The number of cases of trafficking increased in Azerbaijan recently, director of the Crisis Center of Azerbaijan (CCA) Matanat Azizova told Turan Baku agency. In her words, only this year the center has received 45 statements from relatives of people, who became victims of slave-traders. M. Azizova noted that the results of the researches, held by CCA with the assistance of Washington Johns Hopkins University, surprised the ruling structures of Azerbaijan, who explained the high level of trafficking by absence of legal provisions, punishing such business. In her words, this is just the reason why Azerbaijan has become a trafficking center: there have been numerous cases, when women were sent to Belarus, Ukraine and Uzbekistan via the territory of Azerbaijan. The CCA director noted that locals are also engaged in woman trafficking and there are people, who by gathering women in various regions of Nakhichevan and Azerbaijan, transport them to Baku and use them as "sex slaves." In Azizova's words, child trafficking also takes place in Azerbaijan. "Children from regions are taken to Baku to beg," she said.