U.S. State Department issued annual Trafficking in Persons Report 2010. The report mentions that Azerbaijan is a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children subjected to trafficking in persons, specifically conditions of forced labor and women and children in forced prostitution.

“Women and children from Azerbaijan are subjected to forced prostitution in the UAE, Turkey, Russia, and Iran. Men from Azerbaijan are trafficked within Azerbaijan for the purpose of forced labor and women and children are trafficked internally for forced prostitution and forced labor, including forced begging. Azerbaijan serves as a transit country for women from Moldova, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan subjected to forced prostitution in Turkey and the UAE.

The Azerbaijani exclave of Nakhchivan serves as a transit point for women trafficked to Turkey for forced prostitution. Azerbaijan is a destination country for women from Ukraine, Moldova, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Russia subjected to forced prostitution. Azerbaijan is also a destination country for men and women from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Macedonia, and China subjected to conditions of forced labor, primarily in the construction industry,” the report reads.

State Department recommends Azerbaijani authorities to improve efforts to identify victims of forced labor, provide; initial assistance to domestic victims without requiring them to file a formal complaint with police and criminally punish government officials, including regional police officers, complicit in both sex and labor trafficking.

“The Government of Azerbaijan’s modest law enforcement improvements were overshadowed by its lack of political will to prosecute high-level organized crime and address allegations of government complicity in trafficking,” the document says.