Recent reports (2009-2012) have identified human trafficking and slavery of Uzbek nationals in contemporary Russian society. [22] [23] [24] [25] While slavery had not been widespread on the territory of present-day Russia since the introduction of Christianity in the tenth century, serfdom in Russia, which in many ways resembled contemporary slavery in the world, did not end until February 19, 1861, when Russian Emperor Alexander II published The Emancipation of Serfs in 1861. The emancipation of state-owned serfs took place in 1866. [1] There were documented cases of exploitation of construction workers working on stadium grounds during the 2018 FIFA World Cup. [8] Human Rights Watch investigations have uncovered a number of abuses among these construction workers, including non-payment and late payment of wages, as well as the absence of employment contracts and other documents required for legal employment. [9] Workers also reported that they had to work outdoors in extremely cold temperatures and that they were subject to reprisals or threats. because they have expressed concerns about their working conditions. Seventeen workers are believed to have died at the site of World Cup stadiums in Russia. [10] The Russian government has imposed stricter restrictions on migrant workers in order to reduce the number of irregular migrant workers in the country. In early 2015, a new law came into effect requiring foreign workers from countries that do not have a visa policy with Russia to obtain a license to work legally, take Russian language and history tests, and pay significant health insurance and exam fees.65 The new law particularly affected migrant workers from CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) countries. such as Tajikistan, which could enter and stay in Russia with its national identity card, but now has to present an international passport instead.66 This law led to a slight decrease in the influx of migrant workers in 2016-2017, but – despite concerns67 – it is unclear whether it drove a significant number of workers underground or prevented them from coming to Russia. The cost of a human life in Russia is only 18,000 rubles ($235).

At least, that`s what Anton Pogorelov sold in 2015, when he became a slave in a brickyard in Dagestan. Anton is one of 794,000 people living in modern slavery in the Russian Federation today. As a major location for domestic trafficking operations as well as for international trafficking of trafficked persons, Russia is at the centre of a global humanitarian crisis. Yet President Vladimir Putin and other members of the Russian government refuse to acknowledge the seriousness of human trafficking within Russia`s borders. In 2019, the U.S. State Department`s 2019 Trafficking in Persons Report (TIP Report) gave Russia a failed record in its efforts to eradicate human trafficking, placing Russia alongside countries such as Burma, North Korea, South Sudan, and Syria. While a third place in the TIP report speaks of the seriousness of human trafficking in these countries, it largely identifies a significant lack of government efforts to combat human trafficking. Despite the fact that more than three-quarters of a million people in Russia are victims of slavery, only six cases have been investigated under Articles 127.1 and 127.2 of the Russian Criminal Code, which are related to trafficking in human beings and forced labour in the Criminal Code.

The number of slavery cases investigated in Russia is actually down from 2018, when only 14 cases were reported. These remarkably low numbers are not unintentional. Putin and other members of the Russian government have not only denied the existence of human trafficking in Russia, but have also actively worked to hide the problem and weaken the rule of law regarding human trafficking, which can only be seen as an attempt to preserve the current Russian labor economy at all costs. The modern concept of slavery is childish and seems to assume that without a brutal and greedy ruling class, most people would have done what modern free people do. However, the truth is that for the vast majority of people, there was no economy worth mentioning, which meant there was nothing for their potential freedom to do anything with it. The Global Slavery Index estimates that 794,000 people in Russia lived in conditions of modern slavery every day in 2016, a prevalence rate of 5.5 victims per thousand people. As Aldridge`s troupe moves east across Europe, the positive reception of his work encourages him to speak out louder about his issues of racism and slavery, Dunbar said. He begins to speak more courageously about the parody of American slavery during his curtains, and he even participates in secret – and illegal – left-wing meetings in Russia, where he discusses the correlations between American slavery and Russian despotism. For Szamuely, the central problem of Russian history is slavery. Yes, slavery. The use of the word “serf” to describe its superimposed farm workers leads us to think of society only as backward, picturesque, feudal.

But that`s not true. Russian slavery was a creation of modernity. In the past, free farm workers were somehow buried under debt about 500 years ago and in the middle of the 16th century. In the nineteenth century, the government tied them to the country so that it could better tax them. The owner of the serfs was the state, not the dignitaries on whose land they worked. There was equality in that, because the dignitaries were also obligated to the state. The upper class owed the tsar military service.