‘Sexual slavery’ of schoolgirl shocks Kazakhstan

ALMATY, Kazakhstan — How could something like this happen?

That is the question being asked again and again in Kazakhstan after the mother of a 17-year-old schoolgirl revealed how her daughter was kept as a sex slave for six months while her classmates collected payments from what human rights advocates say were literally hundreds of adult “clients.”

The answer is far from complete yet.

Police investigating the gruesome case in the southwestern town of Qyzylorda are warning against what they call “disinformation” as they challenge the portrayal by human rights advocates of a “child mafia gang” that allegedly oversaw the exploitation of the schoolgirl.

Yet on August 15, all four minors charged with selling sex to a peer were arrested, just one day after activists and advocates held an online press conference about the shocking case.

It is not the first time that Kazakh authorities have put on the brakes as the country’s flawed child protection system – from schools to law enforcement – comes under renewed public scrutiny.

‘Increasingly younger girls’ trapped in sex work

According to the victim’s mother, who spoke anonymously at the online event, at least one of the four suspects currently in custody is a former friend of the victim.

Both girls lived within 500 meters of the school they attended in Qyzylorda. The alleged girlfriend is said to have visited the victim’s family regularly.

Earlier this year, the then 16-year-old began spending more and more time with her girlfriend, often staying over at her house.

The mother said she wasn’t happy with the amount of time her daughter spent outside the home, but she decided not to stop her.

She said it was a nude photo of her daughter that the group of three girls and a boy used as leverage against her. They later took control of her phone and forced her to sign up for a sex work website, whose name means “girls” in Kazakh.

As the months passed, the victim’s exploitation reached a point where she was sending the group the equivalent of $6,000 a month, which had been transferred to her account by clients. She only had enough left over to travel, as she barely ate.

If she was late in paying the group, they would beat her or subject her to psychological torture, her mother said.

The group is also said to have drugged her to maximize her economic value.

Dina Smailova, head of the NeMolchi.kz foundation, spoke at the press conference and said that the men who abused the victim should be considered “pedophiles”, despite the fact that she was registered as 18 years old on the website.

“She was actually younger and because she has a very slim figure, she also looks very young — only 14 or 15,” Smailova said in an interview with RFE/RL on August 16.

The activist, who has had direct contact with the victim, describes her as being in a state of “emotional emptiness,” although she now has access to a professional psychologist and enjoys special protection from the state.

“She was asked to greet the client with a smile to allay suspicions. After the client left, she was beaten. Of course, she has both psychological and physical trauma,” Smailova said.

“We are now seeing a trend where younger and younger girls are entering the sex industry,” Smailova adds.

“They have codes on this website to indicate that a girl is under 18. In one case we investigated in (Kazakhstan’s largest city) Almaty…they dyed the girls’ hair in different colors so that the customer would understand that they are minors,” she said.

‘Fear of death’

Because her daughter’s ordeal has been so prolonged, reactions to the tragedy on social media and in the media have also focused on the victim’s mother, questioning how she could have remained unaware of the magnitude of what was happening to her daughter until earlier this month.

As the schoolgirl was increasingly forced into a life of sexual slavery, she began skipping classes and spending nights away from her family home, under the coercion of the group. This continued until May, when she stopped going home altogether.

Smailova says the criticism is understandable, but argues that the Kazakh system “puts pressure on parents” who try to investigate their children’s problems at school.

That point was emphasized by the victim’s mother during the press conference. She said she had approached the school “several times” since March about her daughter’s changing behavior and declining performance in school.

“Since I didn’t get any help from the school, only threats, I turned to the youth police and the local inspector. But the same thing happened. They threatened me too, saying that she would be taken away from us and that we would lose our parental rights. They were completely unprofessional, insulting her and us and pointing the finger at us,” she said.

Her daughter, who had a mentor at school who “yelled at her” during that period, also urged her not to complain.

But on August 6, the victim returned to her parents’ home, motivated by “fear of death,” according to her mother, who had been threatened with death by one of the girls in the group if she did not provide them with a new payment of 250,000 tenges (about $520).

“One of her friends from Instagram helped her get home. She told us everything. She was dirty and bruised everywhere. All the scars were visible on her skin. I will sue everyone who touched her — more than 1,000 people — everyone who brought her to hotels and saunas,” the mother said.

Police in Qyzylorda confirmed on August 14 that a case had been filed against the suspects’ parents for “failure to fulfill the duty of raising a minor.”

A young relative of the victim told RFE/RL’s Kazakh service, on condition of anonymity, that the family was now seeking prosecution of one of the parents on more serious charges, suspecting that person could be an accomplice.

The suspects themselves are accused of ‘inciting a minor to prostitution’.

On August 16, the Qyzylorda Provincial Administration reported that the provincial governor had ordered the dismissal of the director and other staff of the victim’s school.

“After the press conference, they started working very actively,” Smailova said of the authorities’ response.

But before that, the victim’s mother said police warned her not to contact Smailova. Smailova has exposed multiple cases of officers involved in sexual misconduct and corruption through her work, and she faces fraud charges if she ever returns to Kazakhstan.

All of this gives the unfortunate impression that the authorities’ priority is to prevent information about shocking incidents from getting out, rather than to prevent such incidents from happening.

Smailova argues that such an approach fuels problems such as sexual slavery in conservative provinces, where victims often lack a support network.

Last year, there was a tragedy in another southern Kazakh city, Turkistan, when a 17-year-old girl jumped from the sixth floor of a building after a conflict with a potential client over her refusal to provide sexual services. She, too, was registered on the Kazakh “Girls” website, Smailova said.

“We know the girl survived the fall, but we still don’t know how the case ended,” she told RFE/RL.

RFE/RL’s Kazakh service attempted to contact the school in Qyzylorda and the region’s police, but had not received a response as of publication.