The government maintained overall protection efforts but increased protection for victims during criminal proceedings. In 2023, the Ministry of Education adopted procedures on the identification and referral of potential child trafficking victims as part of a broader campaign to manage violence against children in schools. Additionally, the government began implementing its newly adopted NRM, which outlined procedures for victim identification and referral and clarified the roles of institutions and organizations that interacted with potential victims. In 2023, the government identified 428 victims (279 sex trafficking, 50 labor trafficking, 99 unspecified forms of trafficking), a modest decrease from 492 in 2022. Of the 428 victims, 218 were children (51 percent), and 139 were girl sex trafficking victims. The vast majority of identified victims were Romanian citizens, of which 320 were exploited in country and 123 were exploited in Western Europe. Authorities identified five foreign victims (two in 2022), including two refugees from Ukraine exploited for labor trafficking, but observers estimated there were numerous unidentified foreign victims, particularly among labor migrants and asylum-seekers. The General Inspectorate for Immigration maintained procedures for identifying victims among asylum-seekers and migrants and referring those victims to the National Agency against Trafficking in Persons (ANITP), the government’s lead agency for coordinating anti-trafficking efforts. NGOs reported victim identification remained mostly reactive and authorities did not generally screen for trafficking indicators in a proactive or systematic way among members of vulnerable groups, such as Roma or migrant workers, mostly due to widespread bias. NGOs also reported authorities were reluctant to identify victims among asylum-seekers and migrants because of the significant time and resources that an investigation would entail. According to NGOs, authorities lacked specialized training on the psychological trauma of trafficking on victims, which hindered their ability to correctly identify potential victimization among individuals in commercial sex and continued to fine persons in commercial sex without screening for trafficking indicators. However, authorities typically dropped charges or fines once investigators and prosecutors realized a suspect was a trafficking victim. Victims could also challenge fines after they were identified.
During the identification process, authorities worked with ANITP to refer victims to assistance, and ANITP consulted CPS if a child trafficking victim was involved. Victims were not required to participate in criminal proceedings to access assistance. However, civil society reported in practice it was nearly impossible for victims to be identified or receive any government-supported assistance unless they participated in criminal proceedings. In 2023, of the 428 identified victims, authorities referred 274 to assistance, but the government did not report the number of victims who received assistance from NGOs. In 2022, authorities referred 227 victims to assistance but only 180 (37 percent of identified victims) received assistance from NGOs. The main government entities providing services to victims were county-level directorates for social assistance and CPS. However, the quality of and access to services differed throughout the country. Reports indicated some directorates, due to limited funding, staff, and training, stopped offering services altogether. In addition, some counties did not have any shelters for trafficking victims. Throughout 2023, the government maintained three government-run shelters dedicated to trafficking victims, including one for child trafficking victims, and a limited number of government-run shelters designated for adult victims of domestic violence and other abuses, including trafficking. The government provided psychological counseling, legal assistance, and career counseling to domestic and foreign victims through multi-disciplinary teams and reported allocating 66.6 million Romanian lei (RON) ($14.8 million) for general victim assistance and protection services. NGOs continued to report the quality of government-provided assistance was overall inadequate, especially medical services and psychological counseling. Despite Romanian law entitling all victims to psychological and medical care, the government did not provide sufficient mental health counseling sessions or finance medical care costs. Moreover, access to medical care and social services required Romanian victims to return to their home districts to receive care; the process presented safety, logistical, and financial hurdles for many trafficking victims. The government maintained a working group on increasing the quality of medical assistance for trafficking victims, composed of public and private health care providers and government officials and focused on providing tailored medical services to victims and training medical service providers to identify victims.
Widespread child trafficking persisted throughout the country as children repeatedly represented half of all identified victims, and limited resources, expertise, and support created vulnerabilities in the country’s child protection system. Authorities placed child victims in need of residential care in the dedicated shelter for child trafficking victims, emergency centers for vulnerable children, or foster care centers. County-level CPS provided services for child trafficking victims in public shelters, which included counseling, social and psychological assessment, health care, and other types of services, through multi-disciplinary teams of social workers, psychologists, lawyers, and pediatricians who were responsible for advising case managers and conducting prevention activities. According to NGOs, services, especially counseling, in emergency centers or foster care centers were rarely customized to the needs of trafficking victims. In addition, NGOs reported county-level CPS did not have adequate expertise in trafficking or resources to provide quality care. In an effort to provide consistent quality care, the law required minimum standards of assistance for child victims of crime, including trafficking, in which licensed service providers offering shelter and assistance to identified child victims followed a set of specific requirements, including providing safe environments, specialized psychological counseling, and visitations with families. However, a media source reported only one county directorate and one NGO maintained a license for providing services to child trafficking victims. The law also required local governments to include training programs for staff involved in providing services to child victims of crimes, including trafficking, in their annual budget requests. Perpetual problems of abuse and neglect of children in government-run institutions, including government residential treatment centers for persons with disabilities, coupled with the lack of proactive identification and assistance in government facilities, left children in placement centers vulnerable to trafficking. Experts reported CPS employees who oversaw children in government-run institutions not only neglected to prevent trafficking, but were sometimes complicit in the trafficking. Observers reported local government institutions were reluctant to intervene when underage Roma girls were “sold” into marriage, hindering authorities’ ability to correctly identify victims among this vulnerable group. Furthermore, a senior government official claimed “cultural traditions” made it difficult for the government to address trafficking concerns among Roma children.
Overall, the process for providing services to trafficking victims was mostly informal and highly reliant on donor funding due to fundamental issues in the government’s service provision structure. Therefore, government funding, including at the local level, for NGO assistance and protection services remained insufficient. The government depended on NGOs to accommodate and assist victims but did not allocate grants directly to NGOs due to legislation precluding direct funding at the national level and NGOs’ lack of necessary licensing. According to several NGOs, obtaining the necessary license entailed complying with unrealistic standards, such as requiring NGOs to divulge personal information about victims and burdensome bureaucratic procedures. NGOs noted complying with such standards required additional work that would limit their ability to perform their core missions; thus, they preferred to operate without such a license and seek non-governmental funding. NGOs emphasized the need for an updated licensing mechanism for service providers and a more flexible funding mechanism in the anti-trafficking space.
In 2023, the government amended existing legislation to enhance protection measures for trafficking victims during criminal proceedings. Under pre-existing legislation, victims had the right to mandatory legal counsel; to ensure enforcement, amendments stipulated non-compliance would result in the nullification and reprise of relevant stages of the criminal proceedings. Other amendments required authorities to interview victims in separate rooms, provide psychological counseling during court proceedings, expedite cases involving child trafficking victims, and order closed courts at the request of victims or prosecutors. In addition, the government passed an executive order allowing crime victims, including trafficking victims, to receive advanced payments equivalent to five times the yearly minimum wage – 15,000 RON ($3,330) – for emergency expenses, as part of government-provided financial compensation. Furthermore, under the law, prosecutors and judges could order measures to protect victims’ physical security and privacy, including through witness programs and video testimonies. In 2023, authorities included 322 trafficking victims, who participated in criminal proceedings, in the victim witness coordination program, which offered services such as emotional support, physical protection, and transportation, and included two victims in a witness protection program. To mitigate re-traumatization, prosecutors conducted extensive initial hearings and argued against requests for in-person hearings made by defendants. Additionally, to mitigate re-traumatization, more judges than in previous years allowed video testimonies during court proceedings, but most judges continued to rely heavily on victims’ in-person testimony. Moreover, authorities did not consistently enforce measures to keep victims’ identities confidential. There were incidents when social workers and school officials disclosed victims’ information, creating stigma. Additionally, some judges lacked awareness of child trafficking and showed bias against victims who came from socially disadvantaged groups, such as Roma. While the government offered free legal aid to victims, court-appointed lawyers often lacked experience working with trafficking victims, were not aware of the special laws on compensation for trafficking victims, and did not inform victims, who could unknowingly renounce compensation claims during proceedings. The law allowed trafficking victims to receive restitution from their trafficker in a criminal case, file a civil suit against the trafficker, or receive compensation from the government. Throughout 2023, courts ordered compensation to 136 victims, totaling 1.1 million RON ($244,500), €1.5 million ($1.66 million), and £5,000 ($6,400) for moral damages and 36,640 RON ($8,140), €316,598 ($349,800), and $31,300 for material damages. However, NGOs and the government reported that few of the 136 victims received court-ordered compensation.
Romanian law permitted foreign victims who cooperated with authorities to receive a renewable, six-month temporary residence permit and entitled them to the same benefits as Romanian citizens. Additionally, the law granted asylum-seekers the right to work after three months and permitted foreign victims “tolerated status” for up to six months. However, foreigners with “tolerated status” were not entitled to victim services, had no legal right to stay in Romania, had their movements restricted under certain circumstances, and could not depart the country for selected reasons, such as participation in criminal proceedings. According to NGOs, non-EU foreign labor trafficking victims were not protected from receiving “tolerated status” even after being identified and while participating in criminal proceedings.
from 2024 Trafficking in Persons Report – U.S. Department of State
2024 Trafficking in Persons Report – United States Department of State
