The punishment for forced labor tightens

The Milli Majlis will toughen criminal penalties for forced labor. Thus, any actions by an employer in respect of the wage worker without a contract will be treated as illegal deprivation of liberty without the elements of kidnapping.

The Parliamentary Committee on Legal Policy and State Building  prepared this initiative to be included in the Criminal Code of the country. After the adoption of the amendments to Article 145 of the Criminal Code, employers who benefit from hiding data about  their employees, may be  convicted from  four to eight years. 

(The current edition provides correctional labor for up to  two years or  one year in prison.).

In the case of repeated illegal employing teenagers, pregnant women or a few individuals, and the actions of the group of persons by prior agreement with violence dangerous to life or health, the use of weapons, imprisonment may be from  seven to 10 years (currently from three to five years.)

If the actions entail death by negligence or serious injury, the imprisonment will be from 10 to 12 years (the current version provides from five to 10 years.)

Legislators have forgotten the existence of  the Article 106 of the Criminal Code (slavery.) Because of the absence of its practical application, many debtors today fall into the long-term dependence on the lender. They are taken out of the country for work or are employed until the payment of arbitrarily assigned debt. Keeping of slaves and the slave trade  in Azerbaijan is punished for a period from five to 12 years depending on the degree of the crime. -17D-