, which he had kept in the store. They denied that any violence had been used against the workers or that they had been confined at the store and asserted that they had paid them salaries and provided them with free meals and accommodation. The workers had allegedly been lodged in the store owners’ flat no. 3 in the same apartment block in which the store was located. The store owners occupied another flat, no. 37, in the same building. According to S.M., the fourth applicant’s and Ms L.A.’s sons were living in flat no. 37 together with him and his wife, whereas according to Zh.I., the children were living in flat no. 3 together with their mothers. As regards the alleged abduction of the children the previous day, Zh.I. explained her actions by her concern for the children’s safety. She acknowledged calling a police officer and informing him of the children’s location after learning about the media coverage of the situation at the store and the news about her abducting the children. According to a copy of Zh.I.’s passport, joined to the case file of the inquiry, one of her children was a girl, K., born on 4 July 2006.

33.  At around 3 a.m. on 1 November 2012 the abduction and forceful confinement of Ms R.K. and the two children of a former worker (see paragraph 12 above) was reported to the police by Ms M.A. with the help of a journalist. Interviewed by the police, Ms M.A. stated that she had been transferred from Uzbekistan into Zh.I.’s custody on 7 October 2012 (aged 22), having been deceived into believing that her art project would be sponsored by Zh.I. The latter had taken her to Moscow, seized her passport and mobile phone and brought her to store N, where she had been confined and exploited without pay, along with the fourth applicant and the other workers. Zh.I. had beaten her up. During the activists’ visit to the store on 30 October 2012 Zh.I. had ordered her and Ms Z.B. to get out through a window in the storage room. Zh.I.’s sister, Z.I., who had been in a car with the workers’ children, had ordered Ms M.A. and Ms Z.B. to get into the car, from which they had been pulled out by one of the journalists. The activists had then taken them to Golyanovo police station. Ms M.A. recounted having felt unwell at the police station and having been taken by the ambulance to hospital no. 54, from which she had been abducted at knifepoint by Z.I. and the latter’s daughter. Ms M.A. had spent the night and the following day in the custody of Zh.I., S.M., Z.I. and other individuals. For some of that time she had been held in a store belonging to Zh.I.’s friends together with Ms R.K. and the two children of a former worker. On 31 October 2012 Zh.I. had unsuccessfully tried to send Ms M.A. to Kazakhstan by train. At a railway station Ms M.A. had escaped with the help of a stranger, who had taken her to the Golyanovo police station, where she had again met Mr O.M. and the journalists.

34.  On the same day the police visited the store in which Ms M.A. had allegedly been held overnight, and interviewed individuals found there. One of them, the store owner’s son, confirmed that at 10 p.m. on 30 October 2012 his father’s friend, S., had brought two children and two women and asked him to shelter them. They had spent the night and the following day in the basement of the store. At 11 p.m. on 31 October 2012 S. had arrived and taken them away by car.

35.  On 1 November 2012 an initial inquiry into Ms M.A.’s report conducted by the Novogireyevo district police was transferred to the Preobrazhenskiy investigation unit, which joined it on the same day to the inquiry concerning store N.

36.  On 2 November 2012 the Golyanovo police department inspected store U in the presence of R.M. It was reported that no children or other individuals had been found confined in the store.

37.  On the same day Mr O.M. and two journalists who had witnessed the alleged abduction by Zh.I. of Ms R.K. and the children lodged complaints with the Golyanovo police department, requesting an investigation into the offences allegedly committed by Zh.I. and S.M., notably the abduction on 30 October 2012, the disappearance of the daughters of the fourth applicant and Ms L.A., and the forceful detention and ill‑treatment of the fourth applicant and the other women who had been exploited for slave labour. When interviewed by the police on the same day, the journalists stated, inter alia, that they had seen serious injuries to the bodies of the fourth applicant, Ms L.A. and Ms Z.A., including scars, broken fingers, injuries to the chest and back, wrenched ears and knocked out teeth. During their visit to store N Ms R.K. had told them about her wish to get away from the store and her fears of reprisal by the store owners. Zh.I. had prevented Ms R.K. from leaving with the journalists.

38.  On 2 November 2012 the fourth applicant, Ms L.A. and Ms Z.A. lodged complaints with the Moscow Directorate General of Internal Affairs alleging that they had been subjected to slavery, confinement, ill-treatment, threats and torture by Zh.I., S.M. and, occasionally, their relative, Mr M.K.

39.  All the complaints were joined to the inquiry being conducted by the Preobrazhenskiy investigation unit (as confirmed by its letter to the complainants of 9 November 2012).

40.  On 3 November 2012 an investigator examined flat no. 3, belonging to Zh.I. and S.M., and found nothing relevant to the inquiry.

41.  On the same day the investigator interviewed Mr D.L., a police officer who had been working at the Golyanovo district police department since 2006. D.L. stated that store N had regularly required police intervention. He recalled a complaint received from the Kazakhstani embassy two years earlier, concerning the alleged confinement and forced labour of a certain Ms K. He also recalled that 6 to 12 months later Ms L.A. had complained that her employers had taken away her children. The store owners in turn had accused her of stealing 100,000 roubles (RUB). The Golyanovo district police department had carried out a preliminary inquiry. Ms L.A. had eventually stated that she had no complaints against her employers and had continued working in the store. In all those cases the Golyanovo district police department had decided not to institute criminal proceedings.

42.  On 4 November 2012 a senior investigator from the Preobrazhenskiy investigation unit, D.S., held that the information collected during the preliminary inquiry was sufficient to indicate the presence of the elements of an offence under Article 127 § 2 (g) of the Criminal Code (unlawful deprivation of liberty against two or more persons) committed against the fourth applicant and Ms L.A., who had arrived from Uzbekistan and had allegedly been deprived of their liberty and held in store N under the threat of violence between 2002 and 30 October 2012. It was therefore necessary to institute criminal proceedings and conduct face-to-face confrontations, forensic examinations and other investigation activities in order to verify the complainants’ statements and to establish all the circumstances of what had happened.

43.  On the same day the head of the Preobrazhenskiy investigation unit assigned the case to a group of three investigators led by D.S.

44.  On 5 November 2012 the investigators ordered that the fourth applicant and Ms L.A. be granted victim status in the criminal proceedings and interviewed them in the presence of their lawyers. They confirmed their earlier statements. The fourth applicant also stated that during inspections by the Migration Service Zh.I. had given her and her co-workers passports belonging to other people; however, the inspectors had not paid any attention.

45.  On the same day Zh.I. and S.M. were interviewed as witnesses, reiterating their earlier statements.

46.  On 5 November 2012 investigator D.S. ordered that flats nos. 3 and 37 and store N be searched for the fourth applicant’s and Ms L.A.’s belongings. The searches were conducted on the same day, and no such items were found.

47.  On 6 November 2012 the Moscow Preobrazhenskiy inter-district deputy prosecutor set aside the decision to institute criminal proceedings as unlawful and unfounded. The prosecutor concluded that the inquiry, together with the previous inquiry in May 2012 into Ms Z.A.’s alleged confinement at the store, had clearly demonstrated the absence of any elements of an offence under Article 127 § 2 (g) and exposed contradictions in the alleged victims’ statements. He found that for a decade the complainants had been working in the store salesroom, a place open to the public, which implied communication with customers. The complainants had conceived children with individuals of their choice and had given birth in healthcare institutions, where they had stayed on their own, subsequently applying to the civil registry offices for registration of their children’s births. Ms L.A. and Ms Z.A. had travelled to Kazakhstan, where they had met relatives. The complainants had therefore enjoyed unrestricted freedom of movement and a real opportunity to complain about their situation to the store customers, police officers, doctors, civil registry officers, the embassies of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and their relatives, which they had failed to do. Their allegations of physical violence were unsupported by any documents, and their fears regarding Zh.I.’s threats of violence were not plausible because there had been up to ten workers in the store including the complainants’ de facto husbands and other male workers. In any event, the complainants alleged that they had been beaten on account of their misconduct and not for the purposes of their confinement at the store. Ms L.A. and Ms Z.A. had previously denied during the inquiry in May 2012 that there had been any unlawful conduct on the part of the store owners.

48.  The prosecutor remitted the case for an additional inquiry, in particular in order to examine records of video-cameras installed in the store and in the entrance of the apartment block in which flat no. 37 was located.

(a)   The investigator’s appeals against the prosecutor’s decision of 6 November 2012

49.  Investigator D.S. unsuccessfully applied (with the approval of his superiors in the Investigative Committee) to higher prosecutors, requesting them to set aside the decision of the Preobrazhenskiy deputy prosecutor of 6 November 2012. He argued that the veracity of the complainants’ allegations could only be confirmed or disproved within the framework of criminal proceedings. The fact that Ms L.A. had travelled to Kazakhstan between 2002 and 2012 was not sufficient to exclude an offence under Article 127 § 2 (g) because she might have feared for the safety of her child, who had remained in Moscow at the time. The prosecutor’s unfounded setting aside of the decision to institute criminal proceedings had deprived the complainants of access to justice and violated their rights.

50.  The investigator’s applications were dismissed, and the prosecutor’s decision that criminal proceedings should not be instituted was endorsed by all higher prosecutors, in decisions dated 9 and 21 November 2012, 4 and 28 December 2012, 22 February 2013 and 9 April 2013. On the last‑mentioned date the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation reiterated the findings set out in the decision of 6 November 2012, while noting that it had been established that the fourth applicant and Ms L.A. had worked as store assistants in the store belonging to S.M. and Zh.I. without any employment documents. The Prosecutor General noted that the records of video-cameras installed in the store and in the entrance of the apartment block in which the complainants had allegedly resided had not been examined; records of their crossing the State border had not been obtained; and it had not been established whether they had been registered users of mobile phones. He concluded that the prosecutors’ decisions were lawful and reasoned and that it was for the Investigative Committee to carry out a proper preliminary inquiry.

(b)   Civil society demands to institute criminal proceedings

51.  The fourth applicant and Ms L.A. collected signatures via the internet site www.change.org for a petition to institute criminal proceedings and carry out an investigation into the crimes allegedly committed by Zh.I. and S.M. against them and other people who had been held in slavery. The petition expressed a strong disagreement with the prosecutor’s setting aside of the decision to institute criminal proceedings. It noted that in 2002 Zh.I.’s sister, S.I., had been arrested in another slavery case concerning the same stores.

52.  On 14 December 2012 the petition was sent to the prosecutor’s office of Moscow via a form for citizens’ complaints on the prosecutor’s office internet site. The prosecutor’s office transferred the application to the Preobrazhenskiy investigation unit, which replied, on 12 March 2013, that it had been joined to the case file of the inquiry.

53.  On 1 February 2013 Ms S.A. Gannushkina, in her capacity as Chair of the CAC, head of the “Migration and Law” network of the human rights NGO Memorial and a member of the governmental commission for migration policy, submitted the petition – which by that time had been signed by more than 15,000 individuals – to the Chairman of the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation. The petition was joined to the case file of the inquiry.

54.  On 8 November 2012 the fourth applicant, Ms L.A., Ms Z.A. and Ms M.A., accompanied by lawyers invited by the CAC, appeared before investigator D.S. of the Preobrazhenskiy investigation unit, having been summoned to do so. The investigator announced that they would have to proceed with Colonel S.Ch., who was a deputy head of the Golyanovo district police department, to the Golyanovo police station, where administrative proceedings would be brought against them for their unlawful presence on Russian territory. The lawyers’ explanations that upon their arrival in Russia the women had been unlawfully detained by the store owners and their passports had been confiscated were ignored.

55.  In her statements of 8 September 2022 Ms I.B., one of the lawyers present at the above-mentioned meeting on 8 November 2012, described the ensuing events of that day as follows. The women were surrounded by at least five police officers, some of them armed, and were not allowed to leave. The police officers announced that they had received an order to detain the women, who would be subject to deportation. The lawyer demanded in vain that the legal nature of the situation be clarified and that documents justifying the women’s arrest be provided. That situation lasted for hours. The women were scared that they would be either returned to the store owners or deported. At some point, Ms I.B. and the women managed to move outside the building, while still being followed by the officers. Ms I.B. pretended to leave alone and moved her car close to the exit. She managed to get the women inside her car and locked the doors. Colonel S.Ch. and the other policemen blocked the car from leaving. Then Ms L.A., who was pregnant, felt unwell and an ambulance was called. The ambulance staff insisted on her hospitalisation despite the officers’ reluctance to let her go. The ambulance left, followed by the police car. Ms I.B. left together with the other women.

56.  On 12 November 2012 a lawyer representing Ms M.A. and Ms Z.A. complained to the Chairman of the Investigative Committee, the Prosecutor General, the Minister of Internal Affairs and other officials about the threats and attempts to deport the women on 8 November 2012 and the delays by the investigator in interviewing them and in recognising them as victims in criminal proceedings. She complained that nothing had been done to arrest and prosecute Zh.I. and S.M. or to carry out confrontations with them or forensic medical examinations of the victims.

57.  On 13 November 2012 Ms Gannushkina petitioned the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation. She deplored that on 30 October 2012, after the workers’ release from store N by civil activists and journalists, they had been interviewed at the Golyanovo police station for 14 hours, without any rest or meals. They had been able to leave the police station and avoid being returned to the store owners – as had been done by the police on repeated previous occasions – only because of the continued presence and help of the activists and journalists. Owing to the reaction of civil society and the efforts of the CAC, criminal proceedings had been instituted. However, instead of Article 127.2 (use of slave labour), the proceedings had been instituted under Article 127 § 2 (g) (unlawful deprivation of liberty). Despite the victims’ complaints that the crimes against them had been committed by Zh.I. and S.M., the proceedings had been instituted against “unknown persons”. Zh.I. and S.M. had remained at large. The conduct of the investigator and the Golyanovo department police officers on 8 November 2012 had undermined trust in the Russian law-enforcement authorities.

58.  Ms Gannushkina brought the Prosecutor General’s attention to the fact that during the appearance of the fourth applicant, Ms L.A., Ms Z.A. and Ms M.A. at the Investigative Committee on 8 November 2012, investigator D.S. had handed over their passports, in the presence of their lawyers, to Colonel S.Ch. from the Golyanovo police department. The investigator had explained to the lawyers that the passports had been seized from store N in the course of a search.

59.  Ms Gannushkina also pointed out, referring to media reports (see paragraphs 138-39 below), that similar situations concerning the slave labour of young migrant girls in store U under the responsibility of Zh.I.’s sister, Ms S.I., had occurred in the past, and that store U currently belonged to another sister of Zh.I. On 8 November 2012 journalists had unsuccessfully tried to find out the situation in that store. They had been attacked and their camera had been broken.

60.  Ms Gannushkina noted that the released women trusted neither the police officers of the Golyanovo district police department, who had long been aware of the use of slave labour in the Golyanovo stores, nor the investigators from the Preobrazhenskiy investigation unit, who had delayed the investigation and tried to have the victims deported. The investigators’ conduct cast doubts about their impartiality and the prospects of the investigation. She asked the Prosecutor General to give a legal assessment of that conduct, to oversee the case and to ensure its proper investigation and the restoration of the victims’ rights.

61.  The complaints lodged by Ms Gannushkina and the complainants’ lawyer were sent to the Preobrazhenskiy investigation unit, which replied on 17 and 28 January 2013 that the actions of its staff had been lawful.

62.  According to the record of her questioning by an investigator from the Investigative Committee for the East Administrative Circuit on 30 September 2014, Ms Gannushkina stated that the case had a very high public profile. The CAC’s work with the victims had received support from Mr Fedotov, Chairman of the Presidential Council of the Russian Federation for the Development of Civil Society and Human Rights. This had helped to prevent the victims’ deportation by the police, which would otherwise have happened.

63.  On 19 November 2012 a commission of the Civic Chamber of the Russian Federation discussed the situation regarding the alleged slavery in store N. The head of the Federal Migration Service for Moscow, the deputy head of the Internal Security Department of the Moscow Directorate General of Internal Affairs and the deputy head of the Directorate General of Investigation of the Moscow Investigative Committee participated in the discussion, along with the civil society organisations assisting the victims.

64.  Following the events of 30 October 2012 and ensuing media reports, former migrant workers at the Golyanovo stores contacted the CAC from both inside and outside Russia, requesting assistance in lodging criminal complaints against the store owners. The CAC lodged applications with the Investigative Committee of the Russian Federation on behalf of the following individuals:

–  application by Ms M.A. of 8 November 2012, supplemented on 18 January 2013 with a record of her interview on 22 November 2012 in Moscow by the CAC’s lawyer and a medical certificate;

–  application by Ms L.A. of 19 November 2012 (including a record of her interview on 16 November 2012 in Moscow by the CAC’s lawyer), supplemented on 21 January 2013 with medical certificates of her son’s injuries;

–  application by the fourth applicant of 1 December 2012 (including a record of her interview on 20 November 2012 in Moscow by the CAC’s lawyer);

–  application by the first applicant of 19 December 2012 concerning the alleged offences against the first applicant and her sister, the second applicant;

–  application by the third applicant of 19 December 2012;

–  application by Ms Z.B. of 19 December 2012 (including a record of her interview on 9 November 2012 in Moscow by the CAC’s lawyer);

–  application by Ms Z.E. of 21 December 2012 (including a record of her interview on 19 December 2012 in Moscow by the CAC’s lawyer); and

–  application by Ms Z.A. of 18 January 2013 (including records of her interviews on 16 and 30 November 2012 by the CAC’s lawyer and a medical certificate of 6 December 2012 attesting that Z.A. had two fractured fingers which had healed misaligned).

65.  The CAC argued that the alleged victims had been held in the Golyanovo stores to be used for slave labour, which was punishable by Article 127.2 of the Criminal Code, and that a number of other serious crimes involving physical violence, rape and child abduction had also been committed. All the applications provided a similar account of recruitment in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, transport to Moscow and store U (open 24 hours a day) or store N (open from 7 a.m. until 2 a.m.), seizure of identity documents and ensuing exploitation for 20 or more hours a day without respite or days off, with the use of violence and confinement in the stores in appalling conditions by Z.I. and R.M., the owners of store U, and Zh.I. (Z.I.’s sister) and S.M., the owners of store N. The women had been forced through beatings to drink vodka. No employment contracts had been given, their stay in Russia as foreign migrant workers had not been regularised and the promised salaries had never been paid. In response to their demands for salaries they had been beaten or promised that the salaries had been accruing and would be paid for the whole period at the end of their employment. They had been prohibited from talking to each other and to customers. Contact with their families had not been allowed except for rare calls on speakerphone in the presence and under the strict control of the I. sisters, who had instructed them on what to say.

66.  In her application, the first applicant’s account of her and her sister’s ordeal reflected the IOM’s communication of 11 June 2010 (see paragraph 5 above) and provided a detailed description of their situation as orphans without resources living in a dormitory in Shymkent, Kazakhstan, their recruitment by R.M.’s relatives, her transport to store U by R.M., who had arranged for her minor sister’s arrival in store U a week later. The first applicant described their working without respite from 6 a.m. until 2 a.m. the following morning, sleeping on the floor of the storage rooms at the store, eating spoilt food, being prohibited from talking to each other, being under permanent surveillance by an assigned co‑worker and through video-cameras installed everywhere in the store premises and being beaten by the store owners. All the workers had also been forced to beat each other in front of the store owners. Not speaking Russian well, she had been unable to find out how to complain and to whom. The first applicant had operated a cash register, unloaded and carried products and had done cleaning and washing. The first applicant’s escape and complaint to the police in winter 2008 had ended with police officers returning her to the store owners in exchange for a bribe. To arrange for her baby’s transfer to Kazakhstan, the store owners’ adult daughter had taken the applicant to a notary, controlling what she should say and sign. In June 2010 the applicant had managed to escape and return to Kazakhstan, without her identity document, hiding from controls on a train with the help of strangers. The Kazakhstani NGO Sana Sezim had provided her with assistance, and she had complained to the Kazakhstani police, asking them to search for her son and sister. On 12 June 2010 R.M.’s relatives in Kazakhstan (who had recruited the sisters in the first place) had returned the first applicant’s baby to her. On 25 July 2010 the Kazakhstani police had retrieved the boy’s birth certificate and handed it over to the first applicant. The second applicant was still in the hands of the store owners, who had been exerting pressure through their relatives on the first applicant to withdraw her application to the police. The first applicant asked for help in finding her sister and holding the store owners responsible. The first applicant mentioned the third applicant’s nickname when giving the names of her Uzbekistani co‑workers in store U.

67.  In her application, the third applicant recounted her recruitment in her native village in Uzbekistan, her journey to Moscow in December 2005 (at the age of 25) and her exploitation in store U until the events of 30 October 2012 at store N, which had pushed Z.I. and R.M. to release their workers. On 4 November 2012 she had returned home. The third applicant described having had to do any work demanded of her, from 5 a.m. until 3 a.m. the following day, including carrying bags of potatoes, cases of vodka and other heavy loads, being punished for any mistake by severe beatings (being punched, kicked and beaten with a stick or a skewer), sleeping in the storage room, eating expired products, being forced to drink vodka, being under constant surveillance through video-cameras and being prohibited from talking to anyone. The workers had been given nicknames. The applicant had been ill-treated by Z.I. and Z.I.’s daughters, who had burned her feet with boiling water. The applicant had often been raped by a male co-worker on Z.I.’s orders. When she had become pregnant, she had been forced by Z.I. to have an abortion at a polyclinic despite the doctors’ opinion advising against abortion because of the late term of gestation. Z.I. had paid for the abortion, telling the applicant that she would have to repay the debt by working.

68.  In her application, the fourth applicant, who had left her year-old baby with her parents and seven siblings at a collective farm in Uzbekistan when recruited by Zh.I. in 2002, reiterated her previous statements and gave a detailed account of her exploitation and ill-treatment, first in Zh.I.’s store in Parkovaya Street, and, from 2004, in store N, where Zh.I. and S.M. had controlled their workers’ movements around the clock, in person, via video-cameras and with the help of guards. The workers had been given one or two minutes to swallow an appalling meal before being rushed to go back to work. Leaving the store had been prohibited under the threat of beatings. Zh.I. had cut the applicant’s hair short against her will. Zh.I. had employed various punishments, such as twisting the applicant’s fingers until breaking them, scratching her skin, pulling her hair, punching and kicking her and hitting her on the head and all over her body with heavy objects. The applicant had also been beaten by S.M. and M.K. She had broken fingers, damaged ears, knocked-out teeth and scars. She had run away from the store once, in 2009. Not knowing where to go, without a passport, she had hidden in an apartment block entrance for several days until she had been spotted by one of the store customers and found by Zh.I. The applicant had returned to the store because her son had been held by Zh.I., who had then beaten her up severely and threatened to make her disabled if she tried to escape again. Threatened with retaliation by Zh.I., the applicant had not complained about her situation to doctors during her stays at the maternity hospital in Moscow for the birth of her daughter K. (in autumn 2003) and her son. She considered Zh.I. responsible for her children’s removal, her son’s abuse and the disappearance of her daughter K., whose whereabouts she asked to have established. According to Zh.I., K. had been taken to Zh.I.’s sister in Shymkent, Kazakhstan, at the age of seven months and had subsequently fallen sick and died there.

69.  The fourth applicant had feared the police as much as she had feared Zh.I. When workers had run away and complained, the police had returned them to the store owners, after which they had been severely beaten. A neighbourhood police officer from the Golyanovo district police department had visited the store twice a month, never paying attention to the workers.

70.  According to her application, Ms L.A. had given birth to three children in captivity, who had all been taken away from her by Zh.I. Her first son, born in 2006, had been held in the store from 2010 onwards and had been abused by Zh.I. in front of his mother. Her daughter, born in 2007, had been taken to Kazakhstan, where she had allegedly died. Her second son, born in 2010, had been registered by the store owners as their own child and held in one of their flats.

71.  According to her application, Ms Z.A. had been raped by a male co‑worker on Zh.I.’s orders. She had been coerced into a sexual relationship with Zh.I.’s nephew and had had a baby. In May 2012 Ms Z.A.’s mother had come to Moscow in order to take her home. Zh.I. had coerced Ms Z.A. by threats into stating that she was doing well, that she had married and that she did not wish to leave with her mother. Ms Z.A. had then been forced to work in Zh.I.’s nephew’s store in similar conditions, remaining under Zh.I.’s full control.

72.  Ms L.A. and Ms Z.A. stated that Zh.I. had watched over the workers round the clock, including via video-cameras in her flat in the same apartment block, and punished them by brutal beatings for any “misconduct”. Both women had fractured fingers. They related handing over monthly bribe money to two police officers on Zh.I.’s instructions, outside the video-cameras’ coverage areas. They knew one of them as the chief of the Golyanovo district police department, while the other, D., had inspected cash registers.

73.  According to her application, Ms M.A., who had been exploited in store N from 8 October 2012, had been assaulted by Zh.I. and exposed to Zh.I.’s daily beatings of other workers, including the fourth applicant, Ms L.A. and Ms R.K. Following the events of 30 October 2012, her abduction and escape from the store owners, on 10 December 2012 Ms M.A. had returned to Uzbekistan.

74.  According to Ms Z.B.’s application, she had been exploited in store N from 19 to 30 October 2012. After her return to Kazakhstan on 14 November 2012, she had been invited by Zh.I. to make false public statements to the media denying the accusations against Zh.I. Ms Z.B.’s refusal to do so had been followed by threats of retaliation from Zh.I. Ms Z.B.’s family had been forced to leave their home. They had received assistance from the NGO Sana Sezim and complained to the Kazakhstani police.

75.  According to the application by Ms Z.E., a Kazakhstani national, aged 26, she had been recruited in Kazakhstan by Zh.I. with the help of another person and sent by train on 5 September 2012 to Moscow, where S.M. had picked her up and taken her to store N, where her passport had been taken away under the pretext of her residence registration. Zh.I. had also seized her mobile phone. She had been forced to work without pay, along with the fourth applicant, Ms L.A., Ms R.K. and other workers. She had been subjected to beatings and rapes. Once, during Zh.I.’s absence, Ms Z.E. had managed to call her parents. Her mother had travelled to Moscow from Kazakhstan and helped her return to Shymkent in mid‑October 2012. Zh.I. had refused to pay her salary. Ms Z.E. had contacted the fourth applicant’s mother and informed her about the fourth applicant’s situation. In Kazakhstan Ms Z.E. had been threatened by the store owners and had to hide from them, fearing retaliation.

76.  In January 2013 the fourth applicant, Ms L.A. and Ms M.A. underwent a psychiatric psychological examination in Moscow, made possible owing to the CAC’s assistance. The fourth applicant and Ms M.A. were assisted by an Uzbek language interpreter. The fourth applicant explained, inter alia, that during her ten-year-long period of slavery, Zh.I. and S.M. had constantly threatened and beaten her. They had broken her fingers. She had often fainted after receiving blows to the head. Zh.I. had taken away her children, born in captivity in 2003 and 2007. Zh.I. had told her that her first child had been taken to Shymkent, Kazakhstan, and died there. After her release on 30 October 2012 her second child had been returned to her. He had mental disabilities and was unable to speak well. According to the medical records of the fourth applicant’s examination on 20 December 2012 at Moscow city polyclinic no. 46 by specialist doctors, she had been diagnosed with (i) post‑traumatic encephalopathy; (ii) an old fracture, trauma and polyosteoarthritis of the joints of the hands; (iii) a keloid breast scar; (iv) scar deformity of the skin on the chest (covering an area of 15 cm by 30 cm) and lumbar region and a varicose vein disease of both lower limbs. The doctors had considered it necessary to carry out a psychological psychiatric evaluation of the applicant. She was examined by three psychologists and a psychiatrist. The fourth applicant was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder combined with organic personality disorder as a result of traumatic brain injury. Her disorders were a direct consequence of the physical trauma she had sustained (head injuries, fractures of the fingers and other trauma) and long-term mental distress which had caused her severe mental suffering. Ms L.A. had also been diagnosed with a finger fracture and conditions resulting from repeated closed brain injuries. She recounted the removal of her children by Zh.I., who had kept them as hostages so that Ms L.A. would not run away. Ms M.A. recounted her exploitation and the physical and sexual violence to which she had been subjected by the store owners. Immediately after her release on 30 October 2012 she had been diagnosed with contusion of the chest. All three women’s post-traumatic stress disorder had been caused by mental and physical suffering as a result of their unlawful deprivation of liberty and the psychological and physical violence to which they had been subjected (psychiatrist’s report of 17 January 2013).

77.  In May 2013 the medical examination of the fourth applicant’s son was carried out in Moscow, owing to the CAC’s assistance. The boy was diagnosed with, inter alia, severe rickets, bone deformities, slow growth due to nutritional deficiency, psycho‑motor retardation and shortening of the left leg due to the malunion of a femur fracture. Aged five and a half, he had the physical development of a two-year-old, and it was concluded that this was due to child abuse syndrome (medical certificate of 14 May 2013).

78.  On 14 and 22 January 2013 Ms Gannushkina lodged complaints with the head of the Directorate General of Investigation of the Moscow Investigative Committee, emphasising the importance of instituting criminal proceedings under Article 127.2 of the Criminal Code in respect of the women who had been subjected to slave labour and physical and sexual violence and whose children, born in slavery, had been taken away from them and had either been subjected to ill‑treatment or had disappeared. The released women had broken fingers, knocked out teeth and scars on their bodies. The fourth applicant’s son, who had been deprived of medical treatment, had malunion of a leg fracture, rickets in the chest, bone inflammation and retarded development. The whereabouts and fate of the fourth applicant’s and Ms L.A.’s daughters remained unknown. The CAC had also received requests for assistance from the slave labour victims of Z.I. and R.M., the relatives of Zh.I. and S.M. The poor response of the law‑enforcement authorities to the case, which involved serious crimes committed over a period of ten years in the Russian capital, was striking. The civil society activists who had released the victims from slavery and exposed the crimes committed against them had not received any assistance from the Russian law-enforcement authorities.

79.  The complaints stated that the store owners, who enjoyed complete freedom of action, had put extreme pressure on the victims and witnesses, trying to force the victims – through bribery and threats – to withdraw their applications. The CAC had been compelled to constantly relocate the victims for their own safety and to provide them with psychological and medical help.

80.  The petitions were forwarded to the Preobrazhenskiy investigation unit, which on 1 March 2013 replied to Ms Gannushkina that the actions of its staff had been lawful.

81.  On 23 January 2013 the deputy head of the Preobrazhenskiy investigation unit set aside the refusal of 17 September 2010 to institute criminal proceedings in relation to the alleged offences against the first and the second applicants, and ordered an additional inquiry, listing the same shortcomings that needed to be addressed as two years earlier (see paragraph 7 above).

82.  On 28 January 2013 the investigator from the Preobrazhenskiy investigation unit issued a new refusal to institute criminal proceedings on account of the absence of the elements of offences under Article 126 § 2 (e) (abduction of a person known to be a minor) and Article 127 § 2 (unlawful deprivation of liberty) of the Criminal Code in R.M.’s actions. The decision referred to R.M.’s explanations denying the allegations against him.

83.  The CAC’s applications were examined by the Golyanovo district police department. On 14 February 2013, relying on the explanations of the owners of store U and store N (R.M., S.M. and Zh.I.) denying the allegations against them, the head of the neighbourhood police officers’ unit of the Golyanovo district police department issued a refusal to institute criminal proceedings for want of the elements of offences under Article 115 (intentional infliction of minor bodily harm), Article 116 (battery) and Article 117 (tormenting) of the Criminal Code in the store owners’ actions. He stated that, even assuming that the complainants had received injuries, this could not be established because any such injuries had not been recorded by medical institutions. The complainants were abroad, making it impossible to carry out investigative activities.

84.  Subsequently, all applications lodged by the CAC were joined and examined together by investigators of the Investigative Committee department for the East Administrative Circuit of Moscow, which was ordered to carry out additional rounds of the preliminary inquiry, all of which ended with refusals to institute criminal proceedings (see paragraph 109 below). The investigators’ activities can be summarised as follows.

85.  According to an expert report of 18 January 2013 on the examination of recordings from video-cameras seized in store N on 30 October 2012, one of the seized recorders was out of order, while the other had video records from six video-cameras covering the period from 11 September to 25 October 2012 and a fragment recorded on 30 October 2012. It was possible to view the records on a PC via USB. Viewing them did not require specialist knowledge; it nevertheless required a specific program, which the expert did not have. The recordings were therefore not examined.

86.  On 31 January 2013 store N and store U were inspected and no signs of the use of their premises as permanent accommodation were found. It was noted that a door in a back storage room in store N was closed by a bolt from the inside.

87.  According to a record of his interview on the same day, R.M. was a Russian national who had migrated to Russia from Kazakhstan in 1990 and had operated store U since 1999. He acknowledged that he had employed the first and second applicants in the past. He denied having exploited them. When interviewed on 20 February 2013, he denied ever having employed the third applicant.

88.  On 1 February 2013 the head of the procedural supervision unit of the Directorate General of Investigation of the Moscow Investigative Committee requested the head of the Investigative Committee for the East Administrative Circuit to ensure that the high public profile of the inquiry be repeatedly brought to the attention of the staff and to note that the inquiry was subject to supervision by the Directorate.

89.  Zh.I. and S.M. were again interviewed, reiterating their earlier explanations and denying the allegations against them. They acknowledged that Zh.I.’s passport, instead of Ms L.A.’s passport, had been given to a maternity hospital in which Ms L.A. had given birth to a boy, and the boy had been registered as their own child, to avoid a complex procedure of adoption, and had been in their custody since then (records of 20 and 21 February 2013). As regards the alleged disappearance of the fourth applicant’s daughter, K., S.M. stated that he and his wife Zh.I. were the biological parents of a girl with the same first name, K., who had been born in 2006 and had died in 2008 of a disease in Kazakhstan (record of 28 February 2013). S.M. submitted a death certificate issued by the civil registry authorities in Shymkent in respect of a girl, K.M., who had died on 8 May 2008, aged one, in Shymkent, Kazakhstan.

90.  According to the records of interviews on 5 February 2013, the head of the Golyanovo district police department stated that no reports of confinement of workers at store N had been received except for the application lodged in May 2012 which had been withdrawn. D.Kh., the Golyanovo district police officer since January 2009, stated that as a neighbourhood police officer since March 2012 he had conducted inquiries relating to store N twice. Between March and May 2012, following an anonymous report questioning the legality of migrants’ work in the store, he had interviewed Ms L.A. and other workers, who had been in possession of all the necessary documents, and established nothing illegal. In May 2012, following a complaint by Ms Z.A.’s mother, he had visited store N, where, in the presence of Zh.I. and S.M., Ms Z.A. had asserted that she had a family and was doing well, and her mother had withdrawn her complaint. D.Kh. stated that the news about the confinement of workers in store N had surprised him. The workers had never complained, and he had never noticed any signs of violence on them during his regular visits.

91.  According to a record of the interview of Ms R.K., a Kazakhstani national, on 8 February 2013, she denied the allegations of forced labour, confinement and non-payment of salaries at store N. Similar statements were given by, among others, two individuals – one of whom stated that he was the father of Ms Z.A.’s child and the other the father of Ms L.A.’s child – and a number of other Kazakhstani nationals employed in store U.

92.  Ms L.A. and the fourth applicant, who had stayed in Moscow owing to the CAC’s assistance, were interviewed by the investigators in the presence of lawyers provided by the CAC on 18 and 26 February 2013 respectively. They reiterated their previous statements.

93.  The CAC provided assistance to the first applicant, the third applicant, Ms M.A., Ms Z.B. and Ms Z.E. to travel to Moscow from their home countries in order to participate in the inquiry into their complaints. A lawyer retained by the CAC was present during their interviews by the investigators.

94.  According to the record of the first applicant’s interview on 25 April 2013, she reiterated the submissions made in her application and recounted her abuse by the store owners, repeated rapes by male co-workers on Z.I.’s orders, her pregnancy as a result of a rape and the birth of her son.

95.  According to the record of the third applicant’s interview on 26 April 2013, she reiterated the submissions made in her application. The names of her co‑workers included those of the first and second applicants. She also recounted that in autumn 2006 she had run away and complained to the police. She had been returned to the store owners, who had punished her with severe beatings. The record of the third applicant’s interview by the CAC’s lawyer on 25 April 2013 in Moscow was also joined to the case file on the inquiry. The applicant detailed her ordeal. Against her will her hair had been cut short and had often been dyed to change colour, to make her less recognisable by the store customers. The store owners’ adult daughters had been present during her short stay in a clinic for a forced abortion. For that reason, the applicant had been unable to complain to a doctor who had examined her and noticed scars and bruises on her body. The applicant described damage to her health that she had suffered at the hands of the store owners. She had varicose vein disease on both legs as a result of carrying heavy loads. She had scars on her head and body as a result of constant beatings by Z.I., including with a rolling pin and a skewer. The applicant described a punishment to which she and her female co-workers had been subjected by one of the store owners’ adult daughters, who had kicked the victim between the legs which had been held apart. Then the victim had been stripped naked, doused with cold water and placed in a large freezer. Female workers had been subjected to rape as a punishment on Z.I.’s orders. The third applicant mentioned the second applicant’s name among the names of her co‑workers with whom she had been taken outside Moscow to the store owners’ dacha on the day of an expected visit by the police (on 30 October 2012, after the events at store N). Before sending her to Uzbekistan shortly afterwards, Z.I. had demanded that she sign a statement attesting that she had no complaints and warned her not to make any complaints in the future.

96.  A forensic medical examination of the third applicant carried out on 30 April 2013 in Moscow established the presence of multiple healing marks of old injuries on her body. It was not possible to establish whether she had had an abortion as alleged.

97.  On 26 April 2013 Ms M.A. reiterated her previous submissions to the investigator. She also complained that S.M. had raped her.

98.  On 29 April 2013 the second applicant was interviewed by an investigator from the Investigative Committee department for the East Administrative Circuit of Moscow, without a lawyer present (see paragraph 154 below). She denied that she and her sister (the first applicant) had been victims of the store owners’ criminal conduct, instead portraying R.M. as her benefactor and blaming her sister for groundless complaints and improper behaviour. The second applicant refused to disclose her current place of residence to the investigator under the pretext of hiding from her sister, stating that R.M. would be aware of her whereabouts.

99.  Information was obtained from the Moscow mobile phone operators that the fourth applicant and the other complainants had not been registered users of mobile phones.

100.  On 20 May 2013 Ms L.A. withdrew her application against the store owners, denying any criminal conduct on their part and explaining her earlier complaints by her wish to receive monetary compensation from them with the help of the CAC. She informed the investigator from the Preobrazhenskiy investigation unit about her departure for Uzbekistan. According to a record of Zh.I.’s interview by the Investigative Committee investigator on 9 April 2013, Zh.I. stated that she had held telephone conversations with Ms L.A., who had allegedly asked Zh.I. for money. According to the record of Ms Gannushkina’s interview by the Investigative Committee investigator on 30 September 2014, Ms Gannushkina stated that after her release Ms L.A. had hoped that the proceedings would not last long and that she would receive compensation for her work which Zh.I. owed her. Ms L.A. had later realised that this would not happen. Zh.I. had been offering the victims money for withdrawing their complaints. For example, the fourth applicant had received such a proposal over the phone in Ms Gannushkina’s presence. Ms Gannushkina therefore considered that Ms L.A. had not told the truth when denying the offences committed by the store owners.

101.  In June 2013 the investigator reported to the deputy head of the Investigative Committee department for the East Administrative Circuit that no facts in support of the applicants’ and the other women’s complaints had been established. Instead, it had been established that the CAC had been determined to keep providing the complainants with financial and other assistance until criminal proceedings were instituted, from grants received from the United States. The investigator proposed not to include that finding in an official decision. On 20 June 2013 the report was approved by the deputy head of the department. The Investigative Committee then carried out an inquiry to verify the legality of the CAC’s activities.

102.  On 4 and 6 June 2013 respectively Ms Z.B. and Ms Z.E. were interviewed in Moscow by the investigator. They reiterated their earlier submissions and had to reply to the investigator’s detailed questions about the assistance they had received from the CAC.

103.  According to the records of the fourth applicant’s questioning on 13 June 2013 in Moscow about the assistance she had received from the CAC, the investigator enquired how much cash she had received, from whom and for what purpose, and on what basis lawyers had been defending her interests. One of the questions was “why spend ... money gratuitously and irrationally for your needs?”

104.  On 30 September 2014 the Investigative Committee subjected Ms Gannushkina, as Chair of the CAC, to detailed questioning about the assistance provided to the applicants and other former workers of the Golyanovo stores. The investigators asked why the CAC had been spending considerable sums of money for the complainants’ needs and at no cost for them. Ms Gannushkina explained that the CAC was engaged in the protection of people whose rights had been violated, on a charitable basis, selecting cases representative of important issues for society as a whole. The complainants’ case concerned violations of Russian legislation and Articles 3 and 4 of the Convention and was extremely important. She wished that there would be no slaves in her country, regardless of religion, nationality or other status. The investigator enquired whether the complainants could have given false statements about offences committed against them to lawyers, and whether the lawyers invited by the CAC could have coerced the complainants into giving false statements for material gain. Ms Gannushkina replied that she had full confidence in the lawyers and the veracity of the complainants’ statements. She had seen the injuries to the victims’ bodies after their release and did not believe that their statements could be false. Neither the lawyers nor the CAC employees had any inappropriate interest in the case.

105.  On 27 February 2015 the police department of the East Administrative Circuit of Moscow informed the investigator that the results of internal inquiries carried out by the police department of the East Administrative Circuit and the Moscow Directorate General of Internal Affairs in respect of the Golyanovo district police officers’ alleged corruption had been set out in a report by the head of the Golyanovo police department dated 19 November 2012. According to the report, D.Kh., the Golyanovo neighbourhood police officer, had been interviewed and no corruption activities on his part had been established. As regards previous neighbourhood police officers, two administrative violations had been found to have been committed by Zh.I. and S.M., both relating to the sale of alcohol without required certificates. During the inspections of the store no complaints had been received from the workers.

106.  A number of neighbours and customers of store N and store U were interviewed in February 2015. They stated that they had not noticed anything suspicious.

107.  Also joined to the inquiry were documents relating to inspections of the Golyanovo stores by the Federal Migration Service, the Ministry for Emergency Situations and the Tax Service. In particular, on 17 October 2012 the Federal Migration Service for the East Administrative Circuit of Moscow had carried out unannounced inspections at the Golyanovo stores. In store N it had identified five Russian nationals and three Kazakhstani nationals and had found no violations. According to an inspector’s statements, at least three female sales assistants had been present in store U along with R.M. The women had not complained. There had been no signs of people living in the store. On 15 January 2013 R.M. had been fined for illegally employing an Azerbaijani national as a sales assistant. The inspector explained the delay in imposing the fine as a normal practice.

108.  Following the additional rounds of the preliminary inquiry the investigators invariably concluded that no facts in support of the complainants’ allegations had been established. Instead, it had been established that the women had had the objective opportunity to leave their workplace at any time, but had stayed there out of their personal interest in order to improve their material well‑being. One of the exits in store N used for deliveries had been locked by a bolt from the inside, and therefore all the workers had always been free to leave the store. No signs of using the store premises as permanent accommodation had been found. The complainants’ allegations had been contradicted by the other workers (see paragraph 91 above). Ms Z.A. had previously, in May 2012, denied any criminal conduct on the part of the store owners (see paragraphs 31, 71 and 91 above). No evidence of the abduction or removal of the children of the first and fourth applicants and Ms L.A. had been established, and nor had any evidence of violence against the children. The investigators later added that the first applicant’s allegations had been contradicted by her sister’s statements (see paragraphs 98 above), the third applicant’s allegation of forced abortion had not been confirmed by the forensic medical expert (see paragraph 96 above), and Ms L.A. had withdrawn her complaints (see paragraph 100 above).

109.  That reasoning underpinned multiple refusals to institute criminal proceedings in relation to the alleged offences against the applicants and five other women on the grounds of absence of the elements of offences under Article 117 (tormenting), Article 127 (unlawful deprivation of liberty), Article 127.1 (human trafficking), Article 127.2 (use of slave labour) and Article 131 (rape) of the Criminal Code in the actions of R.M., S.M. and Zh.I. It was also decided not to institute criminal proceedings against unidentified police officers of the Golyanovo district police department in the absence of the elements of an offence under Article 286 (abuse of authority) of the Criminal Code. The East Administrative Circuit prosecutor was informed of each such decision, notably the decisions of 28 February, 9 May and 21 June 2013, 27 September and 29 October 2014, and 21 January, 21 February, 26 March, 27 April and 3 June 2015.

110.  All the above-mentioned decisions were set aside by higher officials of the Investigative Committee for failure to establish the relevant circumstances, and additional rounds of the preliminary inquiry were ordered. In particular, on 27 March 2013 the decision of 28 February 2013 was set aside for failure to take proper measures, via an inter-State legal assistance request, in order to interview the first applicant, the third applicant, Ms Z.B. and Ms Z.E. On 27 August 2014 the refusal to institute criminal proceedings of 21 June 2013 was set aside for failure to take, inter alia, the following measures:

–  establishing the circumstances of the abduction, transfer and abuse of children, including the children of the first and fourth applicants and Ms L.A., and carrying out a forensic medical examination of those children;

–  carrying out a forensic medical examination of the fourth applicant and the other alleged victims of systematic beatings and rape;

–  conducting a forensic biological examination of a towel (with spots resembling blood) seized in store N on 30 October 2012 during the examination of the scene of the incident;

–  examining recordings from video-cameras seized in store N on 30 October 2012 during the examination of the scene of the incident; and

–  obtaining information about the results of the examination of the relevant complaints from the competent authorities of the complainants’ home countries.

111.  According to the inquiry progress report of 27 March 2015, the deficiencies identified on 27 August 2014 had still not been eliminated.

112.  On 13 January 2016 a deputy prosecutor of the East Administrative Circuit of Moscow set aside the most recent decision of 3 June 2015, noting that documents confirming salary payments and employment contracts had not been obtained, and ordered an additional inquiry. The applicants were not informed of any new developments.

113.  On 9 October 2013 the Preobrazhenskiy District Court of Moscow examined complaints lodged by the CAC’s lawyers on behalf of the fourth applicant, Ms Z.A. and Ms M.A. seeking a declaration that the inactivity of the Investigative Committee and its failure to carry out a proper inquiry into their complaints had been unlawful. In particular, they had complained that no inquiry had been conducted into the use of slave labour in respect of the fourth applicant, her systematic beatings, her son’s abuse and her daughter’s abduction. The District Court found no irregularities in the Investigative Committee’s response to the reports of the alleged crimes and dismissed the complaints.

114.  On 9 October 2015 the CAC’s lawyer, representing the first and fourth applicants, Z.B. and Z.E., lodged a court appeal against the investigator’s decision of 3 June 2015, arguing that the decision contained the same defects as the decisions that had been previously set aside. He noted, inter alia, that no information about the fourth applicant’s giving birth had been obtained from the maternity hospital in Moscow. No legal assessment had been made of the acknowledgment by Zh.I. and S.M. that foreign migrants had worked in their store without employment contracts or work permits. In blaming the victims for their failure to complain about their situation the authorities had not explained how the victims, who had worked and resided in Russia illegally, often without knowledge of Russian, could have protected their rights.

115.  On 19 January 2016 the Preobrazhenskiy District Court of Moscow decided not to examine the appeal because the investigator’s decision had already been set aside by the Investigative Committee. The complainants appealed, arguing that for many years the Investigative Committee had been failing to carry out an effective investigation, ignoring the deficiencies identified and instructions given by supervising bodies. By deciding not to examine their appeal the court had violated their right to judicial protection. On 23 May 2016 the Moscow City Court found no irregularities and dismissed the appeal.

116.  On 6 December 2016 polyclinic no. 69 in Moscow reported to the police that the fifth applicant had been examined that day and diagnosed with contusions of the head, right ear and thoracic cage.

117.  On 12 December 2016 a police officer of the Golyanovo district police department, who had conducted a preliminary inquiry, reported to his superior that a stranger who had seen the applicant in the street with visible injuries had contacted Alternativa, an organisation against slavery, whose representative had then found the applicant and taken her to the polyclinic, where she had received first aid and explained that she had been forcefully detained and beaten up. According to a doctor who had examined her, she had bruising of the right ear and the right temporal area and soreness in the right side of the thoracic cage. S.M.’s nephew had been interviewed. He had stated that the fifth applicant was his de facto wife and that she had left home after a quarrel between them. It was decided that the inquiry should be transferred to the Preobrazhenskiy investigation unit for a decision.

118.  On 27 December 2016 the fifth applicant came to the duty office of the Moscow Directorate General of Internal Affairs and lodged a criminal complaint about her exploitation and abuse in store N. She stated in her application that Zh.I., who had recruited her promising a monthly salary of RUB 30,000, had taken away her identity document, mobile phone and personal belongings upon her arrival in store N in May 2016 (at the age of 20). The store owners had held her in the store and forced her to work for 20 or 21 hours daily without days off, giving her appalling food. They had beaten her and forced her to drink vodka.

119.  On 28 December 2016 the fifth applicant requested the CAC’s assistance in holding her abusers responsible for her exploitation and in receiving compensation for her work at the store. She described being forced to carry 25 kg packages of vegetables and having severe back pain. She had been beaten by Zh.I. and her assistant, B. She had only been allowed a brief call to her mother once a month on speakerphone under Zh.I.’s control. On 17 September 2016 the applicant had escaped and made a living from small jobs. Zh.I. had found her and urged her to return to the store, threatening to report her to the police on account of her illegal migrant status and to falsely accuse her of stealing money. On 18 October 2016, seeing no way out of her situation, the applicant had returned to the store. Her beatings had resumed and become worse. On 5 December 2016 the applicant had managed to run away after being beaten. She had been helped by strangers to contact members of Alternativa, who had provided her with assistance and shelter, and helped her receive a certificate from the Kazakhstani embassy in Moscow enabling her to travel to Kazakhstan without a passport.

120.  On 28 December 2016 the fifth applicant left Russia. On 31 December 2016 she arrived in Shymkent and was reunited with her two‑year-old daughter and ailing mother.

121.  On 23 January 2017 the Kazakhstani Ombudsman alerted the Russian Ombudsman to reports by the media and the NGO Sana Sezim about the fifth applicant’s unlawful deprivation of liberty, exploitation and ill-treatment. The Ombudsman noted that in 2013 there had been reports of similar crimes committed against nationals of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan by the same individuals and their relatives in stores N and U in Moscow. There had been allegations of collusion between the store owners and the local police department, which had allegedly returned the escaped workers to their employers. In Kazakhstan, criminal proceedings had been initiated against the store owners (former Kazakhstani nationals who had obtained Russian citizenship). However, attempts to question them in Russia had failed as they had refused to give statements. In Russia, the decision of the Investigative Committee to initiate criminal proceedings had been set aside by the prosecutor’s office, and the Investigative Committee’s attempts to challenge the setting-aside decision had been unsuccessful. The applicants, assisted by NGOs, had exhausted all domestic remedies and applied to the European Court of Human Rights. The Ombudsman asked for assistance in providing the victims with redress and taking measures to prevent similar cases from happening.

122.  Decisions of the Kazakhstani investigating authorities enclosed with the Ombudsman’s letter (the most recent of which was dated 3 February 2014) indicated that criminal proceedings had been instituted in Kazakhstan in 2010 in respect of complaints lodged by the first applicant, and in 2013 in respect of complaints lodged by Z.B., Z.E., Z.A. and other former workers of stores N and U, as well as by the CAC in relation to the abducted children. In 2010 and 2011 requests for legal assistance had been forwarded to the Russian authorities. An inquiry by the Moscow Directorate General of Internal Affairs had established the identity of the store U manager R.M. A number of his workers had stated that they had been working in store U without coercion. In 2013 Z.I., who had changed her name to S.O., and R.M. had refused to give statements as witnesses on the grounds of the privilege against self-incrimination.

123.  On 30 January 2017 Novaya Gazeta published an interview with the fifth applicant, in which she related her ordeal. She stated, inter alia, that shortly after her arrival in store N she had learned that her former de facto husband, who was S.M.’s nephew, had owed a lot of money to S.M., and that she had had to repay his debt by working for S.M. All the workers, including a girl from Kyrgyzstan and two other women, had been subjected to round-the-clock video surveillance. They had had no possibility of taking a shower for months. They had been given appalling food once a day and had been hungry all the time. They had been beaten and forced to drink vodka, which had made them temporarily forget their suffering and obey instructions. The store owners had had good contacts in the local police, who had warned them about any forthcoming inspection.

124.  On 7 February 2017 an interview with the fifth applicant was published in Russian by the Kazakhstani newspaper Yuzhnyy Kazakhstan. The fifth applicant recounted her exploitation and abuse, including rapes, in store N. She had serious health problems and needed medical treatment which she could not afford. Representatives of the Kazakhstani NGO Sana Sezim, which provided assistance to the fifth applicant, were also interviewed. They deplored the lack of any action by the Russian law-enforcement authorities to stop the I. sisters’ exploitation of migrant workers. Since 2008 a total of 14 such victims from Shymkent had been provided with assistance.

125.  On 20 February 2017 the Russian Ombudsman transferred the Kazakhstani Ombudsman’s request to the Moscow deputy prosecutor. The prosecutor’s offices of Moscow and the East Administrative Circuit of Moscow transferred the information to the Golyanovo district police department for examination.

126.  On 9 February and 5 March 2017 a neighbourhood police officer of the Golyanovo district police department issued refusals to institute criminal proceedings in relation to allegations of forced confinement of workers at store N, store U and one other store in the Golyanovo district, on the grounds that unspecified administrators and store assistants had denied those allegations. According to the record of his interview on 3 February 2017 by the Golyanovo neighbourhood police officer, S.M. stated that he was the manager of store N and that in 2016 he had employed the fifth applicant in his store at the request of his nephew. He denied committing any crimes against her. On 9 March 2017 the Preobrazhenskiy inter-district prosecutor’s office set aside both decisions as based on an incomplete inquiry and ordered an additional round of the preliminary inquiry.

127.  On 30 June 2017 the Preobrazhenskiy investigation unit transferred the case file concerning the fifth applicant to the Golyanovo district police department for examination, and on 2 July and 10 November 2017 the police department issued refusals to initiate criminal proceedings, relying on statements of S.M. and Zh.I. denying the fifth applicant’s allegations.

128.  The CAC’s lawyer, who represented the fifth applicant, lodged court appeals against the Golyanovo police decisions. On 4 August 2017 and 5 February 2018 respectively the Preobrazhenskiy inter‑district prosecutor’s office set aside those decisions and ordered additional rounds of the preliminary inquiry. On 13 September 2017 and 22 February 2018 the Preobrazhenskiy District Court of Moscow accordingly declined to examine the applicant’s appeals on the grounds that the relevant decisions had already been set aside.

129.  On 13 March 2018 an investigator from the Investigative Committee department for the East Administrative Circuit of Moscow ordered a forensic medical examination of the fifth applicant’s injuries. There is no indication in the case file that the examination was carried out.

130.  In the most recent refusal to institute criminal proceedings dated 11 April 2018 an investigator from the Preobrazhenskiy investigation unit stated that the doctor who had examined the fifth applicant on 6 December 2016 had been interviewed and confirmed the recorded injuries. The applicant was abroad and could not be interviewed. There were no indications of the elements of crimes under Article 117 (tormenting), Article 127 (unlawful deprivation of liberty), Article 127.1 (human trafficking) and Article 127.2 (use of slave labour) of the Criminal Code in the actions of the alleged offenders, whose identities had not been established.

131.  On 1 June 2021 the fourth applicant, represented by the CAC’s lawyer, made a fresh application to the police, reiterating her previous complaint about her daughter K.’s alleged abduction by Zh.I. during her exploitation by Zh.I. and S.M. The applicant had difficulties remembering K.’s date of birth and stated that K. had possibly been born in September 2004. The police interviewed S.M., who denied the allegations of exploitation and stated that he was unaware of the existence of the fourth applicant’s daughter. He claimed that the fourth applicant had been slandering him in order to earn money by attracting media attention under the guidance of civil society activists.

132.  On 10 June 2021 a neighbourhood police officer from the Golyanovo district police department issued a refusal to institute criminal proceedings for absence of any evidence that an offence under Article 126 of the Criminal Code (abduction) had been committed. The decision was approved by a deputy head of the neighbourhood police officers’ unit of the Golyanovo district police department.

133.  On 10 September 2021 the fourth applicant appealed against that decision to the Preobrazhenskiy inter‑district prosecutor’s office, arguing that the police had failed to carry out a comprehensive inquiry. In particular, nothing had been done to establish the facts concerning her daughter’s birth in the maternity hospital in Moscow. She received no reply.

134.  The applicants submitted the following additional information to the Court.

135.  On 17 November 2008 the Moscow Departments of the Consumer Market and Services and of the Federal Service for Supervision of Consumer Rights Protection and Human Welfare carried out an inspection in store N following a complaint from residents of the apartment block in the basement of which the store was located. In particular, they complained that despite the advertised working hours of 8 a.m. to 11 p.m., the store was open from 7 a.m. until 2 a.m., selling not only groceries but also alcoholic products, which attracted many alcohol consumers. The sales assistants’ appearance raised doubts about their compliance with sanitary requirements. On 21 November 2008 the Golyanovo District Administration in the East Administrative Circuit of the Moscow City Government informed the inhabitants of the results of the inspection. All sales assistants were reported to be in possession of regular professional health cards (санитарные книжки). The head of the Golyanovo district police department had been asked to exercise particular control over restoring public order and to ensure that the store closed at 11 p.m. The store owner had been warned of the potential revocation of its licence for selling alcohol.

136.  Following the third applicant’s criminal complaint in Uzbekistan, on 14 June 2013 the Bostanlyk District Criminal Court declared F.K., an Uzbekistani national, wanted and ordered her detention. On 3 June 2016 she was detained in Russia. She was subsequently extradited to Uzbekistan.

137.  On 10 March 2017 the Bostanlyk District Criminal Court convicted F.K. of aggravated trafficking in human beings. The court established, inter alia, that in December 2005 F.K., together with her sister M. and acquaintances “Zhanar” and “Rashid” (whose identities could not be established by the Uzbekistani investigating authorities), having deceived the third applicant into believing that she would get a good job in Moscow, had trafficked the third applicant to Russia, where she had been exploited and her labour had been used free of charge until 2 November 2012. Upon the applicant’s arrival in Moscow, she had been picked up by “Rashid”, who had taken her to store U, where she had been met by “Zhanar” and M. F.K. had handed over the applicant’s passport to “Zhanar”, received remuneration for recruiting the applicant and returned to Uzbekistan. “Zhanar”, the owner of the store, and M. had taken advantage of the applicant’s vulnerability due to her being in a foreign country without her passport, and had put physical and psychological pressure on her. The court referred to the results of a forensic medical examination of the applicant in Uzbekistan on 4 December 2012, which had recorded multiple scars and other signs of old injuries on the applicant’s body, found to have been inflicted by hard blunt objects. The court exempted F.K. from punishment as a result of an amnesty.

138.  In 2002 the media reported the arrest of S.I., the eldest of the I. sisters. According to an article published on the NEWSru.com website on 31 January 2002, the investigation established that S.I. had exploited minor girls from Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan in her convenience stores on Uralskaya, Novosibirskaya and Dekabristov Streets in Moscow. A girl had escaped and had been placed in a temporary detention centre for minors. Her examination had revealed about a dozen wounds on the head, multiple scars on the arms and many puncture wounds on the chest. The girl had told the police that eight more girls had been confined in the basement of the store on Uralskaya Street. The police had later found eight tortured and terrified girls who had been enslaved by S.I. in the storage room of the store on Uralskaya Street. The girls had been taken to hospital. S.I.’s practices had been in the media spotlight previously. In 1998 one of her slaves had run away and had been placed in a temporary detention centre for minors. Even experienced police officers had been shaken by the scars and wounds on the girl’s body. S.I. had not been prosecuted. In 2000 the body of a girl stabbed with a knife had been found in the storage room of S.I.’s store, where girls from Uzbekistan had been enslaved and worked as loaders. One of those girls had given self‑incriminating statements and no criminal proceedings had been instituted against S.I.

139.  According to an article published on the website of the Moskovskiy Komsomolets newspaper on 17 February 2002, S.I. and her husband had moved to Moscow from Kazakhstan ten years previously and had soon been joined there by her two sisters. They had opened stores in which they had employed Kazakhstani and Uzbekistani nationals. In 1997 the police had been alerted about exploitation in inhuman conditions and violence against migrants in those stores. In 1998 criminal proceedings had been initiated against S.I.; the victims had been released and returned home. Soon afterwards, however, the victims’ parents had withdrawn the complaints against S.I., apparently after having been paid by her. The case had been closed. The publication gave the detailed story of a girl who had managed to escape from S.I.’s store and whose case had given rise to criminal proceedings against S.I. in 2002, as well as the stories of her female co‑workers from the same village in Uzbekistan. They had complained that S.I. and her sisters had beaten them. Operative officers from the Moscow criminal search department had released the victims from the stores belonging to S.I. and her sisters, who had used threats and promises of money to prevent the victims from complaining. The Butyrskaya inter‑district prosecutor’s office had investigated a criminal case opened against S.I. under Article 117 of the Criminal Code (tormenting). On 4 November 2002 the Butyrskiy District Court of Moscow convicted S.I. and sentenced her to five years’ imprisonment. On 30 September 2003 the Russian President ordered that S.I. be pardoned and her imprisonment be reduced by half.

140.  On 22 September 2021 the Preobrazhenskiy District Court of Moscow convicted M.M. (son of Zh.I. and S.M.) and two other individuals of abduction (Article 126 of the Criminal Code) in store N and of the use of slave labour (Article 127.2 of the Criminal Code) aggravated by violence, committed from 12.10 p.m. until 2.08 p.m. on 22 May 2019 against three local under-age boys. M.M. was sentenced to six and a half years’ imprisonment. On 22 March 2022 the Moscow City Court upheld the judgment on appeal. The judgment referred to statements by Zh.I. (who had changed her name to Zh.K.) that a local operative police officer had called her upon receipt of the victims’ complaints, and she had been invited to “resolve the issue” sooner rather than later, otherwise the Investigative Committee would arrive and there would be problems. The judgment also cited statements of the victims’ family members that during the preliminary investigation of the case Zh.I. had approached the victims’ families, offering them money in return for withdrawing their complaints or altering their testimonies.

141.  According to statements of 18 October 2022 by Ms V.A., during her work as chief psychologist at the IOM rehabilitation centre for human trafficking victims in Moscow, in 2008 and 2009 she had worked with several women, nationals of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, who had escaped from stores in the Golyanovo district of Moscow.

142.  All of them had previously complained to the local police asking for help. In one case the police had helped the victim to regain her liberty and had not returned her to the store. In all other cases the police had contacted the stores and interviewed the store workers, who would accuse the women who had escaped of stealing and other wrongdoing. None of the cases had been pursued by the local police, possibly because of corruption.

143.  All those women were diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. Their exploitation in the Golyanovo stores had been particularly cruel. They had been subjected to all means of control known in human trafficking situations. Their identity documents had been taken away from them. They had been confined in semi-basement premises that were unfit for living, had no windows and were most likely cold, where they had spent all the time without seeing daylight. They had had no personal belongings or any warm or other clothes except for what they had on them. They had been deprived of personal space and restricted in satisfying their basic physiological needs. Their nutrition had been of appalling quality. They had been forced to work for 20 hours daily. The victims had been subjected to isolation, being prohibited from talking to each other, to customers and to their families. The victims had been forced to apply make‑up and to dress in a certain way. Their names had been changed. Their conduct had been closely controlled. The victims had been subjected to physical violence and serious threats such as death threats. There had been demonstrations of violence through the punishment of others in their presence. The victims had also been forced to inflict violence on others. They had been subjected to sexual violence and exploitation. Living in such conditions for a long time and being subjected to so many means of coercion meant losing strength to put up any resistance and the ability to come up with, for example, a plan for escape. The result was extreme fear and severe exhaustion.

144.  There had been cases of reproductive violence in the Golyanovo stores. Female workers’ children had been taken away from them. This was an additional means of control. Victims often considered threats to their children to have more impact on them than threats to themselves. In the Golyanovo stores both victims and their children had been under the total control of criminals. The subsequent situation of the children who had been taken away from their mothers could have created unbearable anxieties and traumatic consequences.

145.  Traumas related to sexual violence were especially damaging, resulting in the partial destruction of a victim’s personality. A woman stopped feeling as though she belonged to herself with the ability to dispose of her body and her life. There could be various forms of psychological defence, for example dissociation, or separation from one’s own body. Reproductive violence had similar effects. Recovery from this required assistance over a very long period.

146.  It was the recurrent attitude of the police in Russia to consider that victims of human trafficking were free to leave if they did not like their situation. There was no understanding of psychological means of maintaining people as victims. There were mostly male police officers who did not understand gender violence, post-traumatic and medical consequences and the need for assistance after release. In addition to gender discrimination, there was discrimination on the grounds of migrant status. While police officers could in some situations have empathy with Russian women who were victims of violence, their attitude to female migrants was different. The police had a tendency to blame them for what had happened to them on account of their belonging to a different culture.

147.  The domestic legislation made it difficult to help migrants who were victims of human trafficking. They were threatened with deportation owing to their illegal status. Providing them with accommodation, for example, was considered to amount to aiding illegal migration, which could and did entail liability. Organisations willing to help them experienced enormous difficulties. There was no mechanism for legalising the victims’ stay in Russia during criminal investigations. Their vulnerability before exploitation, such as unemployment and the lack of means to support a family, was further aggravated by post-traumatic stress disorder. After release the victims were unable to return to normal life and needed serious long-term assistance for rehabilitation (up to seven years on average according to some studies), which was almost impossible in Russia. There was no law on combating human trafficking and no support from the State.

148.  The applicants submitted an expert report prepared by Women’s Link Worldwide, a transnational NGO working to uphold women’s rights. The report highlighted the gendered aspects of trafficking in women and girls, such as: vulnerabilities to being trafficked; the different recruitment methods employed by traffickers in relation to women and men; the different purposes of exploitation, where women and girls were disproportionately affected by trafficking for sexual exploitation, and the different forms of violence and coercion used by traffickers, which included gender-based violence, sexual violence and reproductive violence; and the impacts and consequences of being trafficked, especially with regard to reproductive autonomy, pregnancy and other impacts on women’s sexual and reproductive rights, as well as stigma. The report explained, inter alia, that the use of women’s reproductive capacity, including by means of forced pregnancies and abortions, as well as the removal of children born in captivity, were, along with rape, forms of coercion and control and a strategy to further exploit women. Referring to the General Recommendations and Views of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (“the CEDAW Committee”), the case-law of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, publications of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and academic research, the report also emphasised the importance of addressing intersectional discrimination in the determination of human-trafficking cases.

149.  In her statements of 5 April 2016, the first applicant reiterated the submissions she had made to the Russian investigating authorities and related her ordeal in detail. In particular, she stated that during her stay in hospital after the birth of her son, Z.I. and R.M. had threatened her with retaliation against her sister (the second applicant) in the event that she complained to the hospital staff about their situation.

150.  In her statements of 5 April 2016, the second applicant recounted the circumstances of her and her sister’s (the first applicant’s) recruitment by R.M.’s relatives in Kazakhstan and their transfer to store U in Moscow, organised by R.M. and Z.I. Upon her arrival in store U, shortly after her sister, the store owners had taken away her identity document. She had been ordered to help a sales assistant, to unload deliveries, to clean the store, to cook and to look after the store owners’ child. She had sometimes been taken to stores belonging to Zh.I. and S.I. to work. She had been forbidden to talk to and approach her sister. She had been subjected to regular beatings, including collective beatings by her co‑workers on the store owners’ orders. Her requests for medical aid had been refused, for example when her arm had become swollen after beatings with a stick or when she had been unable to walk because of pain in the leg. Every two to three days the workers had been forced to drink vodka. The second applicant had refused. She had been beaten up and force‑fed vodka, which had provoked vomiting.

151.  After her sister’s first escape, the store owners had taken the second applicant to the police station, coercing her into denying her sister’s allegations by threatening to kill them both or to put them in jail. A police officer had let R.M. and Z.I. leave with the applicants, who had then been punished by beatings. The same police officer had afterwards brought vodka to the store, which had been hidden from inspections and sold at a cheap price.

152.  After her sister’s final escape, the second applicant’s hair had been shaved against her will to make her less recognisable and she had been ordered to do work not involving direct contact with customers, such as working in storage rooms and going to a bread factory and loading bread under the supervision of the store owners’ daughters.

153.  Shortly after the events of 30 October 2012, A.S., the store owners’ daughter, had taken the applicant to the Kazakhstani consulate in Moscow, where she had received a passport. She had been ordered to look after A.S.’s children during a week-long trip to Egypt by A.S.’s family at the beginning of 2013.

154.  In April 2013 the store owners had learned about the first applicant’s visit to Moscow to pursue her criminal complaint. They had taken the second applicant to their dacha outside Moscow to hide her. On 29 April 2013 R.M. had taken her to an official to give statements. Z.I. had instructed her beforehand only to repeat what R.M. told her to say. The second applicant had given statements in R.M.’s presence and as instructed by him (see paragraph 98 above). Immediately after the interview R.M. and A.S. had taken the applicant to an airport so that she could be sent to Shymkent (the applicant produced a copy of an air ticket). At the airport she had met her sister by chance. R.M. had seen them and called over to the second applicant, ordering her by threats to leave the airport. She had obeyed and had been taken to A.S.’s flat, where she had been held and made to work for several days before being taken by A.S. to Shymkent, into the custody of R.M.’s relatives (who had recruited the applicants in the first place). The applicant had managed to reunite with her sister later that year. They had received assistance from the NGO Sana Sezim and lodged complaints with the Kazakhstani police. The applicant had received threats and had been hiding from the store owners’ relatives.

155.  The second applicant had left Russia pregnant as a result of a rape by a relative of Z.I. In autumn 2013 the second applicant had given birth to a girl.

156.  In her statements of 6 April 2016, the third applicant reiterated her submissions to the Russian investigating authorities and recounted her ordeal.

157.  On 21 September 2022 the third applicant provided additional medical documents to the Court. Following repeated traumatic head injuries as a result of the beatings endured during her exploitation in store U, her examination in Uzbekistan had revealed marked cerebral changes (electroencephalogram examination of 9 November 2012), atrophic changes in the frontal lobes of the cerebral hemispheres and sebaceous cysts on the head requiring surgery (examination of 16 December 2019). The applicant had financial difficulties and could not afford to pay for her medical treatment.

158.  In her statements of 22 April 2016, the fourth applicant recounted her exploitation by Zh.I. and S.M., the violence and rapes to which she had been subjected and the removal of her children. She had various health conditions and memory problems.

159.  According to the fourth applicant’s statements of 8 September 2022, she was living in Moscow, still determined to pursue her criminal complaint. She was unemployed and was experiencing financial hardship. The CAC, which had helped her previously, was now having financial difficulties. The applicant had memory problems, for example difficulty in remembering the date of her initial arrival in Moscow or her daughter K.’s date of birth. The fourth applicant had various health conditions, in particular a neurological disorder causing her eyelids to close uncontrollably, which required treatment she could not afford. She needed money to pay for her son’s medical treatment. She hoped that an investigation would be carried out and she would be able to find her daughter K. alive or to find her place of burial and have her remains identified by a DNA test.

160.  The fourth applicant gave interviews to journalists relating her exploitation and abuse in the Golyanovo stores, including rapes and the removal of her children, which were published in the Russian media, in particular on 28 July 2021 in the magazine Holod and on 30 June 2022 in Pravmir. Another article about the applicant was published on 28 August 2022 in Meduza.

161.  According to the fifth applicant’s statements of 12 August 2022, after her return to Kazakhstan her story had been reported in the news. Subsequently journalists had been reluctant to cover her story, being afraid of retaliation, which the authors of the initial reports had experienced. The applicant had been unable to find employment for two years. She had received help from the NGO Sana Sezim and had lived in a shelter, receiving therapy from a psychologist and medical treatment. She noted that learning some Russian had been the only benefit of her experience. The applicant was in a situation of financial hardship and feared retaliation by the store owners. She deplored the lack of any progress in the investigation into her complaints in Russia and Kazakhstan alike.

RELEVANT LEGAL FRAMEWORK AND PRACTICE

162.  Article 22 of the Constitution provides, in so far as relevant:

“1.  Everyone has the right to liberty and personal integrity.”

163.  Article 37 of the Constitution provides, in so far as relevant:

“2.  Forced labour is prohibited.”

164.  Articles 126 and 127 of the Criminal Code made abduction and unlawful deprivation of liberty punishable by prison terms.

165.  Article 127.1, introduced in December 2003, read at the material time (as amended by the Federal Law of 27 December 2009) as follows:

Trafficking in human beings

“1.  The purchase and sale of a human being, other transactions with respect to a human being, as well as recruiting, transporting, transferring, harbouring or receiving a human being for the purpose of his or her exploitation,

shall be punishable by deprivation of liberty for a term of up to six years.

2.  The same acts committed:

(a)  in respect of two or more persons;

(b)  in respect of a person known to be a minor;

(c)  by a person through his or her official position;

(d)  by moving the victim across the State border of the Russian Federation or illegally keeping him or her abroad;

(e)  using forged documents, or seizing, concealing or destroying documents certifying the identity of the victim;

(f)  with the use of force or with the threat of using force;

(g)  for the purpose of harvesting the victim’s organs and tissues;

(h)  with respect to a person who is known by the guilty person to be in a helpless state or is materially or otherwise dependent on the guilty person;

(i)  with respect to a woman who is known by the guilty person to be pregnant,

shall be punishable by deprivation of liberty for a term from three to ten years, with or without restriction of liberty for a term of up to two years.

3.  Acts referred to in paragraphs 1 and 2 of this Article:

(a)  which have entailed the victim’s death by negligence, the infliction of major damage to the victim’s health or other grave consequences;

(b)  committed in a way posing danger to the life or health of many people;

(c)  committed by an organised group,

shall be punishable by deprivation of liberty for a term from eight to fifteen years with or without restriction of liberty for a term of up to two years.

Note. ...

2.  The exploitation of a person shall mean in this Article the use of engagement in prostitution by other persons and other forms of sexual exploitation, slave labour (or services), or servitude (подневольное состояние).”

166.  Article 127.2, also introduced in December 2003, read at the material time (as amended by the Federal Law of 27 December 2009) as follows:

Use of slave labour

“1.  Using the labour of a person in respect of whom authority inherent in the right of ownership is exercised, where the person cannot refuse to carry out work (or services) for reasons outside his or her control,

shall be punishable by deprivation of liberty for the same term.

2.  The same act committed:

(a)  in respect of two or more persons;

(b)  in respect of a person known to be a minor;

(c)  by a person through his or her official position;

(d)  with the use of, or the threat of using, blackmail or violence;

(e)  with the seizure, concealment or destruction of documents certifying the identity of the victim,

shall be punishable by deprivation of liberty for a term of three years to ten years.

3.  Acts referred to in paragraphs 1 and 2 of this Article which have entailed the victim’s death by negligence, the infliction of major damage to the victim’s health or other grave consequences, or which have been committed by an organised group,

shall be punishable by deprivation of liberty for a term of from eight to fifteen years, with or without restriction of liberty for a term of up to one year.”

167.  Articles 127.1 and 127.2 were amended in 2011 and 2012 successively to introduce alternative punishment in the form of compulsory labour or additional punishment in the form of deprivation of the right to hold certain offices or to engage in certain activities. The term “a person known to be a minor” was replaced with “a minor”.

168.  In its Ruling no. 58 of 24 December 2019, the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation provided guidance to the lower courts on the application of Article 127.1. In particular, victims’ awareness of the nature of the acts being committed against them, as well as their consent to those acts, were irrelevant for the classification of such acts as trafficking in human beings.

169.  For the relevant provisions concerning a preliminary (also called “pre‑investigation”) inquiry and a criminal investigation and the difference between the two, see Lyapin v. Russia (no. 46956/09, §§ 96-102, 24 July 2014) and Samesov v. Russia (no. 57269/14, §§ 40-41, 20 November 2018).

170.  The Code of Criminal Procedure (Articles 453-59) established the procedure for inter-State requests for legal assistance on the basis of international agreements or the principle of reciprocity. Witnesses, victims and their representatives could be summoned to appear voluntarily to conduct procedural activities on the territory of the Russian Federation (Article 456). The Code envisaged the prosecution of Russian nationals who had committed offences on the territory of a foreign State and had returned to Russia, as well as the possibility of instituting criminal proceedings against such individuals and carrying out a criminal investigation based on material submitted by the foreign State (Article 459).

171.  In 2005 the International Labour Office published a study[3] as a result of its pilot research on migration, trafficking and forced labour in Russia launched in 2003. It reported, inter alia, as follows:

“Following Russia’s ratification of the Palermo Protocol, a working group for the development of a draft federal law on ‘Combating Human Trafficking’ was created ... under the Committee on Legislation of the State Duma, and was composed of representatives of legislative and executive authorities, non-governmental and international organizations as well as scientists. A draft law was developed and submitted to the State Duma for consideration on 10 December 2002.

The law details legal and institutional instruments for counteracting trafficking in the Russian Federation, and the way in which these instruments will be coordinated by government authorities, civil society and other actors in this field. It would also establish a legal status for persons who fall victim to human trafficking, and establish State assistance for such persons. Under the law, persons coerced into labour, debt bondage, bonded labour or other forms of severe exploitation would be considered victims of human trafficking and be protected by the State. Such persons would receive legal, psychological and medical support, as well as social protection. Moreover, victims would be accommodated in special shelters and support centres. Assistance would be provided for reintegration into the family, as well as into society as a whole. The draft also includes measures that hold accountable the exploiters of victims of forced labour.

Unfortunately, the review of the draft law was deferred ...”

No such federal law on combating human trafficking was passed in Russia.

172.  In 2004 the Federal Law on State protection of victims, witnesses and other participants in criminal proceedings was enacted. It established the State Programme for the Safety of Victims, Witnesses and other Participants in Criminal Proceedings. It had no specific provisions concerning victims of human trafficking.

173.  At the material time, acts enabling foreign nationals’ illegal stay in Russia were punishable under Article 322.1 of the Criminal Code by prison terms. The provision of housing or other services to a foreign national illegally present in Russia was an administrative offence under Article 18.9 of the Code of Administrative Offences. Under Article 18.8 of the Code of Administrative Offences, a foreign national illegally present in Russia might be subject to removal from Russia.

174.  The relevant provisions of international treaties and related material were cited in Siliadin v. France (no. 73316/01, §§ 50-51, ECHR 2005‑VII), Rantsev v. Cyprus and Russia (no. 25965/04, §§ 137-55 and 158‑74, 7 January 2010) and S.M. v. Croatia ([GC], no. 60561/14, §§ 109-15, 119‑25, 129-31, 133-36, 138-71 and 185-87, 25 June 2020).

175.  In particular, Article 3 of the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons Especially Women and Children (2237 UNTS 319 – “the Palermo Protocol”, signed and ratified by Russia on 16 December 2000 and 26 May 2004 respectively), supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (2000), reads as follows:

“For the purposes of this Protocol:

(a)  ‘Trafficking in persons’ shall mean the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons, by means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs;

(b)  The consent of a victim of trafficking in persons to the intended exploitation set forth in subparagraph (a) of this article shall be irrelevant where any of the means set forth in subparagraph (a) have been used;

(c)  The recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of a child for the purpose of exploitation shall be considered ‘trafficking in persons’ even if this does not involve any of the means set forth in subparagraph (a) of this article;

(d)  ‘Child’ shall mean any person under eighteen years of age.”

176.  Assistance and protection for victims of trafficking is dealt with in Article 6, which provides as follows:

“1.  In appropriate cases and to the extent possible under its domestic law, each State Party shall protect the privacy and identity of victims of trafficking in persons, including, inter alia, by making legal proceedings relating to such trafficking confidential.

2.  Each State Party shall ensure that its domestic legal or administrative system contains measures that provide to victims of trafficking in persons, in appropriate cases:

(a)  Information on relevant court and administrative proceedings;

(b)  Assistance to enable their views and concerns to be presented and considered at appropriate stages of criminal proceedings against offenders, in a manner not prejudicial to the rights of the defence.

3.  Each State Party shall consider implementing measures to provide for the physical, psychological and social recovery of victims of trafficking in persons, including, in appropriate cases, in cooperation with non-governmental organizations, other relevant organizations and other elements of civil society, and, in particular, the provision of:

(a)  Appropriate housing;

(b)  Counselling and information, in particular as regards their legal rights, in a language that the victims of trafficking in persons can understand;

(c)  Medical, psychological and material assistance; and

(d)  Employment, educational and training opportunities.

4.  Each State Party shall take into account, in applying the provisions of this article, the age, gender and special needs of victims of trafficking in persons, in particular the special needs of children, including appropriate housing, education and care.

5.  Each State Party shall endeavour to provide for the physical safety of victims of trafficking in persons while they are within its territory.

6.  Each State Party shall ensure that its domestic legal system contains measures that offer victims of trafficking in persons the possibility of obtaining compensation for damage suffered.”

177.  Article 7 of the Palermo Protocol calls on each State Party to consider adopting legislative or other appropriate measures that permit victims of trafficking in persons to remain in its territory, temporarily or permanently, in appropriate cases.

178.  Article 9 of the Palermo Protocol, on the prevention of trafficking in persons, provides, in particular:

“1.  States Parties shall establish comprehensive policies, programmes and other measures:

(a)  To prevent and combat trafficking in persons; and

(b)  To protect victims of trafficking in persons, especially women and children, from revictimization.

2.  States Parties shall endeavour to undertake measures such as research, information and mass media campaigns and social and economic initiatives to prevent and combat trafficking in persons.

3.  Policies, programmes and other measures established in accordance with this article shall, as appropriate, include cooperation with non-governmental organizations, other relevant organizations and other elements of civil society.”

179.  Article 10 provides, in particular, as follows:

“2.  States Parties shall provide or strengthen training for law enforcement, immigration and other relevant officials in the prevention of trafficking in persons. The training should focus on methods used in preventing such trafficking, prosecuting the traffickers and protecting the rights of the victims, including protecting the victims from the traffickers. The training should also take into account the need to consider human rights and child- and gender-sensitive issues and it should encourage cooperation with non-governmental organizations, other relevant organizations and other elements of civil society.”

180.  Article 14 reads, in particular, as follows:

“2.  The measures set forth in this Protocol shall be interpreted and applied in a way that is not discriminatory to persons on the ground that they are victims of trafficking in persons. The interpretation and application of those measures shall be consistent with internationally recognized principles of non-discrimination.”

181.  An updated legislative guide on the Palermo Protocol, published by UNODC in 2020, explains that trafficking in persons consists of three basic elements, each of which must be taken from a list set out in the definition in Article 3, sub-paragraph (a), of the Protocol:

“(a)  the act of recruitment, transportation, transfer, harbouring or receipt of persons;

(b)  that the act be accomplished by the means of the threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power or of a position of vulnerability, or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person;

(c)  and that the act also be done for the purpose of exploitation, which includes, at a minimum, the exploitation of the prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labour or services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs.”

Each of the elements is explained in the guide. As regards the means element, the guide states, in particular, the following on the abuse of a position of vulnerability:

“105.  The existence of vulnerability is best assessed on a case-by-case basis, taking into consideration the personal, situational or circumstantial situation of the alleged victim. ... Situational vulnerability may relate to a person being irregularly in a foreign country in which he or she is socially or linguistically isolated. Circumstantial vulnerability may relate to a person’s unemployment or economic destitution. ...

106.  Such vulnerabilities can be pre-existing and can also be created by the trafficker. Pre-existing vulnerability may relate (but not be limited) to poverty; mental or physical disability; youth or old age; gender; pregnancy; culture; language; belief; family situation or irregular status. Created vulnerability may relate (but not be limited) to social, cultural or linguistic isolation; irregular status; ...

107.  ... It is further agreed that factors shaping vulnerability to trafficking tend to impact differently and disproportionately on groups that already lack power and status in society, including women, children, minorities, migrants, refugees, and internally displaced persons. ...

108.  Abuse of a position of vulnerability occurs when an individual’s personal, situational or circumstantial vulnerability is intentionally used or otherwise taken advantage of. An Interpretative Note to article 3 subparagraph (a) explains that ‘[t]he reference to the abuse of a position of vulnerability is understood to refer to any situation in which the person involved has no real and acceptable alternative but to submit to the abuse involved.’... This describes the effect of the behaviour by the accused on the person to whom it is directed at.

109.  The 2013 UNODC Issue Paper on Abuse of a position of vulnerability and other means within the definition of trafficking in persons further concluded that this phrase (along with ‘abuse of power’ and ‘the giving and receiving of payments to secure the consent of a person having control over another person’) was left deliberately broad and undefined in order to ‘ensure that all the different and subtle means by which an individual can be moved, placed or maintained in a situation of exploitation were captured.’...

110.  Vulnerability and its abuse are sometimes used as a subsidiary means to substantiate other means. For example, deception may take place through the abuse of a position of vulnerability, where a less vulnerable person would not have been deceived. A position of vulnerability can also explain why a victim does not identify as a victim and might appear to consent to trafficking, but still has the right to assistance and protection. ...”

182.  The guide notes as follows on non-discrimination:

“63.  The link between discrimination and trafficking lies in the fact that measures taken by States to prevent and suppress trafficking can perpetuate discrimination or violate the prohibition against discrimination. This is particularly acute in cases involving non-nationals and in the context of gender-based discrimination. Even if they are outside their country of residence, international law is clear that victims of trafficking in persons cannot be discriminated against simply because they are non‑nationals ...

65.  It is widely accepted that the principle of non-discrimination extends to indirect discrimination, where a practice or requirement is neutral on the face but impacts disproportionately upon particular groups. ...”

183.  The guide states the following on servitude:

“135.  The terms ‘practices similar to slavery’ and ‘servitude’ are not defined in international law. Servitude, a term that is also used in article 8 paragraph 2 of the International Covenant for Civil and Political Rights, ... generally includes egregious exploitation of one person over another that is in the nature of slavery but does not reach the very high threshold of slavery. ...”

184.  The Legislative Guide states the following on the role of “consent”:

“147.  The drafters of the Protocol were highly conscious of the danger that consent would become the first line of defence for those accused of trafficking offences, most particularly in cases where victims may have consented to certain conduct that may be linked to the commission of the crime. For example, they may have consented to travel to another location or to have engaged in a particular type of work but were unaware of the intended exploitation. This danger was considered particularly acute because the Protocol seeks to capture more subtle means of control that could be masked by apparent consent. In cases where the victim consented to the intended exploitation, this fact should not be used to defend or excuse the crime. This is because both the definition of trafficking in persons in article 3 and the obligation to criminalize it, in article 5, make clear that consent has no bearing on establishing whether or not trafficking in persons occurred.

148.  Article 3 subparagraph (c) of the Trafficking in Persons Protocol (discussed in the following section) further makes the consent of a child irrelevant because children are seen as lacking the capacity to consent. Article 3 subparagraph (c) unequivocally rejects the relevance of consent to the offence of trafficking in children, whether or not means have been employed by the trafficker.”

185.  Indicators of trafficking in human beings have been published by UNODC. Operational indicators of trafficking in human beings were published in 2009, as a result of a joint project of the European Commission and the International Labour Office.

(a)   ILO Forced Labour Convention

186.  Russia ratified a number of the ILO Conventions, including the Forced Labour Convention, which it ratified in 1956 and which provides, in so far as relevant:

Article 1

“Each Member of the International Labour Organisation which ratifies this Convention undertakes to suppress the use of forced or compulsory labour in all its forms within the shortest possible period.”

Article 2

“1.  For the purposes of this Convention the term ‘forced or compulsory labour’ shall mean all work or service which is exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offered himself voluntarily.

...”

Article 25

“The illegal exaction of forced or compulsory labour shall be punishable as a penal offence, and it shall be an obligation on any Member ratifying this Convention to ensure that the penalties imposed by law are really adequate and are strictly enforced.”

(b)   Protocol of 2014 to the Forced Labour Convention (P029)

187.  The Protocol of 2014 to the Forced Labour Convention, 1930 was ratified by the Russian Federation in 2019. It provides, in so far as relevant:

Article 1

“1.  In giving effect to its obligations under the Convention to suppress forced or compulsory labour, each Member shall take effective measures to prevent and eliminate its use, to provide to victims protection and access to appropriate and effective remedies, such as compensation, and to sanction the perpetrators of forced or compulsory labour.

2.  Each Member shall develop a national policy and plan of action for the effective and sustained suppression of forced or compulsory labour ...

3.  The definition of forced or compulsory labour contained in the Convention is reaffirmed, and therefore the measures referred to in this Protocol shall include specific action against trafficking in persons for the purposes of forced or compulsory labour.”

Article 2

“The measures to be taken for the prevention of forced or compulsory labour shall include:

...

(d)  protecting persons, particularly migrant workers, from possible abusive and fraudulent practices during the recruitment and placement process;

...”

Article 3

“Each Member shall take effective measures for the identification, release, protection, recovery and rehabilitation of all victims of forced or compulsory labour, as well as the provision of other forms of assistance and support.”

Article 4

“1.  Each Member shall ensure that all victims of forced or compulsory labour, irrespective of their presence or legal status in the national territory, have access to appropriate and effective remedies, such as compensation.

...”

(c)   The ILO indicators of forced labour

188.  The ILO has developed indicators of forced labour which are derived from the theoretical and practical experience of the ILO’s Special Action Programme to Combat Forced Labour. These indicators are based upon the definition of forced labour specified in the ILO Forced Labour Convention and intended to help “front-line” criminal law enforcement officials, labour inspectors, trade union officers, NGO workers and others to identify persons who are possibly trapped in a forced labour situation, and who may require urgent assistance. The indicators represent the most common signs or “clues” that point to the possible existence of a forced labour case. They are: (i) abuse of vulnerability; (ii) deception; (iii) restriction of movement; (iv) isolation; (v) physical and sexual violence; (vi) intimidation and threats; (vii) retention of identity documents; (viii) withholding of wages; (ix) debt bondage; (x) abusive working and living conditions; and (xi) excessive overtime. It has been suggested that the presence of a single indicator in a given situation may in some cases imply the existence of forced labour but that in others it may be several indicators which, taken together, point to a forced labour practice.

189.  The Convention on Legal Assistance and Legal Relations in Civil, Family and Criminal Matters of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) (signed in Minsk on 22 January 1993 – “the Minsk Convention”) entered into force in 1994 in respect of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Russia. The Convention provides for mutual legal assistance in, inter alia, criminal proceedings. The scope of legal assistance includes procedural and other actions provided by the legislation of the requested State. The request for legal assistance must indicate the address of victims or other relevant persons (Article 7). If the exact address is unknown, the relevant authority of the requested State Party has to take measures necessary for establishing the address (Article 8). The Convention provides for the voluntary appearance of witnesses, victims, their representatives and other persons in the requesting State Party by establishing the procedure for summoning them and for reimbursement by the requesting State of travel and subsistence expenses which may be paid in advance, as well as the salary for the days of absence from work (Article 9).

190.  In 2008 the Interparliamentary Assembly of the CIS member States adopted model laws on combating trafficking in human beings and on providing assistance to victims of human trafficking. In 2012 the Interparliamentary Assembly adopted the Commentary on the model legislation. Programmes of cooperation between the CIS member States to combat human trafficking were approved.

191.  In its first Global Report on Trafficking in Persons, published in 2009, UNODC reported that a disproportionate number of women were involved in human trafficking as victims. Of the total number of victims identified by State authorities, the share of women and girls was 82% in 2003, 84% in 2004, 82% in 2005 and 80% in 2006 (figure 22 of the report). Sexual exploitation was by far the most commonly identified form of human trafficking (79%), followed by forced labour (18% in 2006), which was under-reported.

192.  According to the Global Report on Trafficking in Persons published by UNODC in 2012, between 2007 and 2010 women constituted the majority of victims of trafficking in persons detected globally. Women accounted for 55-60% of all trafficking victims detected globally; women and girls together accounted for about 75%. In the Eastern Europe and Central Asia region, adult women accounted for a share of about 80% of the total victims detected.

Trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation accounted for 58% of all trafficking cases detected globally, while trafficking for forced labour accounted for 36%. In 2010 one victim in three was trafficked for forced labour, slavery or servitude. The report observed that most of the victims of trafficking were females, children and/or migrants. A total of 99.8% of detected victims in Eastern Europe and Central Asia were trafficked within that region.

In analysing vulnerabilities that made victims of trafficking in persons easy targets for criminals intent on profiting from those individuals’ hopes of a better life, the report noted as follows:

“[I]n many societies, women are less empowered than men. This is true in terms of gender inequality in access to education and work opportunities and access to a fair and timely justice system, as well as attainment of human and social rights ... At the same time – and perhaps more significantly in terms of risk of becoming a victim of traffickers – this is also true in terms of physical strength, which makes females more vulnerable than males to exploitation through use of force or threats.

Another vulnerable group is ... newly arrived immigrants, who are often without close family, friends or other support networks. ... the irregular migration status of some migrants in their country of destination aggravates their vulnerability, as they are often afraid or reluctant to contact local authorities. ...

Gender, age, migration status, ethno-linguistic background and poverty ... are by themselves insufficient explanations of vulnerability, but they tend to become factors of vulnerability if they provide grounds for discrimination from the rest of the community. While anyone could become a trafficking victim, persons who lack protection, who are not integrated in the surrounding community and who are isolated by the national authorities or by the societies where they live are at greater risk of human trafficking. In these areas of discrimination and marginalization, traffickers find the space to exploit the vulnerable situation of potential victims.

... At the regional (or subregional) level, patterns of trafficking from poorer towards richer countries and/or areas can often be discerned.”

Emphasising that trafficking in persons remained a crime with a strong gender connotation, the report also stated as follows:

“There is a common perception that women and children are more vulnerable than adult men to becoming victims of trafficking in persons. This perception is reflected in the full name of the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, which singles out the trafficking of women and children as issues of particular concern.

An analysis of the data collected for this report, which covered the profiles of some 43,000 victims officially detected by national authorities worldwide between 2007 and 2010 or more recently, confirms the need for special attention to these two categories of victims. Women and children are the two most frequently reported groups of trafficked persons.”

193.  An analysis of the profiles of detected trafficking victims over the period 2010-12 in the 2014 Global Report on Trafficking in Persons confirmed the broad pattern reported by UNODC previously: the vast majority of the victims detected globally were females – either adult women or under-age girls. In Eastern Europe and Central Asia detection of women victims was particularly high, at 77%. This was the highest share of women victims of any (sub)region.

194.   UNODC’s 2020 Global Report on Trafficking in Persons read, inter alia, as follows:

“The analysis of 233 trafficking in persons court cases which present information on the vulnerability of the victims before recruitment shows that the majority of the victims were reportedly in a condition of economic need, characterized by an inability to meet basic needs, such as food, shelter or healthcare.

...

In all analyzed court cases concerning victims in economic need, abuse of a position of vulnerability was the most reported means used by the perpetrators to recruit the victims. In these cases, we can assume that the intersection of economic need and structural disadvantages results in a situation of vulnerabilities that often does not require traffickers to adopt a deceptive strategy. As typical examples of structural disadvantages include being migrant workers, women and children.”

195.  In its most recent Global Report on Trafficking in Persons, dated 2022, UNODC noted that the share of women and girls among all trafficking victims detected during the period 2004-20 had ranged from 84% at the beginning to 60% at the end of the period. The report found that female and children victims were at higher risk of experiencing physical violence during trafficking as compared to men. Girls and women were three times more likely to suffer explicit or extreme violence compared to boys and men. An analysis of court cases (that had concluded with a conviction between 2012 and 2020) showed that female victims were subjected to physical or extreme violence at the hands of traffickers at a rate three times higher than males.

196.  The following statistics for Russia provided by State authorities were published as part of the UNODC Global Reports on Trafficking in Persons:

“The number of detected victims of trafficking stood at 57 in 2008, 82 in 2009, 100 (90 females and 10 minors, 93% Russian nationals and 7% foreign citizens and stateless persons) in 2010, 46 (33 women, eight girls and five men) in 2017, 28 (18 women, seven girls, and three men) in 2018 and 17 (10 girls and seven men) in 2019.”

197.  The 2005 International Labour Office study Forced Labour in the Russian Federation Today: Irregular Migration and Trafficking in Human Beings (see paragraph 171 above) included the following observations:

“Estimates of the number of migrants in an irregular situation in Russia range from 3.5 to 5 million persons, mainly from the CIS countries and South-East Asia. At least two-thirds of migrant employment in Russia takes place in the informal economy. Thus migrant workers constitute a highly profitable market for traffickers, intermediaries, employers and others who seek to take advantage of their vulnerability.

...

Female migrants are more often subject to the worst forms of exploitation, including economic, physical, psychological and other types of violation and exploitation such as debt bondage, compulsion to work without consent and restricted mobility. ...

Migrants from Central Asia, primarily Tajiks and Uzbeks appear to be subject to the worst forms of exploitation. ...”

198.  In 2007 the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe referred to the estimated 8 million irregular migrants living in the Russian Federation (see Resolution 1568 (2007) on regularisation programmes for irregular migrants, paragraph 1).

199.  In 2013 the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs published the report International Migration Policies: Government Views and Priorities, which observed:

“... The Federal Migration Service of the Russian Federation estimated the number of undocumented migrants at 3 million in 2013 (RIA Novosti, 2013), whereas the OECD had estimated a total of 5-6 million undocumented migrants in Russia in 2012 (OECD, 2012) ...”

200.  The 2016 and 2019 Trafficking in Persons Reports published by the United States Department of State stated that there were between 5 million and 12 million foreign workers in Russia, of which the Russian government estimated that between 1.5 million and 2 million were irregular migrants. The 2020 Trafficking in Persons Report referred to estimates that there were between 6 million and 12 million foreign workers in Russia, of whom approximately 3 million lacked proper work authorisation.

201.  In its concluding observations adopted in October 2009 (CCPR/C/RUS/CO/6), the United Nations Human Rights Committee noted its concern about the notable lack of recognition of the rights and interests of trafficking victims in the counter-trafficking efforts of the Russian Federation. It went on to state:

“The State party should, as a matter of priority, take all necessary measures to ensure that victims of trafficking in human beings are provided with medical, psychological, social and legal assistance. Protection should be provided to all witnesses and victims of trafficking so that they may have a place of refuge and an opportunity to give evidence against those held responsible. The State party should also continue to reinforce international cooperation as well as existing measures to combat trafficking in persons and the demand for such trafficking, by devoting sufficient resources to prosecuting perpetrators and imposing sanctions on those found responsible.”

202.  The CEDAW Committee, in its concluding observations on the eighth periodic report of the Russian Federation (CEDAW/C/RUS/CO/8), adopted on 27 October 2015, noted with concern the absence of a national action plan on trafficking, of a coordinating body, of coordination among the relevant State structures, and of information on support and rehabilitation programmes for victims.

203.  The CEDAW Committee expressed the same concerns six years later in its concluding observations on the ninth periodic report of the Russian Federation (CEDAW/C/RUS/CO/9), adopted in November 2021, also criticising the “absence of a system for early identification and referral of women and girls victims of trafficking to appropriate services” and the “lack of adequately funded shelters and medical, social and legal services, rehabilitation and reintegration programmes for victims of trafficking”. The Committee recommended, inter alia, that the Russian Federation develop “national guidelines for the early identification and referral of women and girls victims of trafficking to appropriate services, integrating a victim‑centred and gender-responsive approach, and provide systematic training on such procedures for the police, immigration officials and other law enforcement officers”.

204.  The CEDAW Committee affirmed in its General Recommendation No. 38 (2020) on trafficking in women and girls in the context of global migration (20 November 2020, UN Doc. CEDAW/C/GC/38) as follows:

“6.  [I]t is a priority duty of States, both individually and collectively, to prevent women and girls from exposure to the risk of being trafficked. States are also obliged to discourage the demand that fosters exploitation and leads to trafficking. [The CEDAW Committee] has set out practical guidance on implementing anti-trafficking interventions that are based on an approach incorporating a gender and intersectional perspective, with the focus placed on realizing the human rights of women and girls as a strategic priority for achieving sustainable development. It recalls the obligations of States parties under international law, including the jurisprudence of the Committee, to identify, assist and protect survivors of trafficking, to prevent their revictimization and to ensure their access to justice and the punishment of perpetrators.

...

10.  [D]iscrimination against women and girls includes gender-based violence, the prohibition of which has evolved into a principle of customary international law. Recognizing the gender-specific nature of the various forms of trafficking in women and girls and their consequences, including with regard to harms suffered, the Committee acknowledges that trafficking and exploitation of prostitution in women and girls is unequivocally a phenomenon rooted in structural, sex-based discrimination, constituting gender-based violence, and is often exacerbated in the contexts of displacement, migration ...

...

20.  Trafficking in women and girls is rooted in sex-based and gender-based discrimination, gender-based structural inequality and the feminization of poverty. The women and girls who are most vulnerable to being trafficked are those belonging to marginalized groups, such as women and girls living in rural and remote areas, those belonging to indigenous and ethnic minority communities, women and girls with disabilities, women and girls with an irregular migration status ...”

205.  The CEDAW Committee reiterated in its General Recommendation No. 35 (2017) on gender-based violence against women, updating general recommendation No. 19 (1992) (26 July 1992, UN Doc. CEDAW/C/GC/35) that discrimination against women was inextricably linked to other factors that affected their lives, such as, inter alia, their ethnicity/race, indigenous or minority status, colour, socio-economic status, language, national origin, age, urban or rural location, migration status, being deprived of liberty and being subjected to trafficking. Accordingly, because women experienced varying and intersecting forms of discrimination, which had an aggravating negative impact, the Committee acknowledged that gender‑based violence might affect some women to different degrees, or in different ways, meaning that appropriate legal and policy responses were needed. It recommended that States Parties should ensure that all legal proceedings, protective and support measures and services concerning victims/survivors respected and strengthened their autonomy, were accessible to all women, in particular those affected by intersecting forms of discrimination, took into account any specific needs of their children and other dependants, were available throughout the State Party and were provided irrespective of residency status or ability or willingness to cooperate in legal proceedings against the alleged perpetrator.

206.  In its concluding observations on the twentieth to the twenty-second periodic reports of the Russian Federation (CERD/C/RUS/CO/20-22), adopted in February 2013, the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination stated as follows:

“[T]he Committee remains concerned about reports that migrants and ethnic minority workers, including women and girls, originating mainly from Central Asia and the Caucasus, continue to be subjected to exploitative work conditions and face discrimination during recruitment.

The Committee recommends that the State party ensure that migrant workers, regardless of their legal status, are effectively protected against exploitative conditions at work and discrimination during recruitment, including by facilitating access to effective remedies. The Committee further recommends that particular measures be taken in this regard to protect women and girl migrants.”

207.  In its concluding observations on the twenty-third and twenty-fourth periodic reports of the Russian Federation (CERD/C/RUS/CO/23-24), adopted on 16 and 17 August 2017, the Committee expressed the following concerns:

“De facto racial profiling by the police persists in the State party, targeting in particular migrants, people from Central Asia and the Caucasus and persons of Roma origin, and manifests itself inter alia by arbitrary identity checks by the police and unnecessary arrests ...”

It recommended that the Russian Federation intensify “its efforts to raise the awareness of the public, civil servants and law enforcement officials on the importance of cultural diversity and inter-ethnic understanding in order to combat stereotypes, prejudices and discrimination against migrants, especially from Central Asia and the Caucasus, Roma, indigenous peoples, Muslims and people of African descent”.

The Committee stated as follows in respect of migrant workers:

“The Committee is concerned about reports concerning labour exploitation of migrant workers, mostly coming from Central Asian countries and the Caucasus, who are concentrated in the informal economy and whose working conditions are characterized by low salaries, long working hours and no access to social security. The Committee is also concerned about the limited information about the coverage and effectiveness of labour inspections to detect labour violations and measures introduced to bring exploitative perpetrators to justice and compensate victims ...”

208.  In its 2009 report entitled “‘Are You Happy to Cheat Us?’ Exploitation of Migrant Construction Workers in Russia”, Human Rights Watch provided the following general information on migrant workers:

“According to the World Bank, Russia is home to one of the largest migrant populations in the world, second only to the United States. Although estimates vary widely, some 4 to 9 million of those migrants are workers, 80 percent of whom come from nine countries of the former Soviet Union with which Russia maintains a visa-free regime. ...

... Experts have determined that, in contrast to earlier waves of better educated and more skilled migrants, today’s migrant workers are lower skilled, have lower levels of education, and have weaker knowledge of Russian. Most migrant workers have very little knowledge about their rights or available mechanisms for redress, making them more vulnerable to abuse and less able to seek protection from official agencies.

... Migrant workers are often driven by poverty and unemployment in their home countries to seek better-paid jobs in Russia. The majority of migrant workers arrive from Ukraine, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan. ... Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and neighboring Kyrgyzstan, whose workers are increasingly seeking work in Russia, rank among the poorest countries in the world. ...

Migrant workers are subject to police abuses that also affect many other foreign nationals, particularly those from the Caucasus and Central Asia, as well as ethnic minorities from Russia. Police regularly subject ethnic minorities, including many migrant workers, to inhuman and degrading treatment ... Document inspections on worksites, in living quarters, or on the street are frequently used as a pretext for extortion. ...”

209.  According to the Global Slavery Index 2013 published by the Walk Free Foundation, the estimated number of victims of modern slavery in Russia was between 490,000 (lower range of the estimate) and 540,000 (upper range of the estimate).

210.  According to the Global Slavery Index 2018, the estimated number of victims of modern slavery in Russia was 794,000. The government response rating for Russia was assessed as being the weakest in Europe and Central Asia (see Table 22 of the report).

211.  The Trafficking in Persons Reports published by the United States Department of State annually since 2001 provide information on the state of prosecution, protection and prevention anti-trafficking measures in Russia, placing it in Tier 3 (countries whose governments do not fully comply with the minimum standards and are not making significant efforts to do so), except for 2003 when it was placed in Tier 2, and 2004-12 when the country was kept on the Tier 2 Watch List. The reports have consistently noted that trafficking victims had no specially defined status under Russian law, or any specific mechanisms to assist or protect them. The Russian government had not instituted a victim screening or referral process.

212.  It has been noted in a number of the Trafficking in Persons Reports that the government did not collect and maintain statistics concerning prosecution, conviction and sentencing data in trafficking cases. Media reports were analysed to collect such information. It appears from the available statistics published in the Trafficking in Persons Reports for the period from 2004 (the year following Russia’s criminalisation of human trafficking) to 2021 that each year, up to 2012, there were between 8 and 35 cases in which investigations were initiated into trafficking for the purposes of labour exploitation. In 2013 there were 5, and, starting from 2015, between 1 and 4 such cases per year. During the period from 2008 to 2014 the number of individuals prosecuted in that category of cases went down from 14 (in 2008) to 3 (in 2014). The number of convicted individuals in those cases ranged between 9 and 11 in 2009, 2011, 2014 and 2015, and between 1 and 5 in 2008, 2012-13 and 2016-21.

213.  It was noted in the 2005 Trafficking in Persons Report that in 2004 the Duma had “failed to pass comprehensive victim protection, and assistance legislation needed to address the broader issues of prevention, protection and rehabilitation for foreign victims and victims not party to an investigation”.

214.  The 2006 Trafficking in Persons Report stated, inter alia, as follows:

“Corruption remained a serious problem in Russia; corrupt police officers and border guards reportedly accepted bribes to facilitate or protect trafficking.

[T]here is currently no formal program that grants foreign trafficking victims legal residency in Russia while a trafficking case is investigated and prosecuted. Currently, victims are permitted to stay in Russia during the investigation and prosecution of their respective case; this decision is made at the discretion of the police and prosecutors involved in the victim’s case. There is currently no system in place to track the number of foreign victims identified by law enforcement.”

215.  The 2007 report noted that “victim protection and assistance remained the weakest component of Russia’s anti‑trafficking efforts”.

216.  The 2008 report observed that, according to the ILO, an estimated one million illegal migrant workers might be victims of labour trafficking in Russia. A general witness protection programme had been inadequate in helping trafficking victims; it had only helped two victims during the reporting period.

217.  The 2009 report observed as follows:

“... In 2009, the ILO reported that forced labor is the most predominant form of trafficking in Russia ...

The majority of aid to NGOs and international organizations providing victim assistance continued to be funded by international donors.

No victims of trafficking were assisted by the witness protection program in 2008.”

218.  The following was reported in 2010:

“In November 2009, the government failed to allocate funding to prevent the closure of the IOM-run shelter and rehabilitation center in Moscow. The shelter and rehabilitation center opened in March 2006 with foreign funding and assisted 423 victims of both sex and labor trafficking, including men and women, through November 2009; its closure created a significant void in the availability of medical, rehabilitative, and reintegration services for trafficking victims in Russia.

[T]he majority of assisted victims continued to be identified by NGOs or international organizations ...”

219.  The 2011 report observed that there had been no formal legal alternatives to deportation for foreign victims. It also stated:

“The Migration Research Center estimates that one million people in Russia are exposed to ‘exploitative’ labor conditions that are characteristic of trafficking cases, such as withholding of documents, nonpayment for services, physical abuse, or extremely poor living conditions.”

220.  Noting that a majority of foreign labour trafficking victims had remained outside the scope of victim protection, the 2013 report also stated:

“Foreign trafficking victims, the largest group of victims in Russia, were not entitled to access state-provided rehabilitative services.”

221.  The 2014 report stated as follows:

“Labor trafficking remains the predominant human trafficking problem within Russia, accelerating in the context of Russia’s significant increase in labor migration. Official and unofficial statistics estimate that there are between five million and 12 million foreign workers in Russia. According to official statistics, in 2013, an estimated 1.1 million labor migrants were employed in the Moscow region alone. Of this number, 22,000 worked in the housing and utilities sector, 110,000 in the construction industry, and the rest worked primarily as public transport drivers, seasonal agricultural workers, tailors and garment workers in underground garment factories, and vendors at marketplaces and stores. Many of these migrant workers experienced exploitative labor conditions characteristic of trafficking cases, such as withholding of documents, nonpayment for services rendered, physical abuse, or extremely poor living conditions. During the year, workers from Russia and other countries in Europe, Central Asia, and Southeast Asia, including Vietnam and North Korea, were subjected to forced labor in Russia. ...

... The Russian government has signed the Program of Cooperation between CIS Member States against Trafficking in Persons, but to date there have been no specific steps taken toward implementation. ...

... In April 2013, the Russian Red Cross opened a foreign-funded eight-bed trafficking shelter in a space granted by the St. Petersburg municipal government. The shelter has cared for 19 victims since its opening, including victims from Europe, Central Asia, Africa, and Russia. ...

... Although a law on temporary residency provided the opportunity for a person officially recognized as a victim of human trafficking to apply for an adjustment of pre‑existing temporary residency permits, there were no reports that any trafficking victims received such a benefit and this law would not apply to any trafficking victims who were illegally present in Russia ...

[T]he Commonwealth of Independent States anti-trafficking plan remained the Government of Russia’s sole anti-trafficking plan, but has not yet been implemented.”

222.  It was noted in the 2015 report that the Russian government had taken no steps to fulfil commitments to implement a programme of cooperation between CIS member States against trafficking in persons.

223.  The 2016 report stated, inter alia, as follows:

“The Russian government did not collect and share information on trafficking cases or maintain comprehensive statistics about criminal cases, making it difficult to assess the adequacy or effectiveness of law enforcement efforts.

Police regularly avoided registering victims in criminal cases that were unlikely to be solved in order not to risk lower conviction rates.”

224.  In its 2022 Trafficking in Persons Report, the United States Department of State stated:

“Official complicity in trafficking crimes remained a significant concern. NGOs reported government officials and police regularly accepted bribes in exchange for not pursuing trafficking cases and officials often benefitted financially or materially from trafficking crimes.

The government decreased already negligible efforts to protect victims. The government did not develop or employ a formal system to guide officials in proactive identification of victims or their referral to available services. The law did not specifically define who was a trafficking victim or differentiate trafficking victims from victims of other crimes; experts noted this hindered identification measures and limited access to victim services.

After a sharp decrease at the onset of the pandemic, labor migration to Russia began to increase in 2021; media reported more than 7.8 million migrants from the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan entered Russia in 2021.”

THE LAW

225.  Having regard to the similar subject matter of the applications, the Court finds it appropriate to examine them jointly in a single judgment.

226.  The facts giving rise to the alleged violations of the Convention occurred prior to 16 September 2022, the date on which the respondent State ceased to be a Party to the Convention. Accordingly, the Court has jurisdiction to deal with them (see Fedotova and Others v. Russia [GC], nos. 40792/10 and 2 others, §§ 68‑73, 17 January 2023).

227.  The Government did not submit observations. The Court reiterates that the respondent Government’s failure to engage with the proceedings cannot be an obstacle for the examination of a case (see Svetova and Others v. Russia, no. 54714/17, §§ 29-31, 24 January 2023). At the same time, the failure of the respondent State to participate effectively in the proceedings should not automatically lead to acceptance of the applicants’ claims, and the Court must be satisfied by the available evidence that the claim is well founded in fact and law (ibid., § 30). Accordingly, the Court will need to examine the application on the basis of the applicants’ submissions, which will be presumed to be accurate where supported by evidence and as long as other evidence available in the case file does not lead to a different conclusion (ibid., § 38).

228.  The applicants complained that the authorities had failed to protect them from trafficking, exploitation and violence by adopting an adequate legislative framework, taking operational measures and conducting an effective criminal investigation. They submitted that their exploitation amounted to servitude and/or forced or compulsory labour. They argued that their abusers had used various forms of violence as tools of control and coercion for their exploitation. The applicants relied on Articles 3, 4 and 8 of the Convention.

229.  The Court reiterates that its approach in human-trafficking cases has been to put the possible issues of ill-treatment (under Article 3) and abuse of the applicant’s physical and psychological integrity (under Article 8) into their general context, namely that of trafficking in human beings and exploitation. This is because allegations of ill-treatment and abuse are inherently linked to trafficking in human beings and exploitation, whenever that is the alleged purpose for which the ill-treatment or abuse was inflicted (see C.N. and V. v. France, no. 67724/09, § 55, 11 October 2012, and S.M. v. Croatia [GC], no. 60561/14, §§ 240-43, 25 June 2020).

230.  Being the master of the characterisation to be given in law to the facts of a case (see S.M. v. Croatia, cited above, § 243), the Court will examine the applicants’ complaints under Article 4 of the Convention, the relevant parts of which read as follows:

“1.  No one shall be held in slavery or servitude.

2.  No one shall be required to perform forced or compulsory labour.

...”

231.  The Court considers that the complaint raises serious issues of fact and law under the Convention, the determination of which requires an examination of the merits. It therefore concludes that this complaint is not manifestly ill-founded within the meaning of Article 35 § 3 (a) of the Convention. No other ground for declaring it inadmissible has been established.

232.  The applicants submitted that, as young indigent women, they had been deceived by the store owners into thinking that they would be provided with good salaries and normal working conditions as sales assistants. They had found themselves in a situation of servitude, being in a constant state of extreme exhaustion, overworked, sleep deprived, undernourished, confined in the store premises which were unfit for living, forced to drink alcohol, beaten up and subjected to sexual violence. Because of their illegal migrant status and because they had believed that the store owners were in collusion with the local police, the applicants had been afraid of the police as much as they had been afraid of the store owners. They had not spoken Russian well. The fact that they had been raped and had given birth to rape-conceived children, who had then been held hostage by the store owners, had made it harder for the applicants to return to their home countries. The store owners had exerted multiple forms of control over the applicants, including over their reproductive autonomy, and the applicants had felt that they belonged to the store owners and that their situation could not change.

233.  The applicants submitted that the Russian criminal legislation did not sufficiently penalise human trafficking to afford the necessary protection to its victims, and that the Government had made no significant efforts to establish effective preventive mechanisms. Articles 127.1 and 127.2 of the Criminal Code, which prohibited human trafficking and slave labour, mentioned use or threats of violence, blackmail, abuse of authority or the victim’s vulnerability only as aggravating factors, failing to refer to the means used as an essential element of human trafficking and slave labour. The Criminal Code did not exclude a victim’s consent in the circumstances of coercion, abuse of authority or violence. The investigative authorities had used the applicants’ alleged consent to work in the stores as the perpetrators’ defence and as the ground for the refusals to open a criminal investigation, though any such consent had been obtained under coercion, which should have rendered it invalid. In the sphere of prevention of human trafficking and the identification and protection of victims, a framework law consolidating all necessary measures and policies had never been passed, while any such regulation in other legal or administrative instruments was plainly absent, as were a comprehensive programme or policy, coordination mechanisms among the competent authorities and with civil society, training for the law-enforcement authorities, any adequate research and data collection and awareness-raising activities concerning the human trafficking situation in Russia. Domestic law did not provide for any medical, material or psychological assistance, shelter services or rehabilitation programmes for trafficking victims or any special complaint mechanisms or legal aid programmes. The Code of Administrative Offences did not exclude holding human-trafficking victims illegally present in Russia liable, thereby impeding their identification and protection by the State. Article 322.1 of the Criminal Code made it a crime for individuals and organisations to provide shelter or material assistance to people considered to be in Russia illegally. Authorities could prosecute NGOs that assisted undocumented victims of trafficking. Many victims were detained or deported without being screened for trafficking indicators. In the applicants’ case the investigating authorities had gone so far as to assume that the CAC could have had some ulterior motives for helping the marginalised migrant women.

234.  For a long time the authorities knew or ought to have known of the human trafficking and servitude and other violations being committed by the I. sisters, and of the situation of the applicants at the hands of the same family, involving torture through various forms of gender-based violence and the forceful removal of the first and fourth applicants’ babies. The last-mentioned violation was continuing with respect to the fourth applicant, who had never been reunited with her daughter, who was presumed to have died in circumstances in which the cause of death was unconfirmed, no autopsy report had been produced and the place of burial was unknown. Instead of promptly reacting to protect the applicants’ rights, the authorities had actively colluded with the store owners and dismissed and downplayed the seriousness of the risks involved, owing to deeply rooted prejudices and stereotypes against foreign migrant women from a low‑income background. The authorities had failed to comply with their positive obligations to investigate without delay and to take the necessary operational measures to protect the applicants.

235.  The applicants argued that by failing to record or act on complaints by the victims, and by the IOM and the Kazakhstani authorities, to gather and secure evidence, to verify or critically assess the statements of the store owners themselves or the individuals who had testified in their favour (their relatives, accomplices or trafficked individuals under their control), to investigate or report police collusion, to investigate whether discriminatory motives on the grounds of the applicants’ gender, ethnicity and social position were behind the traffickers’ targeting and exploiting them, to properly conduct the store inspections and to cooperate or engage with the authorities of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the respondent State had failed to conduct an effective investigation into the applicants’ credible allegations, in breach of its procedural obligation.

236.  The AIRE Centre (Advice on Individual Rights in Europe) submitted that by virtue of their positive obligations under Article 4 of the Convention, the Contracting States had to put in place a legislative and administrative framework to prevent and punish trafficking, to take operational measures to protect (potential) victims of trafficking, and to investigate situations of potential trafficking in human beings. Those positive obligations were to be interpreted in the light of the broader international framework on combating trafficking, including the Council of Europe Convention on Action against Trafficking in Human Beings (opened for signature on 16 May 2005, CETS no. 197 – “the Anti-Trafficking Convention”) and the United Nations Palermo Protocol.

(a)   General principles

237.  The Court reiterates that Article 4 enshrines one of the fundamental values of democratic societies. Unlike most of the substantive clauses of the Convention and of Protocols Nos. 1 and 4, Article 4 § 1 makes no provision for exceptions and no derogation from it is permissible under Article 15 § 2 even in the event of a public emergency threatening the life of the nation (see Stummer v. Austria [GC], no. 37452/02, § 116, ECHR 2011, and C.N. v. the United Kingdom, no. 4239/08, § 65, 13 November 2012).

238.  The Court considers that trafficking in human beings, by its very nature and aim of exploitation, is based on the exercise of powers attaching to the right of ownership. It treats human beings as commodities to be bought and sold and put to forced labour, often for little or no payment, usually in the sex industry but also elsewhere. It implies close surveillance of the activities of victims, whose movements are often circumscribed. It involves the use of violence and threats against victims, who live and work under poor conditions. It is described in the explanatory report accompanying the Anti-Trafficking Convention as the modern form of the old worldwide slave trade (see Rantsev, cited above, § 281, and M. and Others v. Italy and Bulgaria, no. 40020/03, § 151, 31 July 2012).

239.  There can be no doubt that trafficking threatens the human dignity and fundamental freedoms of its victims and cannot be considered compatible with a democratic society and the values expounded in the Convention. Given the Convention’s special features as a human rights treaty and the fact that it is a living instrument which should be interpreted in the light of present-day conditions, there are good reasons to accept that the global phenomenon of trafficking in human beings runs counter to the spirit and purpose of Article 4 and thus falls within the scope of the guarantees offered by that provision (see S.M. v. Croatia, cited above, §§ 292 and 303).

240.  Impugned conduct may give rise to an issue of human trafficking under Article 4 of the Convention only if all the constituent elements (action, means, purpose) of the international definition of human trafficking are present. In other words, in keeping with the principle of harmonious interpretation of the Convention and other instruments of international law, and in view of the fact that the Convention itself does not define the concept of human trafficking, it is not possible to characterise conduct or a situation as an issue of human trafficking unless it fulfils the criteria established for that phenomenon in international law. From the perspective of Article 4 of the Convention, the concept of human trafficking covers trafficking in human beings, whether national or transnational, whether or not connected with organised crime, in so far as the constituent elements of the international definition of trafficking in human beings, under the Anti‑Trafficking Convention and the Palermo Protocol, are present. Such conduct or such a situation of human trafficking then falls within the scope of Article 4 of the Convention (see S.M. v. Croatia, cited above, §§ 289-90, 296‑97 and 303).

241.  The Court notes that, according to the Slavery Convention (adopted on 25 September 1926, 60 LNTS 253), “[s]lavery is the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised” (see S.M. v. Croatia, cited above, § 280).

242.  Servitude is a “particularly serious form of denial of liberty”. What servitude involves is “an obligation to provide one’s services that is imposed by the use of coercion”. As such it is to be linked with the concept of “slavery” within the meaning of Article 4 § 1 of the Convention (see C.N. and V. v. France, cited above, § 89, and the references therein). It includes, in addition to the obligation to perform certain services for others, the obligation for the “serf” to live on another person’s property and the impossibility of altering his or her condition (see Siliadin v. France, no. 73316/01, § 123, ECHR 2005‑VII, and S.M. v. Croatia, cited above, § 280). In the light of these criteria the Court observes that servitude corresponds to a special type of forced or compulsory labour or, in other words, “aggravated” forced or compulsory labour. As a matter of fact, the fundamental distinguishing feature between servitude and forced or compulsory labour within the meaning of Article 4 of the Convention lies in the victim’s feeling that his or her condition is permanent and that the situation is unlikely to change. It is sufficient that this feeling be based on the above-mentioned objective criteria or brought about or kept alive by those responsible for the situation (see C.N. and V. v. France, cited above, § 91).

243.  The term “forced labour” brings to mind the idea of physical or mental coercion. What there has to be is work “exacted ... under the menace of any penalty” and also performed against the will of the person concerned, that is, work for which he or she “has not offered himself [or herself] voluntarily” (see Chowdury and Others v. Greece, no. 21884/15, § 90, 30 March 2017). Where an employer abuses his or her power or takes advantage of the vulnerability of his or her workers in order to exploit them, they do not offer themselves for work voluntarily (ibid., § 96). The notion of “penalty” is to be understood in the broad sense, as confirmed by the use of the term “any penalty”. The “penalty” may go as far as physical violence or restraint, but it can also take subtler forms, of a psychological nature, such as threats to denounce victims to the police or immigration authorities when their employment status is illegal (see C.N. and V. v. France, cited above, § 77; Tibet Menteş and Others v. Turkey, nos. 57818/10 and 4 others, § 67, 24 October 2017; and S.M. v. Croatia, cited above, § 284).

244.  Whether a particular situation involved all the constituent elements of “human trafficking” and/or gives rise to an issue of servitude and/or forced or compulsory labour is a factual question which must be examined in the light of all the relevant circumstances of the case (see Chowdury and Others, cited above, §§ 99-101).

245.  The general framework of positive obligations under Article 4 includes: (1) the duty to put in place a legislative and administrative framework to prohibit and punish trafficking; (2) the duty, in certain circumstances, to take operational measures to protect victims, or potential victims, of trafficking; and (3) a procedural obligation to investigate situations of potential trafficking. In general, the first two aspects of the positive obligations can be denoted as substantive, whereas the third aspect designates the States’ (positive) procedural obligation (see S.M. v. Croatia, cited above, § 306).

(b)   Whether the reports of the applicants’ alleged trafficking for labour exploitation gave rise to the authorities’ positive obligations under Article 4

246.  Turning to the circumstances of the present case, the Court will first examine whether the reports of the applicants’ alleged trafficking for labour exploitation gave rise to the respondent State’s positive obligations under Article 4.

247.  The Court notes at the outset that during the relevant period Russia was a destination country of labour migration, mostly from the CIS, in particular Central Asia, with which there was a visa‑free border regime (see paragraphs 197, 208 and 221 above). The estimates of foreign migrants in an irregular situation in Russia varied from 1.5 million to 8 million people (see paragraphs 197-200 above). It was reported in 2008 and 2011 that an estimated one million illegal migrant workers might be victims of labour trafficking in Russia (see paragraphs 216 and 219 above). According to other sources, as of 2013 and 2018 the estimated number of victims of modern slavery in Russia varied between 490,000 and 794,000 (see paragraphs 209‑10 above). Russia ratified a number of the United Nations and ILO international agreements on combating, inter alia, slavery and forced labour (see paragraphs 175, 186 and 187 above). It had been a signatory to the Palermo Protocol since 2000, criminalised trafficking in human beings and “use of slave labour” in 2003, and ratified the Palermo Protocol in 2004 (see paragraphs 165-66 and 175-80 above). It did not ratify the Anti-Trafficking Convention. It was a party to the Minsk Convention (see paragraph 189 above).

248.  The Court considers that the communication of the mission of the IOM in Moscow of 11 June 2010 and the request for legal assistance of 28 July 2010 of the Ministry of the Interior of Kazakhstan in connection with the criminal case opened in Kazakhstan into the first applicant’s complaint (see paragraphs 5 and 8 above) contained serious indications of the possible trafficking, three years earlier, of the first and second applicants, aged 18 and 17 respectively, from Kazakhstan to Russia for labour exploitation in the convenience store on Uralskaya Street in the Golyanovo district of Moscow (see, in respect of an inter-State legal‑assistance request in the context of cross-border human trafficking, Zoletic and Others v. Azerbaijan, no. 20116/12, § 198, 7 October 2021). The seizure of the applicants’ identity documents, their alleged confinement in the workplace and their abuse (including the removal of the first applicant’s baby), together with the applicants’ vulnerability on account of their age, gender and potentially illegal migrant status, provided grounds for a credible suspicion of their being victims of trafficking for labour exploitation. Coupled with the possible continuing exploitation of the second applicant (and other people), the reports required an urgent and serious response from the Russian authorities by virtue of their positive obligations under Article 4 of the Convention.

249.  The Court further observes that the fourth applicant’s alleged trafficking and exploitation by Zh.I. and S.M. in the convenience store on Novosibirskaya Street in the Golyanovo district of Moscow was reported to the police by civil society activists on 30 October 2012 and was the subject of the applicant’s criminal complaint lodged that day (see paragraphs 11-15 above). The elements emerging during the very first days of the preliminary inquiry provided evidence in support of the applicant’s claim.

250.  Notably, the statements of the applicant and her co‑workers from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan indicated that Zh.I. and S.M. had seized their identity documents and forced them to work without pay or regularisation of their status as foreign migrant workers, confining them to the workplace and subjecting them to violence. Ms L.A. stated that she had been brought to the Novosibirskaya Street store, together with the fourth applicant, ten years earlier. The applicant’s mother (who had travelled from Uzbekistan), the Alternativa representative and the journalists who had intervened to release the applicant and her co-workers gave corroborating statements (see paragraphs 16, 18-20, 22-23, 33 and 37 above).

251.  The allegations of the applicant’s physical abuse were supported by the medical certificate of 30 October 2012 recording her injuries (see paragraph 17 above). The fourth applicant and the other women who were interviewed by the police and the Investigative Committee immediately after their release and during the days which followed had visible injuries, including scars, broken fingers, injuries to the chest, wrenched ears and knocked out teeth (see paragraphs 37 and 78 above). The fourth applicant’s son was found by the police in an alarming state of health after his reported abduction by Zh.I. (see paragraphs 12-13, 26, 32 and 78 above).

252.  When interviewed by the police and the Investigative Committee immediately after the incident, Zh.I. and S.M. did not conceal that they had been unlawfully employing migrant workers from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, including the fourth applicant, without contracts of employment. S.M. acknowledged that he was in possession of the workers’ identity documents. The fourth applicant’s and the other workers’ passports were found in a safe and seized in the course of the inspection of the store on Novosibirskaya Street on 30 October 2012. S.M. acknowledged that mattresses which had also been found that day in two vans parked near the back entrance to the store were used for the workers to sleep on in the store, as alleged by the fourth applicant (see paragraphs 16, 27, 32 and 58 above). The subsequent claim by S.M. and his wife that the applicant and the other workers had been housed in one of their flats was unsupported by inspections and searches of the flats in question (see paragraphs 40 and 46 above).

253.  The police also seized recorders which were part of the video-surveillance system, including multiple video-cameras installed in the store premises (see paragraphs 13 and 85 above).

254.  The report and emerging evidence of the alleged abduction by Zh.I. of other female workers and their children on 30 October 2012 gave further weight to the fourth applicant’s allegations (see paragraphs 12, 33-34 and 37 above).

255.  Lastly, it became known to the investigating authorities, shortly after the fourth applicant and the other migrant workers of store N were discovered, that the Golyanovo district police department had in the past been alerted by the Kazakhstani embassy in Moscow about the alleged confinement and forced labour of Kazakhstani female nationals at the same store, owned and operated by Zh.I. and S.M. since 1999 (see paragraphs 30‑32 and 41 above).

256.  In view of the foregoing, the Court finds that there was prima facie evidence that the fourth applicant had been the victim of trafficking for labour exploitation.

257.  The Court observes next that in the wake of the events of 30 October 2012, which were widely reported by the media, former workers of the Golyanovo stores contacted the CAC, which provided them with legal assistance to lodge criminal complaints. On 19 December 2012 the third applicant’s complaint was submitted to the Investigative Committee. She recounted her recruitment in Uzbekistan in 2005 and her transportation to Moscow, where she had been held and exploited in the store on Uralskaya Street for seven years (simultaneously with the first and second applicants for some of that time) until being sent back to Uzbekistan shortly after the events of 30 October 2012. The third applicant’s account of her exploitation and abuse revealed the same pattern as in the accounts of the first and fourth applicants, as well as all other female former workers of the Golyanovo stores who had lodged criminal complaints (see paragraphs 64-75 above). Ms M.A.’s statements also indicated that the sisters Zh.I. and Z.I. had attempted to send their workers outside Russia following the events of 30 October 2012, seemingly to avoid justice (see paragraph 33 above). Furthermore, the authorities’ attention had been brought to the fact that in 2002 their elder sister, S.I., had been arrested in a case concerning exploitation of migrant workers (see paragraphs 51-53 and 59 above).

258.  S.I. and her sisters had been in the media spotlight that year, in relation to the alleged exploitation in inhuman conditions, abuse and torture of minor girls from Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan since 1997 in the same convenience stores on Novosibirskaya and Uralskaya Streets. The media reported that criminal proceedings previously brought against S.I. in 1998 had been discontinued because the victims’ parents had withdrawn the complaints, most likely after being paid by her, and that threats and promises of money had again been used in 2002 to prevent the new victims from complaining. Criminal proceedings instituted against S.I. in Moscow under Article 117 of the Criminal Code (tormenting) had ended with her conviction and sentencing to five years’ imprisonment in 2002. She had been pardoned by the Russian President and her imprisonment had been reduced by half in 2003 (see paragraphs 138-39 above).

259.  In the Court’s view, the third applicant’s allegations, which were part of similar complaints by a larger group of alleged victims in the same situation, provided grounds for a credible suspicion of her trafficking for labour exploitation.

260.  Lastly, in December 2016 the authorities were apprised of allegations of the fifth applicant’s exploitation, confinement and abuse at the hands of the same couple, Zh.I. and S.M., at the store on Novosibirskaya Street, four years after the events of 30 October 2012. The fifth applicant’s allegations were supported by the medical certificate recording her injuries. In January 2017 the Kazakhstani Ombudsman contacted his Russian counterpart in relation to the fifth applicant and the other victims, noting the lack of any progress in the investigation in Russia and Kazakhstan alike and requesting assistance. In the same month the applicant’s case was reported in the Russian media (see paragraphs 116-23 above).

261.  The Court considers that the fifth applicant’s allegations, revealing the same pattern of trafficking, exploitation and abuse as in the accounts of all other applicants and their former co-workers, likewise provided grounds for a credible suspicion of her trafficking for labour exploitation.

262.  The reports of the applicants’ exploitation should have alerted the Russian authorities to the overwhelming presence of indicators of human trafficking and forced labour (see paragraphs 185 and 188 above).

263.  In view of the foregoing, the Court finds that starting from 2010, when the Russian authorities were first informed of the situation of the first and second applicants, and at the time of each of the subsequent reports concerning the remaining applicants, there was a credible suspicion, and in the case of the fourth applicant prima facie evidence, that the applicants had been victims of trafficking in human beings for labour exploitation, which in turn triggered the domestic authorities’ positive obligations under Article 4 of the Convention.

(c)   The characterisation of treatment proscribed by Article 4

264.  The applicants provided a similar account of recruitment in their home countries, transportation to the Golyanovo stores in Moscow, the seizure of identity documents and the ensuing unpaid hard work involving carrying heavy loads, which they had to perform during abnormally excessive hours, without respite or days off, while being confined in the stores under close surveillance in appalling conditions and subjected to the use of violence.

265.  The seizure of identity documents, the lack of employment contracts and the irregular situation whereby foreign migrant workers were left without a work permit or residence registration were common to all applicants. In particular, there was evidence of the seizure of the fourth applicant’s passport, her irregular employment status was not concealed by her employers, and attempts were made by the authorities to deport her on account of her illegal stay in Russia (see paragraphs 54 and 252 above). The first applicant returned to Kazakhstan after escaping without any identity documents (see paragraph 8 above). The fifth applicant returned to Kazakhstan after escaping without her passport, having obtained a certificate enabling her to travel (see paragraphs 119-20 above).

266.  As the Court has noted (see paragraphs 252-53 above), there was evidence that the fourth applicant and the other workers had slept in the store, and that the store had been equipped with a video-surveillance system.

267.  The third applicant’s recruitment in Uzbekistan, transportation to Russia in December 2005 and exploitation without pay until 2 November 2012 in the store on Uralskaya Street in the Golyanovo district of Moscow with the use of force, deception and abuse of a position of vulnerability on account of her being in a foreign country without her passport, which had been seized by the store owner, were established by the Bostanlyk District Criminal Court in Uzbekistan, which in 2017 convicted the third applicant’s recruiter of aggravated trafficking in human beings (see paragraph 137 above). The Court notes that out of the period of nearly seven years during which she was exploited, the third applicant spent three and more than five years simultaneously with the first applicant and the second applicant respectively in the hands of the same couple in the same store. The applicants noted each other’s presence among their co‑workers in their statements (see paragraphs 66 and 95 above).

268.  There was medical evidence of the use of force against the third, fourth and fifth applicants. The third and fourth applicants’ serious health conditions and injuries were consistent with repeated head traumas and the other abuse they had suffered at the hands of the store owners in the course of their long-lasting exploitation for nearly seven years and ten years respectively (see paragraphs 76, 95-96, 137, 157 and 159 above). The fourth applicant, whose co‑workers stated that they had witnessed her beatings, was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder as a consequence of the physical and mental abuse to which she had been subjected (see paragraphs 17, 19, 68-69, 73 and 76 above). The fifth applicant’s injuries were recorded by the trauma clinic doctor shortly after her escape from the store (see paragraphs 116 and 117 above). The third applicant’s allegations of systematic rape and reproductive violence (forced abortion in her case) were consistent with the accounts of the remaining applicants, including giving birth to rape‑conceived children in the case of the first and second applicants, and the accounts of the other female workers in a similar situation (see paragraphs 67, 71, 75, 76, 94, 95, 97, 124, 155, 158 and 160 above). There were consistent allegations of the removal and abuse of the workers’ children being used by the perpetrators as additional forms of coercion, including the removal of the first applicant’s son and the fourth applicant’s daughter and son, as well as medical evidence of the abuse sustained by the fourth applicant’s son (see paragraphs 5, 12, 16, 18, 20, 41, 66, 68, 70, 76-78 and 89 above).

269.  The Court takes note of the statements by the psychologist at the IOM rehabilitation centre in Moscow for victims of human trafficking, who had first-hand information about the situation of trafficking victims from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan who had escaped from the Golyanovo stores in 2008 and 2009, that is, during the first four applicants’ time in captivity. Those female victims’ accounts mirrored all aspects of the applicants’ accounts of their exploitation and abuse. According to the psychologist, living in such conditions for a long time and being subjected to so many means of coercion led, inter alia, to extreme fear, severe exhaustion and loss of strength for any resistance. Traumas related to sexual violence were especially damaging and had a destructive effect on a woman’s personality. Reproductive violence was an additional form of control. Taking the workers’ children away could have created unbearable anxieties and serious traumatic consequences (see paragraphs 141-47 above).

270.  The credibility of the applicants’ submissions is enhanced by each other’s statements, the similar account of exploitation and violence in the criminal complaints of the five other female workers, the media reports, the close ties between the owners of the two stores in question who were consistently reported to be practising similar methods of recruitment and exploitation of migrant workers from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, the earlier conviction of the elder I. sister for ill-treatment of an Uzbekistani girl who had been exploited in one of the stores at issue, and all the other material in the case file. No significant elements capable of raising doubts over the applicants’ credible allegations emerged as a result of the Russian authorities’ preliminary inquiries into their complaints. There were no findings to the contrary resulting from any criminal investigation.

271.  The applicants were vulnerable individuals on account of their gender and economic need, who were deceived into believing that they would work in acceptable conditions and would be paid for their work. Given the seizure of their identity documents and their irregular migrant status created by their employers, an attempt to leave their work would no doubt have made the risk of being arrested and detained with a view to their removal from Russia more likely and would have meant the loss of any hope of receiving the salaries owed to them, even in part (see Chowdury and Others, cited above, § 95). Furthermore, the applicants, who had been in a foreign country, socially isolated, with insufficient knowledge of Russian, with no access to information about remedies, dispossessed of their identity documents and not receiving any remuneration for their work, could neither have lived elsewhere in Russia nor left the country, instead having no choice but to provide the work required of them (compare Siliadin, cited above, §§ 118-19). This was demonstrated by the return of the fifth applicant, who saw no way out of her situation, to her abusers after her first attempt to escape (see paragraph 119 above). The sheer duration of the applicants’ exploitation and abuse – from more than six months to ten years – also speaks for itself.

272.  There is therefore ample evidence to conclude that all the constituent elements of the international definition of human trafficking (see paragraph 175 above) were present in the applicants’ cases.

273.  As to “action”, the following elements were present: recruitment in the applicants’ home countries, transportation to the Golyanovo stores in Moscow, “receipt” in the sense of receiving the applicants for the purpose of employment at the Golyanovo stores – which was never questioned by the Russian investigating authorities – and “harbouring” in the sense of accommodating or holding the applicants at the place of exploitation.

274.  As to “means”, deception and abuse of a position of vulnerability on account of the applicants’ gender and migrant status, at the very least, were present. While the “means” element is required to characterise a situation of adult victims as an issue of human trafficking under Article 4 of the Convention (see S.M. v. Croatia, cited above, §§ 113-14, 155-56, 290, 296 and 303), the presence of “means” was not necessary in the case of the second applicant, who was a minor when trafficked to Russia, thus falling within the international definition of human trafficking (see paragraphs 272 and 175 above).

275.  Lastly, the “purpose” of the applicants’ exploitation was present (see paragraphs 276-77 below).

276.  The Court further concludes that the applicants, who were subjected to the use of force and other forms of coercion, worked at the Golyanovo stores without offering themselves for that work voluntarily and were, at the least, subjected to forced labour within the meaning of Article 4 of the Convention.

277.  In addition to the obligation to do the work imposed by the use of coercion, the applicants were obliged to live on their employers’ property and had no opportunity to alter their situation, feeling that it was permanent and unlikely to change, which corresponds to the notion of servitude within the meaning of Article 4 of the Convention.

278.  In sum, the Court finds that the applicants were victims of cross‑border trafficking in human beings and servitude. The Court will now examine whether the Russian authorities complied with their positive obligations under Article 4 of the Convention.

(d)   Whether the authorities complied with their positive obligations under Article 4

(i)      The obligation to put in place an appropriate legislative and administrative framework

279.  In assessing whether there has been a violation of Article 4, the relevant legal or regulatory framework in place must be taken into account. The spectrum of safeguards set out in national legislation must be adequate to ensure the practical and effective protection of the rights of victims or potential victims of trafficking (see Rantsev, § 284, and S.M. v. Croatia, § 305, both cited above).

280.  In Siliadin (cited above, §§ 89 and 112), the Court confirmed that Article 4 entailed a specific positive obligation on member States to penalise and prosecute effectively any act aimed at maintaining a person in a situation of slavery, servitude or forced or compulsory labour. In order to comply with this obligation, member States are required to put in place a legislative and administrative framework to prohibit and punish trafficking. The Court observes that the Palermo Protocol and the Council of Europe Anti-Trafficking Convention refer to the need for a comprehensive approach to combat trafficking which includes measures to prevent trafficking and to protect victims, in addition to measures to punish traffickers. The Palermo Protocol requires States to consider implementing measures for the physical, psychological and social recovery of victims of trafficking in persons. Likewise, the Anti-Trafficking Convention calls on the member States to adopt a range of measures to prevent trafficking and to protect the rights of victims. The preventive measures include measures to strengthen coordination at national level between the various anti-trafficking bodies and to discourage the demand for all forms of exploitation of persons. Protection measures include facilitating the identification of victims by qualified persons and assisting victims in their physical, psychological and social recovery (see Chowdury and Others, cited above, § 110). It is clear from the provisions of these two instruments that the Contracting States, including almost all of the member States of the Council of Europe, have formed the view that only a combination of measures addressing all three aspects can be effective in the fight against trafficking. Accordingly, the duty to penalise and prosecute trafficking is only one aspect of member States’ general undertaking to combat trafficking. The extent of the positive obligations arising under Article 4 must be considered within this broader context (see Rantsev, § 285, and S.M. v. Croatia, § 305, both cited above).

281.  The Court reiterates that its task is not normally to review the relevant law and practice in abstracto, but to determine whether the manner in which they were applied to, or affected, the applicant gave rise to a violation of the Convention (see Roman Zakharov v. Russia [GC], no. 47143/06, § 164, ECHR 2015, with further references).

282.  As was noted above, in December 2003 Russia criminalised trafficking in human beings by introducing Article 127.1 in its Criminal Code (see paragraph 165 above). However, those provisions were not applied in the applicants’ cases. The investigating authorities repeatedly refused to institute criminal proceedings and carry out an investigation into the applicants’ complaints, referring to the absence of the elements of an offence under that Article. In particular, the possibility for the applicants to leave their workplace at any time was cited as a reason for the authorities’ decisions (see paragraphs 108-09 above). In other words, it was considered that the applicants had chosen to stay in the stores and to do the work required of them of their own free will, that is to say, they had consented to their exploitation.

283.  However, the consent of a victim of trafficking to the intended exploitation is irrelevant where any of the means set out in the international definition of human trafficking have been used, and where a victim of trafficking is a child (see paragraph 175 above). Provisions on the role of consent were absent from Article 127.1 of the Russian Criminal Code.

284.  The Court notes that the Legislative Guide for the Palermo Protocol emphasises that consent to the intended exploitation should not be used to defend or excuse the crime and has no bearing on establishing whether or not trafficking in persons has occurred. The consent of a child is irrelevant because children are seen as lacking the capacity to consent (see paragraph 181 above).

285.  The above lacuna in domestic law made it possible to put forward the applicants’ supposed consent as an excuse not to institute criminal proceedings in relation to their allegations of trafficking.

286.  In 2019 the Plenum of the Supreme Court of the Russian Federation introduced the missing provision in its guidance to the lower courts on the application of Article 127.1 (see paragraph 168 above). However, this had no impact on the authorities’ response to the applicants’ complaints. No amendments to that end were made to the Criminal Code, by which the investigating authorities were primarily guided.

287.  The Investigative Committee’s refusals to institute criminal proceedings on the grounds of the lack of the constituent elements of the crime under Article 127.2 of the Criminal Code (use of slave labour), which was likewise introduced in the Criminal Code in 2003 (see paragraph 166 above), were similarly based on the applicants’ supposed freedom of movement and consent to do the work required of them. The Court notes that restriction of freedom of movement, while relevant to a situation of servitude, is not a prerequisite for a situation to be characterised as forced labour or human trafficking (see Chowdury and Others, cited above, § 123).

288.  The Court observes next that forced labour was not listed in the note on Article 127.1 on the meaning of “exploitation of a person” (see paragraph 165 above). Nor was it penalised as a separate offence by the Criminal Code. While according to the above-mentioned note, servitude appears to be embraced by the meaning of “exploitation of a person” as the purpose of trafficking in human beings, the definition of servitude was not provided, and it was likewise not penalised as a separate offence. The definition of “use of slave labour” in Article 127.2 of the Russian Criminal Code required the use of the labour of a person “in respect of whom authority inherent in the right of ownership is exercised”, which corresponds more to the “classic” meaning of slavery and not to that of servitude (see Siliadin, cited above, § 122). It can also be noted that the second element of the definition of “use of slave labour” in Article 127.2, which required the use of the labour of a person who “cannot refuse to carry out work (or services) for reasons outside his or her control”, does not refer to the much subtler absence of voluntariness, as it is understood in the Court’s case-law on forced labour. Notably, the prior consent of the victim is not sufficient to exclude the characterisation of work as forced labour. Where an employer abuses his or her power or takes advantage of the vulnerability of his or her workers in order to exploit them, they do not offer themselves for work voluntarily (see Chowdury and Others, cited above, § 96). In clarifying the elements of the definition of “forced or compulsory labour”, the Court has held that the concept of “a penalty” extends to any equivalent situation in terms of the perceived seriousness of the threat. With regard to the question of “consent” to the work in issue, the Court has referred to the absence of a choice (see Siliadin, cited above, §§ 114-20). In C.N. and V. v. France (cited above, § 77), relying on an ILO report, the Court elaborated on the concept of “a penalty”, explaining that this concept “may go as far as physical violence or restraint, but it can also take subtler forms, of a psychological nature, such as threats to denounce victims to the police or immigration authorities when their employment status is illegal”.

289.  In view of the foregoing, the Court considers that the criminal law of the respondent State did not effectively penalise trafficking in human beings, forced labour and servitude.

290.  The Court further observes that the draft law on combating human trafficking, with provisions on, inter alia, a legal status for victims of human trafficking and measures for their protection by the State, was prepared and submitted to the State Duma for consideration in December 2002 (see paragraph 171 above). Model laws for the CIS member States to combat human trafficking and to provide assistance to trafficking victims were adopted in 2008 (see paragraph 190 above). However, the draft law was never reviewed, and a law providing for measures to combat and prevent human trafficking and to protect and assist its victims was not enacted in Russia.

291.  There were multiple calls for Russia – which were not heeded – to protect the rights and interests of trafficking victims, and in particular, to establish and put in place: (i) a national action plan to combat human trafficking and forced labour; (ii) national guidelines for the early identification and referral of women and girls who had been victims of trafficking to appropriate services, integrating a victim‑centred and gender-responsive approach; (iii) support and rehabilitation programmes for victims of trafficking, including adequately funded shelters and medical, social and legal services; (iv) a responsible body and coordination among the relevant State structures; and (v) systematic training on the relevant procedures for the police, immigration officials and other law-enforcement officers (see paragraphs 201-07 above). The existing legislative framework did not provide for the possibility of regularising residence in Russia for (potential) victims of trafficking illegally present in the country and made the provision of assistance to them punishable by administrative and criminal sanctions (see paragraph 173 above).

292.  The applicants were trafficked from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan and exploited in Russia between 2002 and 2016. Their traffickers were unhindered by the domestic law-enforcement authorities in exploiting them for the benefit of their businesses, despite repeated reports of their exploiting and abusing female migrant workers from Central Asia. Other authorities, such as, inter alia, the Federal Migration Service, which carried out regular inspections of the stores including shortly before the events of 30 October 2012, or the local authorities, which dealt with the neighbourhood residents’ complaints (see paragraphs 107 and 135 above), were also unable to play their respective roles in uncovering and preventing the systemic trafficking and exploitation taking place. As noted above, during the relevant period Russia was a destination country of labour migration on a large scale from the CIS countries, in particular those in Central Asia, with which there was a visa-free border regime. It was a party to programmes of cooperation to combat trafficking in human beings between the CIS member States (see paragraph 190 above). However, it was reported that Russia had taken no steps to fulfil its commitments to implement those programmes (see paragraphs 221 and 222 above). The applicants were never identified as (potential) victims of human trafficking and no measures for their physical, psychological and social recovery were taken.

293.  In those circumstances the Court considers that the respondent State failed to put in place an adequate legislative and administrative framework to prohibit and prevent trafficking, forced labour and servitude and to protect its victims, such as to afford the applicants, one of whom was a minor when trafficked to Russia, practical and effective protection against those crimes.

294.  There has accordingly been a violation of Article 4 in its substantive limb in respect of all the applicants.

(ii)    The obligation to take operational measures to protect victims of trafficking

295.  As with Articles 2 and 3 of the Convention, Article 4 may, in certain circumstances, require a State to take operational measures to protect victims, or potential victims, of trafficking. In order for a positive obligation to take operational measures to arise in the circumstances of a particular case, it must be demonstrated that the State authorities were aware, or ought to have been aware, of circumstances giving rise to a credible suspicion that an identified individual had been, or was at real and immediate risk of being, trafficked or exploited within the meaning of Article 3(a) of the Palermo Protocol and Article 4(a) of the Anti-Trafficking Convention. In the case of an answer in the affirmative, there will be a violation of Article 4 of the Convention where the authorities fail to take appropriate measures within the scope of their powers to remove the individual from that situation or risk.

296.  Bearing in mind the difficulties involved in policing modern societies and the operational choices which must be made in terms of priorities and resources, the obligation to take operational measures must, however, be interpreted in a way which does not impose an impossible or disproportionate burden on the authorities. It is relevant to the consideration of the proportionality of any positive obligation arising in the present case that the Palermo Protocol requires States to endeavour to provide for the physical safety of victims of trafficking while in their territories and to establish comprehensive policies and programmes to prevent and combat trafficking. States are also required to provide relevant training for law-enforcement and immigration officials (see Rantsev, §§ 286‑87, and S.M. v. Croatia, § 305, both cited above).

297.  The Court has found (see paragraph 248 above) that the IOM’s communication of 11 June 2010 and the Kazakhstani authorities’ request for legal assistance of 28 July 2010 gave rise to a credible suspicion that the second applicant had been trafficked to Russia from Kazakhstan in 2007 while a minor and exploited in the store on Uralskaya Street. Given that she was at real and immediate risk of continued exploitation and abuse by the store owners, the Russian authorities had a duty by virtue of their positive obligations under Article 4 of the Convention to take operational measures to remove her from that risk. Despite being aware of the second applicant’s heightened vulnerability – on account of her age, her family situation as an orphan and her being the alleged victim of exploitation and violence over a period of more than three years – they did no more than interview her alleged trafficker, R.M., and, being satisfied by his denial of any wrongdoing, which was supported by statements from several individuals under his control, decided not to open a criminal investigation (see paragraphs 5-9 above).

298.  On 29 April 2013, after the inquiry had been resumed following the intervention of the civil society activists on 30 October 2012 and the first applicant’s persistent complaints that her sister was still in the hands of her exploiters, the second applicant was brought, allegedly by her trafficker, R.M., to the Investigative Committee investigator to give statements. On that occasion she presented R.M. as her benefactor and the person who would be aware of her whereabouts (see paragraphs 98 and 154 above). Disregarding the credible suspicion of the second applicant’s trafficking, exploitation and abuse and paying no heed to the suspicious circumstances in which those statements – which could be nothing other than the result of coercion – had been taken, the investigator let the second applicant be taken away and used her statements to dismiss the first applicant’s complaints (see paragraphs 108 and 109 above).

299.  The Court finds that the Russian authorities did not take any of the steps which could reasonably have been expected of them in the given circumstances. Their response ignored the gravity and urgency of the second applicant’s situation, in breach of their positive obligations to prevent human trafficking and to protect the applicant – a minor when brought to Russia – from the prohibited treatment which she had to endure for a further three years after the authorities had first been alerted to that risk. Their failure to take any tangible measures to search for the second applicant also gave the perpetrators a free hand to move her across borders when taking her to Egypt to look after their children, and to transfer her into the custody of their relatives and alleged accomplices in Kazakhstan (see paragraphs 153 and 154 above).

300.  On 30 October 2012 the authorities discovered the fourth applicant as a result of her release, which had been made possible by civil society volunteers after her ten-year-long period of exploitation and abuse following her trafficking to Russia from Uzbekistan. She was part of a group of irregular female migrants from Central Asia in a similar situation, who were assisted by the NGO in question and chose to cooperate with the authorities. Confronted with the prima facie evidence of the fourth applicant’s trafficking for labour exploitation (see paragraph 256 above), the authorities had the duty to identify, protect and support her as a (potential) victim of that crime.

301.  The Court reiterates that (potential) victims need support even before the offence of human trafficking is formally established; otherwise, this would run counter to the whole purpose of victim protection in trafficking cases. The question whether the elements of the crime have been fulfilled would have to be answered in subsequent criminal proceedings (see J. and Others v. Austria, no. 58216/12, § 115, 17 January 2017). The Court has been satisfied that the duty in question had been complied with by the authorities where applicants had immediately been treated as (potential) victims of human trafficking from the point of their turning to the police; had been interviewed by specially trained police officers, granted residence and work permits in order to regularise their stay in the country concerned; and had received support in domestic proceedings, legal representation, procedural guidance, measures to exclude the traceability of their whereabouts and assistance to facilitate integration (ibid., §§ 110‑11).

302.  In the present case the fourth applicant was never identified as a (potential) victim of trafficking and was not provided with the relevant assistance and protection. Instead, she was subjected to intimidation and threats of deportation by the police and the Investigative Committee on account of her irregular migration status. Her avoiding removal from Russia was primarily due to the firm stance and advocacy of her lawyer, the CAC and that NGO’s chair (see paragraphs 28, 54-57 and 62 above). There were no obstacles to her former employers’ putting pressure on her to dissuade her from complaining. It is the same NGO which provided the applicant with accommodation (having to constantly relocate her for her own safety), basic financial aid, medical and psychological help, and legal assistance (see paragraphs 78-79 and 100 above).

303.  Owing to the assistance of the CAC, in April 2013 the first and third applicants travelled to Russia from their home countries in order to participate in the inquiry into their criminal complaints and be interviewed by the Investigative Committee (see paragraphs 93-96 above). They were not identified as (potential) victims of trafficking in person and no protection or assistance was extended to them, while their alleged abusers remained at large. The same is true in the case of the fifth applicant, who turned to the police to lodge her criminal complaint shortly after her escape, after being provided with assistance and shelter by members of Alternativa (see paragraphs 117-19 above).

304.  No cooperation and assistance was provided by the State law‑enforcement authorities to the civil society representatives whose relentless efforts, in contrast to the law-enforcement authorities’ passivity and indifference, brought about or facilitated the applicants’ regaining their liberty (the fourth applicant, followed by the third applicant, the second applicant and later the fifth applicant) and ensured that the perpetrators’ crimes were reported to the competent authorities, that the applicants were assisted as far as possible and that their predicament was brought to light, resulting in the case gaining a high public profile (see paragraphs 11-14, 28‑29, 33, 37, 51-65, 78-79, 119, 123 and 131 above). Instead, the legitimate efforts to bring the perpetrators to justice and to obtain redress were regarded by the domestic authorities as improper and potentially criminal and led to an inquiry into the activities of the CAC and detailed interrogations of its chair, the fourth applicant and the other women whom the CAC had assisted (see paragraphs 101‑04 above).

305.  In the light of the foregoing, the Court finds that there has also been a violation of Article 4 of the Convention in its substantive limb on account of the respondent State’s failure to take operational measures to protect the applicants as (potential) victims of cross‑border trafficking in human beings.

(iii)   The obligation to investigate

(α)     General principles

306.  Whereas the general scope of the State’s positive obligations might differ between cases where the treatment contrary to the Convention has been inflicted through the involvement of State agents and cases where violence is inflicted by private individuals, the procedural requirements are similar (see S.M. v. Croatia, cited above, § 312).

307.  These procedural requirements primarily concern the authorities’ duty to institute and conduct an effective investigation. As explained in the Court’s case-law, that means instituting and conducting an investigation capable of leading to the establishment of the facts and of identifying and – if appropriate – punishing those responsible (ibid., § 313, and see also Rantsev, cited above, § 288). The authorities must act of their own motion once the matter has come to their attention. In particular, they cannot leave it to the initiative of the victim to take responsibility for the conduct of any investigatory procedures (see S.M. v. Croatia, cited above, § 314). For an investigation to be effective, it must be independent from those implicated in the events. A requirement of promptness and reasonable expedition is implicit in all cases but where the possibility of removing the individual from the harmful situation is available, the investigation must be undertaken as a matter of urgency. The victim or the next of kin must be involved in the procedure to the extent necessary to safeguard their legitimate interests (see Rantsev, cited above, § 288; L.E. v. Greece, no. 71545/12, § 68, 21 January 2016; and C.N. v. the United Kingdom, cited above, § 69).

308.  The procedural obligation is a requirement of means and not of results. There is no absolute right to obtain the prosecution or conviction of any particular person where there were no culpable failures in seeking to hold perpetrators of criminal offences accountable. Thus, the fact that an investigation ends without concrete, or with only limited, results is not indicative of any failings as such. Moreover, the procedural obligation must not be interpreted in such a way as to impose an impossible or disproportionate burden on the authorities. Nevertheless, the authorities must take whatever reasonable steps they can to collect evidence and elucidate the circumstances of the case. In particular, the investigation’s conclusions must be based on thorough, objective and impartial analysis of all relevant elements. Failing to follow an obvious line of inquiry undermines to a decisive extent the investigation’s ability to establish the circumstances of the case and the identity of those responsible. As to the level of scrutiny to be applied by the Court in this regard, it is important to stress that, although the Court has recognised that it must be cautious in taking on the role of a first-instance tribunal of fact where this is not rendered unavoidable by the circumstances of a particular case, it has to apply a “particularly thorough scrutiny” even if certain domestic proceedings and investigations have already taken place (see S.M. v. Croatia, cited above, §§ 315-17, with further references).

309.  Compliance with the procedural obligation must be assessed on the basis of several essential parameters. These elements are interrelated and each of them, taken separately, does not amount to an end in itself. They are criteria which, taken jointly, enable the degree of effectiveness of the investigation to be assessed. The possible defects in the relevant proceedings and the decision-making process must amount to significant flaws in order to raise an issue under Article 4. In other words, the Court is not concerned with allegations of errors or isolated omissions but only significant shortcomings in the proceedings and the relevant decision‑making process, namely those that are capable of undermining the investigation’s capability of establishing the circumstances of the case or the person responsible (ibid., §§ 319-20, with further references).

310.  Moreover, and in general terms, the Court considers that the obligation to investigate effectively is binding, in such matters, on the law-enforcement and judicial authorities. Where those authorities establish that an employer has had recourse to human trafficking and forced labour, they should act accordingly, within their respective spheres of competence, pursuant to the relevant criminal-law provisions (see Chowdury and Others, cited above, § 116).

311.  The Court reiterates that trafficking is a problem which is often not confined to the domestic arena. When a person is trafficked from one State to another, trafficking offences may occur in the State of origin, any State of transit and the State of destination. Relevant evidence and witnesses may be located in all States (see Rantsev, cited above, § 289). Although the Palermo Protocol is silent on the question of jurisdiction, the Anti-Trafficking Convention explicitly requires each member State to establish jurisdiction over any trafficking offence committed in its territory. Such an approach is, in the Court’s view, only logical in the light of the general obligation incumbent on all States under Article 4 of the Convention to investigate alleged trafficking offences. In addition to the obligation to conduct a domestic investigation into events occurring on their own territories, member States are also subject to a duty in cross-border trafficking cases to cooperate effectively with the relevant authorities of other States concerned in the investigation of events which occurred outside their territories (ibid.).

(β)      Application to the present case

312.  The Court has found that the reports of the alleged crimes against the applicants provided grounds for a credible suspicion that they had been subjected to cross-border trafficking for labour exploitation, and that in the case of the fourth applicant there was prima facie evidence of her being a victim of such treatment (see paragraph 263 above). The authorities were therefore required to act of their own motion, instituting and conducting an investigation capable of leading to the establishment of the facts and of identifying and, if appropriate, punishing those responsible. As the possibility of removing the second applicant from the harmful situation was to be explored, the investigation had to be undertaken as a matter of urgency.

313.  The Court observes that between 2010 and 2021 the police and the Investigative Committee took a series of decisions declining to institute criminal proceedings and to carry out a criminal investigation. Those decisions were taken as a result of the preliminary (also called “pre-investigation”) inquiry, which was the initial stage in dealing with a report of a criminal offence under Russian law, to be followed by the opening of a criminal case and the carrying out of a fully fledged criminal investigation (in which the whole range of investigative measures could be taken, such as, inter alia, questioning witnesses and organising identification parades and face-to-face confrontations) if the information gathered disclosed elements of a criminal offence. The framework of the pre‑investigation inquiry alone did not allow the circumstances of the case or the identity of the alleged perpetrators to be established and was not capable of leading to the perpetrators’ punishment. The Court has held in a number of cases against Russia that a refusal to open a criminal investigation into credible allegations of ill‑treatment was indicative of the State’s failure to comply with its procedural obligation under Article 3 (see, in the context of police ill‑treatment, Lyapin v. Russia, no. 46956/09, §§ 134-40, 24 July 2014; Olisov and Others v. Russia, nos. 10825/09 and 2 others, §§ 81-82, 2 May 2017; and Samesov v. Russia, no. 57269/14, §§ 51‑54, 20 November 2018; and, in the context of domestic violence against women, Volodina v. Russia, no. 41261/17, §§ 95‑96 and 101-02, 9 July 2019).

314.  The Court has no reason to reach a different conclusion under Article 4 of the Convention in the present case. For more than a decade, the domestic investigating authorities came up with nothing more than cursory pre‑investigation inquiries into the applicants’ credible complaints, ending with similar refusals to institute criminal proceedings that were so poorly reasoned that they were routinely set aside.

315.  The investigator’s decision to institute criminal proceedings in the wake of the discovery of the fourth applicant on 30 October 2012 was hastily set aside by the prosecutor’s office, two days after it had been taken. While giving reasons why, in its view, proceedings should not be instituted in relation to the alleged offence of unlawful deprivation of liberty under Article 127 of the Criminal Code, the prosecutor’s office (which was informed of each refusal to institute criminal proceedings) at all levels, including the Prosecutor General of the Russian Federation, remained silent as to why criminal proceedings should not be instituted under Article 127.1 of the Criminal Code (trafficking in human beings) or Article 127.2 (use of slave labour), despite repeated petitions from the applicants’ representatives, supported by civil society, including a petition with more than 15,000 signatories (see paragraphs 42-53, 57, 65 and 78 above).

316.  Statements by the alleged perpetrators denying the crimes against the applicants and statements by individuals under their control, potentially themselves victims of trafficking, were accepted without any scrutiny and relied on to dismiss the applicants’ complaints. These included, in particular, the statements of Ms L.A., who had withdrawn her complaints after contact with Zh.I. (see paragraphs 79 and 100 above); of Ms R.K., whose abduction by Zh.I. on 30 October 2012 had been reported to the police; and of other individuals during their employment at the Golyanovo stores (see paragraphs 12, 33-34, 37 and 91 above). The statements of the second applicant while she had still been in the custody of her traffickers were used to dismiss the first applicant’s complaints (see paragraph 298 above).

317.  The credible allegations of gender-based physical, sexual and reproductive violence, supported by medical and other evidence, were disregarded, as were the strong indications of the veracity of the applicant’s complaints concerning the seizure of their identity documents, the lack of employment contracts and any evidence that salary payments had been made or accommodation had been provided.

318.  Such basic important steps as carrying out a forensic medical examination of the applicants and their removed children after they had been reunited with their mothers, a forensic examination of the towel with stains resembling blood, or an examination of the records from video-cameras seized from the store on Novosibirskaya Street on 30 October 2012 were never taken, despite explicit orders (see paragraphs 110 and 129 above). Only the third of the five applicants was examined by a forensic medical expert, owing to the assistance of the CAC in ensuring that she could travel to Russia in order to participate in the inquiry. The forensic medical examination of the fourth applicant and her son was never carried out despite their presence in Moscow following their release from captivity on 30 October 2012 and the availability of records of their injuries and serious health conditions as a result of medical examinations in Moscow made possible by the same NGO.

319.  The fourth applicant was not alone in complaining that Zh.I. and S.M. had taken away her children born in captivity (a son, who had been held in one of the store owners’ flats in Moscow, and a daughter, who had allegedly been taken to Kazakhstan, where she had died). Her co‑worker, Ms L.A., lodged similar complaints concerning her three children (see paragraphs 18 and 70 above). Ms L.A.’s complaints were consistent with the police officer’s statements that she had already raised such complaints in approximately 2011 (see paragraph 41 above). S.M. and Zh.I. themselves acknowledged that Ms L.A.’s younger son had been registered as their own child as a result of their fraudulent actions (see paragraph 89 above). A girl with the same first name as the fourth applicant’s disappeared daughter was recorded in Zh.I.’s passport as one of her children (see paragraph 32 above). S.M. stated that the girl had died in Kazakhstan (see paragraph 89 above). The applicant’s son was discovered, after his alleged abduction, in an alarming state of health, which was found to be the result of abuse (see paragraphs 77 and 78 above). The Russian investigating authorities failed to make any assessment of the above-mentioned circumstances and to undertake even such basic steps as obtaining information from the hospital in Moscow to elucidate the circumstances in which the fourth applicant’s children had been born (see paragraphs 114 and 133 above). They dismissed her allegations as unfounded and decided to dispense with a criminal investigation, which would have opened the possibility of cooperation with their Kazakhstani counterparts. The applicant’s difficulties in remembering her daughter’s date of birth are entirely understandable given the long duration of her exploitation and abuse and the repeated brain traumas she had sustained at the hands of her abusers (see paragraphs 16, 28, 68, 76 and 131 above). The Russian authorities’ failure to carry out an effective criminal investigation into this aspect of the alleged gender-based violence left the fourth applicant in a continuing situation of uncertainty in respect of her daughter’s disappearance, prolonging her anxieties and trauma.

320.  The applicants’ and the other alleged victims’ consistent allegations of corruption and collusion with the store owners on the part of the officers of the Golyanovo district police department, including the alleged practice of returning the escaped victims to their exploiters in exchange for bribes (see paragraphs 23, 60, 66, 69, 72, 95 and 121 above), were likewise dismissed without a criminal investigation being conducted.

321.  Statements by the Golyanovo district police department neighbourhood police officer asserting that the workers had never had any complaints and had been legally employed and that Ms Z.A. had, in the presence of the store owners, denied being a victim of criminal conduct on their part (see paragraph 90 above) were accepted by the Investigative Committee without any critical assessment, even in the face of the obvious contradictions with the statements of Zh.I. and S.M. that they had employed migrant workers from Central Asia illegally, Ms Z.A.’s statements that she had denied the store owners’ criminal conduct under coercion, or the statements of another police officer concerning past reports of the workers’ abusive treatment by the store owners (see paragraphs 32, 71 and 41 above).

322.  The repeated use by the Golyanovo police of the statements of potential trafficking victims denying the offences against them while remaining under their traffickers’ control, as an excuse not to investigate such offences, should have alerted the Investigative Committee and the prosecutor’s office and led to a criminal investigation being carried out, which did not happen. As the Court has already noted (see paragraph 316 above), the Investigative Committee itself used such statements to dismiss the applicants’ complaints.

323.  It is noteworthy that the outcome of the Moscow police internal investigation into the corruption allegations against the police officers of the Golyanovo district police department – which was accepted by the Investigative Committee – was nothing more than a report by the head of that same police department denying any wrongdoing (see paragraph 105 above). Moreover, the same police department was involved up to 2021, including as a result of transfers from the prosecutor’s office and the Investigative Committee, in the inquiry into the applicants’ complaints (see paragraphs 83, 117, 125-27 and 132 above), in breach of the Convention requirement that to be effective, an investigation must be independent from those implicated in the events.

324.  Despite the acknowledgment by its senior officials of the poor reasoning of the refusals to institute criminal proceedings, the Russian law-enforcement system continued for years with a pointless cycle of setting them aside only to order another additional superfluous inquiry leading to the same untenable result. That process was endorsed by the domestic courts (see paragraphs 108-15, 126-28 and 130 above). At no point were specially trained police officers, investigators, prosecutors or judges involved in the applicants’ cases.

325.  The Court further reiterates that when investigating violent incidents, State authorities have the additional duty to take all reasonable steps to unmask possible discriminatory motives and to establish whether or not violence was induced by, for instance, racial or religious intolerance or motivated by gender-based discrimination. Treating violence and brutality with a discriminatory intent on an equal footing with cases that have no such overtones would be turning a blind eye to the specific nature of acts that are particularly destructive of fundamental rights (see, among other authorities, Identoba and Others v. Georgia, no. 73235/12, § 67, 12 May 2015). Despite the fact that the systemic exploitation and physical abuse of female migrant workers from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan in the Golyanovo stores in Moscow was repeatedly reported to the Russian authorities, the likelihood that the traffickers had used the applicants’ vulnerability as females and migrants in order to exploit them was left without any assessment, in breach of the above duty.

326.  The Russian investigating authorities repeatedly, up to the Investigative Committee’s most recent decision of 11 April 2018, justified their refusals to institute a criminal investigation by the fact that the applicants were foreigners not residing in Russia and could not therefore be interviewed or involved in carrying out investigative activities (see paragraphs 6, 83 and 130 above). The investigating authorities’ failure to avail themselves of inter-State legal assistance requests was pointed out as a flaw to be rectified (see paragraph 110 above). However, there is no indication that that mechanism was in fact used, despite the Code of Criminal Procedure and the Minsk Convention providing for the possibility of taking statements from victims, including in the requesting country (see paragraphs 170 and 189 above). The fact that the first and third applicants travelled to Russia from their home countries and were interviewed in April 2013 in Moscow by the Investigative Committee was due entirely to the assistance of the CAC (see paragraphs 93-95 above). Statements were never taken from the second applicant after she had regained her liberty in Kazakhstan. Nor was the fifth applicant interviewed, either at the time of lodging her complaint with the Moscow police or after her return to Kazakhstan.

327.  In addition, the Russian investigating authorities did not obtain information about the proceedings instituted in response to the applicants’ criminal complaints in their home countries, despite that necessity being specifically flagged (see paragraph 110 above). Between June 2013 and June 2016, Russia was the recipient of an extradition request from the Uzbekistani authorities in respect of one of the third applicant’s traffickers (see paragraph 136 above). Nevertheless, information about the criminal proceedings in Uzbekistan was not requested and the extradited individual’s conviction in 2017 for the third applicant’s trafficking (see paragraph 137 above) had no impact on the Russian authorities’ denial of her being a victim of that crime.

328.  The respondent State’s failure to institute and conduct a criminal investigation into events occurring on its territory and to cooperate with the relevant authorities of other States concerned necessarily had an adverse impact on the investigation of the related cases concerning the applicants’ complaints in their home countries (see, inter alia, paragraphs 10, 121-22 and 137 above concerning the stalled investigation in Kazakhstan and the failed attempts of the Kazakhstani investigating authorities to question the store owners or the failure to establish the identity of the store owners in the Uzbekistani court’s judgment).

329.  In view of the foregoing, the Court finds that there has been no effective criminal investigation into the credible allegations of the applicants’ trafficking, forced labour and servitude and the use of gender-based violence as a tool of coercion, and that the discriminatory attitude towards the applicants as female foreign migrant workers played a role in that situation.

330.  By failing in its duty to carry out an effective investigation, the respondent State fostered a sense of impunity among the traffickers and precluded the applicants’ recovery from their traumatic experiences. It also left the applicants without the opportunity to seek compensation in respect of damage suffered by them, including the withholding of earnings from them by their traffickers, as part of ensuring restitutio in integrum in the process of upholding their dignity, assisting their recovery and reducing the risks of their again falling victim to traffickers (see Krachunova v. Bulgaria, no. 18269/18, 28 November 2023).

331.  In the light of the foregoing, the Court finds that there has been a violation of Article 4 of the Convention in its procedural limb in respect of all the applicants.

332.  The applicants also asserted that they had not had effective remedies in respect of their complaints of trafficking, exploitation and abuse. They relied on Article 13 of the Convention, which reads as follows:

“Everyone whose rights and freedoms as set forth in [the] Convention are violated shall have an effective remedy before a national authority notwithstanding that the violation has been committed by persons acting in an official capacity.”

333.  The Court notes that this complaint is closely linked to and subsumed by the complaint alleging a violation of the positive procedural obligations under Article 4, which form a lex specialis in relation to the general obligations under Article 13. It should therefore be declared admissible. After examining the merits of the complaint that no effective investigation had been carried out from the standpoint of the State’s positive obligations under Article 4, the Court has already found a violation of that Article on this account.

334.  The Court accordingly considers it unnecessary to examine separately the complaint concerning the alleged violation of Article 13 (see C.N. and V. v. France, cited above, §§ 112-14).

335.  The applicants complained that they had been subjected to discrimination on the grounds of their gender, ethnicity and social position. They argued that their discrimination was inherent both in the motive behind the traffickers’ targeting and exploiting them, and in the authorities’ failure to protect them and to investigate those offences effectively. They relied on Article 14 of the Convention, in conjunction with Articles 3, 4 and 8.

336.  The Court has examined the applicants’ complaints of violations of the above-mentioned substantive provisions of the Convention under Article 4 (see paragraphs 228-30 above). It therefore considers that the applicants’ present complaint falls to be examined under Article 14 in conjunction with Article 4. Article 14 of the Convention reads as follows:

“The enjoyment of the rights and freedoms set forth in [the] Convention shall be secured without discrimination on any ground such as sex, race, colour, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, association with a national minority, property, birth or other status.”

337.  The Court has found a violation of Article 4 in that the respondent State failed to fulfil its positive obligations to protect the applicants as victims of trafficking and servitude, and to investigate the crimes committed against them. Accordingly, the facts of the case fall within the scope of that provision of the Convention.

338.  The Court notes that the applicants complained of discrimination based on identifiable characteristics or “status” related to their gender, ethnicity and immigration status. Article 14 of the Convention is therefore applicable in the present case.

339.  The Court considers that this complaint is neither manifestly ill-founded nor inadmissible on any other grounds listed in Article 35 of the Convention. It must therefore be declared admissible.

340.  The applicants submitted that they were victims of intersectional discrimination on the grounds of their gender, ethnicity and social position, which stemmed from the authorities’ gender, ethnic and anti‑immigrant biases. In particular, they were vulnerable indigent women who had been trafficked into Russia from Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, held in conditions of servitude, and subjected to repeated and extreme forms of violence. They had been treated by the police as illegal migrants instead of (potential) victims of human trafficking, owing to stereotypes relating to female migrant workers from Central Asia, and they had faced inaction and the downplaying of the seriousness of their complaints by the prosecutor’s office and the investigative authorities, together with a lack of protection by the authorities, despite the fact that violence against women and labour migrants, especially those belonging to ethnic minorities, was a major systemic problem affecting Russian society. The general discriminatory passivity of the Russian law‑enforcement authorities in relation to the allegations of serious crimes committed against the applicants revealed an attitude of disdain and dehumanisation of women and migrants as vulnerable groups. It was in stark contrast to the swift prosecution in the case involving the abduction of Russian teenage boys by the son of Zh.I. and S.M. and their use as slave labour for three hours (see paragraph 140 above). There had been no investigation into the discriminatory motives inherent in the applicants’ trafficking and servitude, in the collusion of the police with the traffickers, or in the response of the police and investigators to the reports of crimes against the applicants.

341.  The Court reiterates that a general policy that has disproportionately prejudicial effects on a particular group may be considered to constitute discrimination, even where it is not specifically aimed at that group and there is no discriminatory intent. Discrimination that is contrary to the Convention may also result from a de facto situation (see Volodina, cited above, § 109, with further references). The Court has found that a State’s failure to protect women against domestic violence breaches their right to equal protection before the law and that this failure does not need to be intentional (see Opuz v. Turkey, no. 33401/02, § 191, ECHR 2009). It has held that “the general and discriminatory judicial passivity [creating] a climate that was conducive to domestic violence” amounted to a violation of Article 14 of the Convention. Such discriminatory treatment has been found to occur where it could be established that the authorities’ actions were not a simple failure or delay in dealing with the violence in question, but amounted to repeatedly condoning such violence and reflected a discriminatory attitude towards the complainant as a woman (see Tkhelidze v. Georgia, no. 33056/17, § 51, 8 July 2021, with further references). Where there is a suspicion that discriminatory attitudes induced a violent act, it is particularly important that the official investigation be pursued with vigour and impartiality, having regard to the need to continuously reassert society’s condemnation of such acts and to maintain the confidence of minority groups in the ability of the authorities to protect them from discriminatory violence (ibid.).

342.  The available research and statistics show that a disproportionate number of women and girls have been victims of human trafficking, particularly in Eastern Europe and Central Asia (see paragraphs 191-95 above). Females in general are more vulnerable than men to exploitation through use of force or threats. Female victims are subjected to physical or other violence at the hands of traffickers at a rate three times higher than males (see paragraphs 192 and 195 above). Another disproportionately affected group is that of migrants, notably immigrants without close family, friends or other support networks, whose irregular migration status makes them afraid or reluctant to contact local authorities (see paragraph 192 above).

343.  The respondent State’s notable lack of recognition of the rights and interests of trafficking victims, especially foreign labour trafficking victims, including female migrant workers from Central Asia, was regularly brought to its attention by the international community (see paragraphs 201‑24 above). The government did not systematically publish information and statistics on trafficking cases (see paragraphs 212 and 223 above). The available information, including from media reports, showed meagre efforts to detect and prosecute trafficking in human beings for a destination country of large-scale labour migration with a very high proportion of labour migrants in an irregular situation (see paragraphs 196-200, 211-12 and 247 above). Victim protection and assistance remained the weakest component of the respondent State’s anti-trafficking efforts. The majority of victims were identified and assisted by NGOs and international organisations (see paragraphs 211 and 213-24 above). The government response rating was assessed as being the weakest in Europe and Central Asia (see paragraph 210 above).

344.  While the respondent State’s poor anti-trafficking efforts reflected a general situation, inevitably this mostly hit those disproportionately affected by trafficking, labour exploitation and related violence, notably female foreign migrant workers in an irregular situation.

345.  The applicants’ complaints under Article 14 of the Convention stem from the same factual circumstances as those the Court has already examined under Article 4. It has found that the applicants were victims of trafficking in human beings who were subjected to servitude with the use of gender-based violence as a tool of coercion, and that the respondent State failed to comply with its positive obligations under Article 4 of the Convention, notably to put in place a legislative and administrative framework to penalise and ensure effective prosecution of trafficking, forced labour and servitude, and to provide (potential) victims with practical and effective protection, to take operational measures to protect them and to conduct an effective investigation into crimes committed against them.

346.  Having regard to the general principles governing the application of Article 14 of the Convention and its thorough factual and legal findings set out above under Article 4, which are equally pertinent to the assessment under Article 14, the Court considers that the inaction of the respondent State in honouring its positive obligations under Article 4 amounted to repeatedly condoning trafficking, labour exploitation and related gender-based violence and reflected a discriminatory attitude towards the applicants as women who were foreign workers with an irregular immigration status. The respondent State authorities’ general and discriminatory passivity created a climate that was conducive to their trafficking and exploitation.

347.  There has accordingly been a violation of Article 14 of the Convention, taken in conjunction with Article 4.

348.  Article 41 of the Convention provides:

“If the Court finds that there has been a violation of the Convention or the Protocols thereto, and if the internal law of the High Contracting Party concerned allows only partial reparation to be made, the Court shall, if necessary, afford just satisfaction to the injured party.”

349.  The applicants each claimed an amount to be determined by the Court in respect of non-pecuniary damage.

350.  The Government did not submit comments.

351.  In the present case, the Court has found violations of Article 4 on separate grounds concerning distinct positive obligations, each of which may constitute a stand-alone violation (see, for example, Siliadin, cited above, §§ 148-49, in which a violation of Article 4 in its substantive limb was found on the grounds that the criminal legislation had not afforded the applicant specific and effective protection against servitude; S.M. v. Croatia, cited above, §§ 346‑47; and Zoletic and Others, cited above, §§ 208 and 210, in which a violation of Article 4 in its procedural limb was found). The Court has also found a violation of Article 14 of the Convention taken in conjunction with Article 4.

352.  The Court also notes that while the respondent State’s inaction in providing protection against trafficking in human beings, forced labour and servitude concerned all the applicants, it had an aggravated effect on the second and fourth applicants. The second applicant, an orphan who was trafficked to Russia while a minor, spent three additional years (out of six years in total) in servitude after her situation had been reported to the Russian authorities and they had been requested to take measures to protect her (see paragraph 299 above). The fourth applicant, who suffered very serious damage to her health as a result of physical and mental abuse during her ten‑year-long servitude and whose son was a victim of child abuse with grave consequences, resolved to pursue her criminal complaint while remaining in Russia, and was subjected to intimidation and threats of deportation by the police and the Investigative Committee on account of her irregular migration status (see paragraph 302 above). The Russian authorities’ failure to carry out an effective criminal investigation, in cooperation with the Kazakhstani investigating authorities, into the fourth applicant’s complaint about the removal and disappearance of her daughter K. left the applicant in a continuing situation of uncertainty in respect of her daughter’s disappearance, thus prolonging her anxieties and trauma (see paragraph 319 above).

353.  In view of the above, the Court awards the first, third and fifth applicants 52,000 euros (EUR) each, plus any tax that may be chargeable, in respect of non-pecuniary damage. Taking into account the aggravated effects of the relevant violations on the second and fourth applicants, the Court finds it appropriate to award them EUR 78,000 each, plus any tax that may be chargeable, in respect of non-pecuniary damage.

354.  The applicants also claimed EUR 10,099.73 for the costs and expenses incurred before the Court. The claim consisted of 4,350 pounds sterling (GBP) in relation to the work done by two lawyers employed in London (United Kingdom) by the European Human Rights Advocacy Centre (EHRAC), EUR 2,367.98 in relation to the expert report prepared by Women’s Link Worldwide (see paragraph 148 above), and the remaining amount representing administrative and translation expenses of EHRAC. They requested that the sum be paid in euros directly into the bank account of EHRAC.

355.  In support of that claim, the applicants submitted, inter alia, relevant invoices and agreements which the second, third and fourth applicants had entered into with EHRAC, based in London, and its partner organisation in Moscow, Memorial Human Rights Centre, on 19 December 2021, 3 January 2022 and 29 November 2021 respectively. The agreements contained undertakings by the applicants to pay the legal fees and expenses of EHRAC and Memorial if those were awarded by the Court. They also indicated that the United Kingdom-based lawyers’ hourly rate was GBP 150. The applicants submitted a time sheet indicating how many hours each of the two lawyers had spent working on the applicants’ submissions to the Court – 19 hours (Ms Levine) and 10 hours (Ms Gavron).

356.  The Government submitted no comments.

357.  According to the Court’s case-law, an applicant is entitled to the reimbursement of costs and expenses only in so far as it has been shown that these were actually and necessarily incurred and are reasonable as to quantum. In the present case, the Court notes that, while Ms Levine had no authority form to personally make submissions before the Court on behalf of the applicants and Ms Gavron had authority forms to represent four of the five applicants (see the appendix), their work on the applicants’ observations inseparably concerning all five applicants, submitted by the applicants’ authorised representative, was done in accordance with the above-mentioned agreements. The other expenses of EHRAC (the administrative and translation costs) were also incurred in accordance with those agreements and supported by relevant invoices. The Court is satisfied that those legal fees and expenses were actually and necessarily incurred and are reasonable as to quantum. It is not, however, convinced that commissioning the expert report was necessary. Regard being had to the documents in its possession and the above criteria, the Court considers it reasonable to award the second, third and fourth applicants EUR 7,731.75, covering costs under all heads, plus any tax that may be chargeable to them, to be paid directly into the bank account of EHRAC.

FOR THESE REASONS, THE COURT, UNANIMOUSLY,

(a)  that the respondent State is to pay, within three months from the date on which the judgment becomes final in accordance with Article 44 § 2 of the Convention, the following amounts:

(i)  EUR 52,000 (fifty-two thousand euros) each, plus any tax that may be chargeable, to the first applicant (Ms F.M.), the third applicant (Ms G.N.) and the fifth applicant (Ms N.I.), in respect of non‑pecuniary damage;

(ii)  EUR 78,000 (seventy-eight thousand euros) each, plus any tax that may be chargeable, to the second applicant (Ms A.M.) and the fourth applicant (Ms B.K.), in respect of non-pecuniary damage;

(iii)  EUR 7,731.75 (seven thousand seven hundred and thirty-one euros and seventy‑five cents) to the second, third and fourth applicants jointly, plus any tax that may be chargeable to them, in respect of costs and expenses, to be paid directly into the bank account of EHRAC;

(b)  that from the expiry of the above-mentioned three months until settlement simple interest shall be payable on the above amounts at a rate equal to the marginal lending rate of the European Central Bank during the default period plus three percentage points.

Done in English, and notified in writing on 10 December 2024, pursuant to Rule 77 §§ 2 and 3 of the Rules of Court.

 Milan Blaško Ioannis Ktistakis
 Registrar President

APPENDIX

List of cases:

No.

Application no.

Case name

Lodged on

Applicant
Year of birth
Place of residence and
nationality

Represented by

1.

71671/16

F.M. and Others

v. Russia

25/11/2016

F.M.
1988
Kazakhstan

A.M.
1989
Kazakhstan

G.N.
1980
Uzbekistan

B.K.
1978
Moscow (place of residence)
Uzbekistan (nationality)

Mr K. Koroteev,

Ms M. Agaltsova,

Ms T. Glushkova,

Ms T. Imanova and

Ms N. Sekretareva of the Memorial Human Rights Centre, based in Moscow

(Ms Imanova and Ms Sekretareva represented Ms B.K. only)

Ms J. Gavron,

Mr P. Leach and

Ms J. Sawyer of the European Human Rights Advocacy Centre (EHRAC), based in London (United Kingdom)

2.

40190/18

N.I. v. Russia

15/08/2018

N.I.
1995
Kazakhstan

Mr K. Koroteev and Ms M. Agaltsova of the Memorial Human Rights Centre, based in Moscow

[1] Z.I. subsequently changed her name to S.O. (see paragraph 122 below).

[2] Zh.I. subsequently changed her name to Zh.K. (see paragraph 140 below).

[3] Elena Tyuryukanova, Forced Labour in the Russian Federation Today: Irregular Migration and Trafficking in Human Beings, Geneva, International Labour Office, 2005.