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Education, a platform for dialogue between the national authorities that lead the fight against human trafficking and the collection of national data at the European level are solutions to combat this scourge, head of the European Commission Representation in Romania Ramona Chiriac said on Thursday.
"In the European Union, approximately 7,000 European citizens are victims of human trafficking. Certainly, the numbers are much bigger, because this scourge often remains invisible or unreported. Romania is in first place in the EU in terms of the number of women victims, child victims, citizens who fall victim to this scourge. But, Romania is in second place in terms of convictions in such cases, which also indicates an acceleration in the right direction," Chiriac told a conference at the Senate on joining efforts to combat human trafficking, best practices in global transnational co-operation, Agerpres reports.
Chiriac explained that, at the European level, there is a framework, a strategy and a European directive that was updated in December 2022 to "keep up with the adaptability of criminal groups."
"The online phenomenon, for example, is a new reality that we face; then there is the vulnerable situation in which refugees from Ukraine or other states in war zones find themselves. And so we updated the directive (...) by including illegal adoptions and forced marriages. It is very important to address the request for services. When we talk about human trafficking, first of all we talk about the sexual exploitation of the victims. (...) Human trafficking is a very profitable business. (...) Better awareness of this reality is necessary. Criminal groups know how victims think, they understand their vulnerabilities. Education, for sure, is a solution," Chiriac said.
She added that she hopes that the event will lead to better connections between the national authorities that lead this cross-border battle. "We can only ensure the dialogue framework, the next step being the national reference plans for these areas and a European framework under which we can bring data from the national plans to the European level, as we have done on other topics, for example, healthcare. Our ability to react at the European level always lies in the data we have at our disposal.'
