"Not Our Problem": Russia's Resistance to Joining the Convention on Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings‪.‬

I. INTRODUCTION Maryam, a 17-year-old girl from Kazakhstan, dreamed of a better future. (1) She thought she had found such a future when a man offered her parents $300 and a forged passport in exchange for her promise to move to Russia and work in a small shop. (2) Instead, when she arrived she found that the shop was actually "a locked cell with barred windows and a metal door," and she was "told she would be a prostitute." (3) At first Maryam refused, but after five days of being beaten, raped, and starved, she relented. (4) Maryam's story is not unique; the U.S. government estimates that women and children make up the majority of the approximately 800,000 people trafficked internationally every year for sexual exploitation. (5) In 2005, the Council of Europe wrote the Convention on Action Against Trafficking in Human Beings (Trafficking Convention) to combat human trafficking. (6) Russia, one of the largest suppliers in the human trafficking trade, has not signed or ratified the Convention. (7)