Prevention

The government has taken few steps toward a campaign to prevent trafficking. Se­nior governmental officials participate in meetings on trafficking and talk about trafficking, raising media attention to the trafficking, but there has been no fed­eral program on the prevention of trafficking (Duban 2006, 51). Raising popular awareness of the problem is mostly left to the women’s crisis centers, who rely on foreign grants. Locally, women’s crisis centers have been able to work with local authorities only when they initiate and take responsibility for implementation. Only small reforms have been initiated, such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs placing warnings on consular affairs websites for those wishing to travel or work abroad (U. S Department of State 2005). “Overall, victim protection and assis­tance is the weakest component of the Russian antitrafficking strategy” (Tiuriu — kanova 2006, 92).