The Government of the Republic of Moldova does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking but is making significant efforts to do so. The government demonstrated overall increasing efforts compared with the previous reporting period; therefore Moldova remained on Tier 2. These efforts included convicting significantly more traffickers and identifying more victims. In addition, the government adopted a new four-year program for combating and preventing human trafficking with a particular focus on vulnerable populations and specific objectives that included training, awareness activities, and amending anti-trafficking legislation. The Ministry of Labor and Social Protection (MoLSP) hired and trained 20 new inspectors to conduct workplace inspections for labor trafficking. Furthermore, the government launched a regional integrated service for female victims of sexual violence, including trafficking, offering specialized assistance services, such as medical examinations, legal assistance, and psychological counseling. However, the government did not meet the minimum standards in some key areas. Authorities investigated fewer trafficking cases and prosecuted significantly fewer traffickers. Staffing shortages among police and prosecutors undermined efforts to proactively investigate and prosecute traffickers. Corruption in law enforcement and the judiciary persisted, impeding prosecutions and influencing the outcomes of cases, including those against complicit officials. Like previous years, a limited number of identified victims (22 percent) received state-funded assistance. Finally, while government shelters routinely provided health services to trafficking victims regardless of nationality, foreign trafficking victims were not subject to compulsory health insurance, potentially leaving them without medical assistance and services beyond emergency care.
As reported over the past five years, human traffickers increasingly exploit domestic and foreign victims in Moldova, and traffickers exploit victims from Moldova abroad. Traffickers typically recruit victims through familial ties or personal contacts as well as the internet, social media, and instant messaging applications. Most victims are migrants, persons from poor rural areas, persons with disabilities living in residential institutions, undereducated adults, the unemployed, unhoused persons, and Roma. Sexually abused women are highly vulnerable to sex trafficking in the country and abroad. Sex trafficking victims are overwhelmingly women and girls. Traffickers exploit children in online child pornography, which they use as a grooming method for sex trafficking. Traffickers exploit children, some as young as eight, in child labor trafficking, mostly in agriculture, particularly harvesting commercial crops, as well as construction, hospitality, and manufacturing. Many child laborers work in family businesses or on family farms. Children living on the street or in state institutions (such as orphanages), aging out of such institutions, or abandoned by parents migrating abroad remain vulnerable to trafficking. Corrupt management in state institutions exploit children in domestic servitude or on farms. The government continued its efforts to deinstitutionalize children and support family style living arrangements. Children from Romani communities are highly vulnerable to child labor and trafficking. Forced child marriage is common in Romani communities among girls as young as 12 years old and increases vulnerability to trafficking; matchmakers illegally arrange for them to marry a man. Labor trafficking remains the most prevalent form of exploitation among adult male victims. Traffickers exploit men from Bangladesh and India in labor trafficking in a textile factory. Internal labor trafficking, particularly in the agriculture and construction sectors, and forced begging is steadily on the rise, including among labor migrants. The undocumented or stateless population within Moldova, including the Romani community, are at risk of trafficking, primarily in the agricultural sector. Persons with intellectual disabilities are among the most vulnerable to labor trafficking, particularly in remote rural areas. Illicit foreign recruitment agencies post fake online job advertisement, specifically in construction, to recruit victims and evade bilateral work agreements protecting Moldovan citizens seeking work abroad. Women from the Gagauzia Autonomous Territorial Unit are vulnerable to sex trafficking in Türkiye. Approximately 120,000 refugees fleeing Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine remain in Moldova and are highly vulnerable to trafficking. Official complicity in trafficking crimes continues to be a problem, with one new incident investigated in 2023.
from 2024 Trafficking in Persons Report – U.S. Department of State
2024 Trafficking in Persons Report – United States Department of State
