Achievements and Challenges in t

Achievements and Challenges in the Romanian National Anti-Trafficking in Human Beings System

Head of the Romanian Parliament’s Group on Fighting the Trafficking in Human Beings

While slavery and the slave trade were abolished centuries ago, human trafficking continues to exist in spite of the ever-increasing efforts to curb it. Such a reality is not acceptable in a world of expanding democracy, rule of law and human rights. Unfortunately this reality is even worse when children become the victims, or cruel and inhumane acts are being performed by criminal organizations.

The ability to be in a constant motion and the flexibility of the organized groups involved in trafficking human beings, proofs that a narrow approach of the phenomenon would be unsuccessful.

Identifying optimal ways to reduce the impact of human trafficking in the modern society is a must but not an easy task. First, a conceptual standard, containing definitions, principles and general objectives, agreed upon by all major stakeholders, including national parliaments, in countries having reliable democratic instruments, would be needed. Second, a clear understanding of causes making the phenomenon grow, recruitment facilitating factors, patterns in victims’ motivation and behavior, criminal networks’ modus operandi.

We are aware of the impetus given to organized crime by facilities brought in the globalized world, by the free movement of persons and modern technologies.

A strengthened global reaction is consequently needed. Cooperation between relevant actors, the EU Member States, different bodies and agencies of the European Union and third countries, government administrations, international institutions and NGO’s in countries of origin, transit and destination, must be a day by day reality. There is a manifest inter-dependence between us to effectively fight and prevent trafficking in human beings. We have to work together, and we need to step up our efforts.

For more than ten years now, trafficking in human beings has received significant attention from intergovernmental and non-governmental organizations, on the international, European and Romanian national level alike. Partnerships of large United Nations institutions, such as the UN Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking (“UN.GIFT”), have been formed, and international and European treaties and EU legislation has established standards on assistance to trafficked persons and prosecution of traffickers.

Responding to the growing concern and reaction of the EU to the continuing aggravation in human beings trafficking, Romania firmly supported the European action through national programmes, relevant activity at EU level and joint projects with member states.

In cooperation with EU institutions and other member states and International Organizations, Romania succeeded to well define its legal framework; has ratified major international treaties and conventions, establishing binding legal obligations for implementation of standards for assistance to trafficked persons and prosecution of perpetrators. At EU level, Romania has transposed all relevant legislation.

The main piece of legislation at national level is the Law 678/2001 on preventing and combating trafficking in human beings, subsequently amended and supplemented.

The Law incriminates all forms of trafficking, settled the judicial frame to allow using modern investigation techniques, provided norms for the assistance and protection of victims and witnesses, clarified important issues concerning the trafficking in children.

- Remove the charges of the victim who, by exploitation, commit prostitution or beggary crime

The entire system works on the basis of a National Strategy against Trafficking in Persons 2006-2010 and a National Action Plan 2008–2010, implementing the Strategy.

It was created a viable institutional system able to support effective programmes.

However, the impact of these actions has been limited so far, and trafficking for any type of exploitation of thousands of people world wide, including children is still continuing and responses to those affected, still inadequate.

We have in mind to intervene in the Romanian anti-trafficking system, in such a way as to determine a change in authorities’ attitude, from “reactive” to “active”, passing from swift responses to particular cases, to a more founded and sustainable approach able to increase coherence of sector public policies in order to diminish criminal organizations’ recruiting capacity on national territory and, in the same time, to dismantle trans-border criminal networks, active in our country, including in trafficked persons transit to EU countries.

In our country the fight against the crime of trafficking human beings is coordinated through the National Agency against Trafficking in Persons and the Directorate for the Investigation of Organized Crime and Terrorism within the Prosecutor's Office of the High Court of Cassation and Justice.

There was created an „Inter-Institutional Coordination Mechanism”, with periodical meetings of the Inter-Ministerial Working Group and the Thematic Working Group to coordinate, assess and analyze the activities developed by institutions with responsibilities to prevent and combat THB and assist trafficked victims.

The permanent members are representatives of the Ministry of Administration and Interior, Public Ministry (Prosecutor), Justice Ministry, Foreign Affairs Ministry, Labour Ministry, Education Ministry, Health Ministry, Culture Ministry and the National Authority for the Protection of Child’s Rights. Experts from other public institutions, civil society associations can take part at Group’s sessions.

The National Agency against Trafficking in Persons is a specialized body of the central public administration, within the General Inspectorate of the Romanian Police[1]. It has 15 Regional Centres.

The purpose of the Agency is to coordinate, evaluate and monitor the implementation of policies in the field of trafficking in persons by the appropriate public institutions.

The Agency cooperates with organizations within the country and abroad, to raise the public awareness on the phenomenon and its consequences, collect, storage, process and analyze the data and the information. Covers mainly the prevention and victim assistance sectors and acts as interface with NGOs.

The Directorate for the Investigation of Organized Crime and Terrorist Offences, the only specialized body of the Public Ministry, acts within the Prosecutor’s Office attached to the High Court of Cassation and Justice and is invested with a coordinating role in the organized crime combating sector.

It has a sub-structure destined to prosecuting trafficking offences (Office for combating the trafficking in human beings and migrants).

It has territorial representation (15 territorial services and 41 territorial offices).

Since July 2004 had been established a national network of judges (52 – one for each court) with expertise judging cases of trafficking in human beings. The network had been internationally notified with the European Commission, Eurojust, the European Council, and U.N. etc.

In the combating segment the Inspectorate General of the Romanian Police relies on the specialized Service for Fighting the Trafficking in Persons, a subdivision within the Squad for Combating Organized Crime. The Service cooperates with similar international structures, with the assistance of Europol, Interpol, Eurojust, Frontex, the Southeast European Cooperation Initiative’s Regional Centre (SECI).

Other supporting institutions: the Inspectorate General of Border Police[2], the Inspectorate General of the Gendarmerie.

Starting from 2012 the abolition of checks at the internal borders will make the Romanian Eastern border, the Eastern border of the EU. This is why the Border Police not only has high responsibilities in preparing country’s accession to the Schengen area, but also in the post-accession cross-border police cooperation among all the contracting states, for the protection of their citizens.

The National Agency against Trafficking in Persons has created a National Integrated System to Monitor and Assess Trafficking in Persons (SIMEV), operational since January 2007. From a technical point of view, the national system is a multilevel IT system, using a central data base, a data interrogation application and a user web interface. The access to the system is granted to Agency’s personnel only, respectively the Monitoring, Assessment and Research Service and the Regional Centres, as well as users from the institutions with which the Agency concluded collaboration protocols. The data contained in the data base can be collected from other partner institutions as well.

Speaking of programmes, projects and actions we mention in the Prevention sector the first objective of the Romanian national authorities was to raise awareness in the entire society and place the prevention/combating/victim assistance efforts on top of the agenda of both the Government and non-governmental organisations.

The public polls proved that Romanian population is aware of the phenomenon of trafficking of humans. The highest risk is faced by the people with a low level of education, especially in the rural area and in the small towns, with a smaller knowledge about these types of risks.

High profile national campaigns were developed using all the media channels as well as unconventional types of advertising.

On February 16 has been launched a campaign with the logo “Trafficking in Persons is Merciless”. The campaign is part of the project “Reducing the number of Bulgarian and Romanian victims trafficked in Spain and Italy” and is set to last until September 15.

There were as well local campaigns, implemented by the Regional Centres of the Agency, in cooperation with local / regional stakeholders. Some 56 000 persons have benefited from these actions.

Themes related to the trafficking of human beings were introduced in programmes developed for gymnasium and high school.

Starting 1 August 2007 a Help-line toll free number is operational 24 hours a day.

The stages of the trafficking process (recruitment, transportation, sale, confinement and exploitation, re-sale, escape, repatriation) were widely publicized for preventing sexual exploitation of women. In the forced labour prevention, useful information on the employment in the United Kingdom and in the Czech Republic was made public.

In respect to activities in the field of fighting trafficking in persons the trend showed a tendency of reduction of trafficking cases. This is remarkable as Europol have recently said the aggregate number of cases did not decrease last year. Data show a number of 780 victims in 2009, to be compared with 2551 in 2005, 2285 in 2006, 1780 in 2007 and 1240 in 2008.

The decrease was noted in minors’ trafficking as well but the ratio in the total population has increased from 15 % in 2008 to 29% in 2009.

The main trafficking sub-type was the sexual exploitation of women, in 41% of the total of cases, while the forced labour accounted for 40% of cases. The begging sub-type has increased by 7% in 2009, compared to 2008, to 14% (109 victims) of the whole number of victims.

The main destination countries in 2009 were Spain, Italy, the Czech Republic, Greece. Of all identified victims in 2009, 18.5 % have been trafficked inside our country.

We mention the joint investigation teams as a successful international cooperation instrument of the both EU and non-EU states on the trafficking routes.

In the area of Victim Protection, Assistance and Social Reintegration, the National Referral Mechanism (MNR) and “National standards for victim protection and specialized assistance services” were developed.

MNR aims to adopt a unitary and coordinated response of all anti-trafficking institutions and organizations; represents a set of norms carried out by state institutions and various non-government organizations, designed to protect the fundamental rights of the victims of trafficking and to serve the purpose of their needs for protection and assistance.

The national legislation provides the methods to protect the victims, including through medical, juridical assistance, and scholarships. Unfortunately, there are only 34 shelters which offer assistance to the victims, with a capacity of 200 places.

A Programme on Coordinating of the victims-witnesses in the trial has been initiated by national authorities, in cooperation with the US Embassy in Bucharest. The objectives are: maintaining permanent contact with the NMR registered victims, informing victims on their rights and services offered, preparing the victim for the trial.

As a result the number of victims attending trials has increased and the cases of abandon of the social reinsertion programmes have diminished.

Romania’s level of involvement in the international cooperation had been intensified through cooperation within EUROPOL, INTERPOL, SECI Centre, the only international law enforcement organization which brings together police and customs representatives. Romania appointed a national focal point to cooperate within SECI.

The SECI Centre engaged a lot of its resources in establishing in the year 2000 a specialized Task Force on human trafficking. In December 2009, in Bucharest was signed the Southeast European Law Enforcement Center (SELEC) Convention, leading to the transformation of SECI Center into SELEC, once the document is ratified by the member countries. This change is meant to further develop the SECI initiative, creating new capacities to fight organized crime.

In the bilateral area: the offices for the internal affairs attachés in the Romanian Embassies were set up.

There is ongoing cooperation with the origin states of the victims, exchanging good practises in this field. Constant cooperation is done with United Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), International Organization for Migration (IOM), Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC).

Cooperation relations with countries of destination, such as Netherlands, United Kingdom, the Czech Republic, Spain and Italy, as well transit and origin countries in S-E Europe have been strengthened.

The National Agency against Trafficking in Persons and the General Inspectorate of the Romanian Police were part in the Project for a Transnational Referral Mechanism of Persons Trafficked in S-E Europe, developed by the International Centre of Migration Policies Development (ICMPD). A manual was published.

ICMPD continued with a second project on Developing a Transnational Referral Mechanism of Persons Trafficked between the origin and destination countries (MTR-UE), financed by the European Commission.

Romanian authorities are working on setting up of a unified international data collecting mechanism on preventing and fighting trafficking, organise an exchange of good practices, develop prevention campaigns with international impact, raising awareness at international level on new forms of trafficking.

Activities of the Romanian Parliament’s Group on Fighting the Trafficking in Persons

With a view to strengthening the country’s results in the field, both at national, regional and EU level, members of the European Affairs Committee of the Romanian Parliament, initiated the “Parliamentary Group on Fighting the Trafficking in Human Beings” having as main objective to work in partnership with governmental bodies and civil society organisations such as to form a regular debate forum and increase the capacity to solve the specific problems.

During the months March-April 2009 we have initiated and succeeded to establish the Romanian Parliament’s Group on Fighting the Trafficking in Human Beings. To better include the EU initiatives into the “Group’s” activity, as, obviously, the matter cannot be solved at national level alone, we placed it in the frame of the European Affairs Committee.

Later (in September last year), in regard of to the increased role of national parliaments, and considering requests from other MPs to take part to our activities we extended invitations to join the “Group” to Members of Parliament in other specialized committees. To start with, we have provided basic information to the new associate members.

The setting up of our “Group” was inspired by talks with Mr. Anthony STEEN, Chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Trafficking of Women and Children in the UK Parliament, held on the occasion of the International Migration and Human Trafficking Conference, organized by the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association United Kingdom Branch, in February last year.

In July 2009 we organised the Visit to Romania of the All Party Parliamentary Group for Trafficking of Women and Children Delegation, led by Mr. Anthony STEEN, with a diversified programme meant to cover as many aspects of a “country of origin and transit” as possible.

We have thoroughly looked into the organisation of the national system on fighting the trafficking in human beings, the legal framework and we set up a comprehensive list of institutions and contact persons.

We have reviewed the EU proposals on trafficking in human beings, without yet engaging a scrutiny procedure on specific proposals.

In November 2009 we sent letters informing on the creation of the “Group” and proposing cooperation to relevant National Authorities, European Affairs Committees in all EU member states parliamentary chambers, International Organisations.

On our last year’s autumn agenda there were as well a meeting Ms. Eva BIAUDET, OSCE Special Representative on Combating Trafficking in Human Beings (Bucharest, 23 September 2009) and the participation to the Conference “Towards EU Global Action against Trafficking in Human Beings” (Brussels, 19-20 October 2009).

We plan to organise a series of meetings with National public institutions, relevant NGO representatives, media, etc.

We keep in mind that an effective and realistic anti-trafficking strategy must be based on accurate and current information, using the internationally agreed definition of trafficking, standardizing the collection of statistical information on trafficking and using a set of standardized quantitative and qualitative operational indicators.

We want to promote an improved understanding of persons trafficking, identify new trends/ emerging issues, to help achieving an improved identification of vulnerable groups.

- Which are the main contributing factors (internal/external) to the recruiting process?

- Which are the recruitment contributing factors and who are the social actors in the recruiting process and what is their role (abusive/protective)?

We want to help determine the impact of the social environment on possible victims and the role of families, peer groups, school, local community, state / local authorities, media, church, examine other topics as corporate social responsibility and role of the private sector, the responsibilities of internet service providers.

For these purposes we will request / supporting research studies, by national institutions.

Other issues of interest are: discussing National Action Plans, National policy documents, build sustainable public policies in order to curb the human trafficking process, make analysis of national legislation and case-law and monitor the relationship between the intention of anti-trafficking laws, policies and interventions, and their real impact (avoid transferring the problem from one place or group to another).

We plan to help identify financial resources for the development of a wider victim assistance network, including accommodation and counselling.

Last but not least, we will encourage the scrutiny of EU proposals on the matter, as Parliament’s priority and means to disseminate information and promote EU debate in as many as possible sectors of our society. Romanian MEPs or EU officials may be invited.

Cooperation with the European Parliament and national parliaments of EU Member States is a priority. We commend the recent request by two MEPs to call the Council of Ministers and the European Commission to place anti-trafficking high on Europe's agenda. We also greet the European Parliament’s Resolution on preventing trafficking in human beings. We share the EP vision when requesting the Council and the European Commission to agree to a holistic EU’s approach centered on human rights, focused on external relations, return and reintegration policies, social affairs, social inclusion, migration and asylum, and having certain key elements^{^[3]}, and, on the other hand, improve the coordination of information by asking Eurojust, Europol and Frontex, in consultation with the Fundamental Rights Agency, the Gender Institute and NGOs, to publish every year a joint report on trafficking in human beings, and by supporting the development of a common template for Member States and third countries for the collection of data relating to trafficking in human beings.

To this end we intend to set up communication channels and organise meetings with our counterparts in national parliaments of EU member states and other key partners as well as EU institutions.

We wish to contribute with our own input to National annual/biannual reports drafted by Governmental institutions and help, if needed, in drafting European Institutions’ Reports.

Finally, I would like to extend our greeting, on behalf of the Romania Parliament, and assure you of Romania’s complete involvement in global efforts to curb the human trafficking process.

[1] Until March 2009 the Agency was subordinated to the Ministry of Administration and Interior

[2] Until May 2009 the Border Police had direct competences in combating THB

[3] a. the level of penalties and sanctions for those, legal persons included, who make a profit from trafficking in human beings should reflect the seriousness of the crime and have a dissuasive effect; b. further action should focus on protecting the victim, taking the situation of minors into due consideration, by, inter alia, ensuring that assistance to victims is unconditional and that the consent of a victim to exploitation is always irrelevant; c. in order to discourage demand, further action could also focus on users of the services of trafficked people …. […]