Prosecutor's offices of Vitebsk and Pskov regions will develop cooperation in the fight against human trafficking

July 15, Vitebsk / Sergey Kochetov - BELTA/. Cooperation between the prosecutor's offices of the Vitebsk and Pskov regions in combating human trafficking will contribute to the detection and prevention of this serious type of crime. This was stated to journalists by the Prosecutor of the Vitebsk region, Gennady Dysko, before the start of a working meeting of representatives of the prosecutor's offices of the Belarusian and Russian regions, BELTA correspondent reports.

For the Vitebsk region, the problem of combating crime in the sphere of human trafficking is relevant, and over the past two and a half years, the number of detected crimes has been constantly growing. If in 2009 one criminal case was initiated in this category of criminal offenses, then in 2010 there were already 12 such cases, and in six months of 2011, 19 crimes related to human trafficking were detected in the region. Crimes related to human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation are most often committed, with girls being taken mainly to Moscow and the Moscow region.

"Currently, our efforts in this area are aimed at eradicating this type of crime, and for this, it is necessary to intensify prevention, analyze the causes and conditions for committing crimes, and take measures to prevent them," emphasized Gennady Dysko. Cooperation with colleagues from the Pskov region can play an important role in this regard, and the prosecutor of the region hopes that the experience of law enforcement officers of the Vitebsk region will also help colleagues from the Russian region to intensify the fight against organized crime, which knows no borders.

Prosecutor of the Pskov region Timur Kebekov, in turn, emphasized that a working meeting of representatives of the prosecutor's offices of the two border regions at an official level is taking place for the first time. In his opinion, this format of cooperation provides an opportunity to significantly advance in the fight against human trafficking crimes. The exchange of views, work experience, and analytical information is of significant interest to the Pskov region prosecutor's office also because such crimes have not yet been detected in the Russian region bordering Belarus. "Perhaps, after familiarizing ourselves with the experience and developments of our Vitebsk colleagues, we will be able to intensify efforts to detect such latent crimes," emphasized Timur Kebekov. In addition, during the working meeting in Vitebsk, it will be useful to discuss a number of other areas of interaction, including the fight against smuggling, he added.-0-