Friday, March 18, 2005

ROLE OF MASS MEDIA IN BUILDING A JURAL STATE

On Feb. 23 Femida NGO invited Ashot Mkrtchian, head of the Anti-Drug Department, and Sayat Shirinian, head of Department for Public Relations of the RA Police, to meet the media within the frameworks of European Commission’s "Role of Mass Media in Building a Jural State" program. Mr. Mkrtchian gave a brief overview of the anti-drug campaign in the republic and noted that the drugs are the most serious problem that the world faces today. In comparison with the European states, situation in Armenia "is better and is still amenable to control". Being situated on the crossroad of drug trafficking countries, Armenia will face serious problems if turned into a transit country.

Concerning woman trafficking, Mr. Mkrtchian stated that this phenomenon has a 10-year history in Armenia and noted that a number of NGOs and mass medias exaggerate figures". "There are souteneurs who organize this work, but they are not many", he said. According to the police figures, 22 prostitutes left Armenia in 2000 to work abroad, 19 in 2001, 26 in 2002, 21 in 2003, 32 in 2004. Two of them were engaged in human trafficking. There were 13 Armenian prostitutes in Arabian Emirates; 9 more ponces in UAE are wanted.

By Marietta Makarian

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