To build a better understanding of the Romanian human trafficking / modern slavery, please refer to the specific information and guidance provided in the RESOURCES section. To navigate further, please select the jurisdiction/country where the information* was received:
The Global Slavery Index (2018) rated Romania on the 82 place out of 167 countries. The prevalence of modern slavery in Romania is 7.5 per 1,000 people, with a vulnerability score of 26 out of 100. The government’s response to this issue is rated at 58 out of 100. *.
The 2023 US Department of State report on trafficking in persons (TIP Report) stated that the Government of Romania has been making significant efforts to combat human trafficking, although it does not fully meet the minimum standards for its elimination. Recent initiatives include adopting a new National Referral Mechanism (NRM), creating financial investigator positions nationwide, and establishing a specialized unit for financial investigations related to trafficking within the Organized Crime and Terrorism Investigation Directorate (DIICOT). Additionally, Romania has operationalized private hearing rooms for child victims, developed procedures to protect vulnerable children amid the Ukraine crisis, and institutionalized an anti-trafficking committee that includes civil society members under the Prime Minister’s Office.
Despite these efforts, several critical issues persist. Authorities have investigated, prosecuted, and convicted significantly fewer traffickers, and alleged complicity in trafficking crimes remains a problem, particularly among officials exploiting children in government-run homes. The government also struggles to screen for trafficking indicators and proactively identify victims among vulnerable populations, such as asylum-seekers and individuals in commercial sex. Moreover, insufficient funding for NGOs leaves many victims without necessary services and at risk of re-trafficking.
To address these challenges, prioritized recommendations include vigorously investigating and prosecuting trafficking crimes, ensuring adequate penalties for convicted traffickers, and providing comprehensive assistance to all victims. Enhancing proactive identification of potential victims, particularly among vulnerable groups, and increasing financial support to NGOs for victim services are also crucial. Additionally, increasing the number of trained police officers, enforcing child labour laws, and providing legal protections for victims assisting prosecutions are necessary steps to improve Romania’s anti-trafficking efforts.
* 2023 Trafficking in Persons Report: Romania
At the European Union (EU) level, according to the latest Eurostat and European Commission report (2011 – 2014), in terms of the numbers of registered victims, Romania featured in first place of the EU countries followed by Bulgaria, the Netherlands, Hungary and Poland. There were 6101 registered Romanian victims across Europe during these three years, which makes Romania the main source of trafficked victims in Europe. The EU assessments acknowledge similar types of exploitation for the victims of modern slavery of Romanian origin but also add Romania, alongside other Eastern European Countries, as one of the main countries for victims of trafficking for the purpose of sham marriages trafficked to Western and Northern EU Member States, including the UK.
An investigation into offences of modern slavery and human trafficking in Romania could be triggered either proactively (ex officio), without having to rely upon the testimony of the victims (i.e. when there is sufficient data to suggest that a criminal activity is taking place with the involvement of organised groups or individuals) or reactively, based on the victim statement, complaints/reports from the general public or referrals/reports from other statutory agencies.
According to the New Romanian Penal Code – NRPP (art. 55), the criminal investigation is the first stage of the criminal process and is carried out by the prosecutor, the judicial police and the special investigation bodies. For certain type of offences, the investigation is carried out by specialised prosecution structures, namely the Prosecution Directorate for Investigation of Organised Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT) for organised crime offences (including modern slavery and human trafficking) and terrorism.
For the organised crime offences, DIICOT’s prosecutors conduct the criminal investigation themselves but may decide to delegate certain task to the judicial police officers, specialised officers within the Ministry of Internal Affairs (MoI), especially appointed upon the prior assent of the Prosecutor General of Romania.
Following a criminal investigation and depending on the evidence collected, the prosecutor will make a decision whether to proceed to prosecution and indict the case to court for trial. The trial is public and during this stage the court (the judge/s) are the sole decision makers on fact and law and determining guilt or acquittal. Criminal convictions can be appealed by both the prosecution and defence to a superior court (Appeal Court) and, in some circumstances, further through the High Court of Justice.
Official data available in the UK that includes the declared nationality of the victims / “potential victims” originates from the NCA and is collected under the UKHTC’S National Referral Mechanism, as well through the NCA’s annual Intelligence Assessment. Both this evaluations indicate a constant increase, over the last years, of the number of Romanian victims identified in the UK.
• According to the UKHTC’s NRM statistics, in 2015 Romania was the fourth country of origin for victims of modern slavery / human trafficking (after Albania, Vietnam and Nigeria) with 192 victims referred within the NRM (170 adult referrals and 22 minor victims), a figure which represent an increase of 27.2% when compared with the previous year (151 victims: 134 adults and 17 minors). The most common form of exploitation in 2015 for the referred Romanian adult victims was labour exploitation (114 victims) replacing, for the first year, sexual exploitation (42 victims).
• In terms of the geographical spread and the type of referral agency, the main NRM contributors were Greeter Manchester Police (22), Merseyside Police (14,) Salvation Army (13), West Midlands Police (11), Metropolitan Police (11); Wiltshire Police (10), all local authorities (9), Essex (9), Devon & Cornwall Police (8), Scotland (8), Nottinghamshire Police (6), UKBF (7), Cambridgeshire (6) and Cleveland (6). It is perhaps worth mentioning that in 2015 there was no referral for Romanian victims by the NCA.
• On the other hand, the NCA Strategic Assessment on the Nature and Scale of Human Trafficking for 2014 highlights that “Romania was the most prevalent country of origin of potential victims reported, for the fourth consecutive year’ with 453 potential victims which amounting for 14 % of the total number of potential victims identified in the UK in this year”. Compared with 2013, the number of potential victims originating from Romania registered an increase of 48% in 2014. The most common type of exploitation identified through the NCA assessment for 2014 was labour exploitation (212 cases) followed by sexual exploitation (157 cases). Among the 453 potential victims of modern slavery /human trafficking of Romanian origins, there were 51 minors which represent an increase of 21% from the previous year.
• The same NCA report identifies the distribution of the Romanian potential victims of modern slavery/human trafficking throughout the UK regions with the majority of victims being reported in West Midlands (69), London (60), Northern Ireland (53), South West (35) and North West (26), with further 56 victims exploited in multiple locations and 44 victims for whom the geographical area of exploitation was unknown.
• With regards to the UK law enforcement, there are no official reports on the number of suspects, prosecution or convictions for offences of modern slavery/human trafficking of Romanian origin or indeed other nationality.
The data available from the Romanian authorities offers a completely different picture with regards to the dimension and nature of the Romanian modern slavery/human trafficking in the UK, then the one depicted by the UK data.
• Firstly, according to the statistics of the Romanian National Anti-trafficking Agency (ANITP), UK was only the sixth country of destination for Romanian victims in 2015, with 39 victims exploited in the UK (4.4 % of the all the victims) and referred to the Romanian National Referral Mechanism administrated by the ANITP. It is noteworthy that, out of 39 victims only 17 (only 1.9% of the overall victims in 2015) were, in fact, identified in the UK. Moreover, out of these 17 cases where the victims were identified in the UK, only in 4 cases the transnational referral was initiated by the UK based first responders (2 by the Manchester Police and 2 by the Community Safety Glasgow). In the other cases the referral came via the Romanian Embassy in London, further to an exchange of data on police to police bases, or directly from Romanian based NGOs.
• Secondly, in terms of Romanian law enforcement response related to the Romanian human trafficking in the UK, the data provided by the Romanian DCCOA and DIICOT reports that in, 2014, there were: 49 investigations registered before the beginning of the year and 30 new cases (with 58 suspects) initiated during 2014. These were mostly cases of sexual exploitation (29 cases) of Romanian nationals in the UK and 1 case for forced begging. At the end of 2014 there were 6 cases finalised through prosecution (and 29 with other solutions). At the begging of 2015, there were 44 on-going investigations for human trafficking from Romania in the UK and 27 new cases (with 61 offenders) initiated in the first 9 months of 2015 throughout the year. 8 such investigations were finalised through prosecution (and 39 with other solutions) with 30 suspects prosecuted for sexual exploitation (7 cases) and 1 for labour exploitation.
The IASC report* identified the following areas of origins/destination in Romania and the UK:
• AREA (COUNTY OF ORIGIN) IN ROMANIA: 8 counties (7 counties and the capital Bucharest) accounted for around half of the number of victims identified in the research sample (Dambovita: 25 victims; Galati: 18 victims; Bacau 15 victims; Prahova 15 victims; Braila, 12; Ialomita: 12; Botosani: 10; Tulcea: 10 and Bucharest 7);
Where the type of area in Romania is known (urban or rural), the majority of the potential victims came from an urban area (123 victims or 51%) and 66 (27.4) from a rural setting. In 52 cases (21.6%) this information was not available.
There is a similar breakdown in terms of area of origin for the Romanian suspects of modern slavery.
• In terms of exploitation area, THE MAIN AREAS (COUNTY OR MAJOR CITY) OF EXPLOITATION IN THE UK are: London (88 potential victims amounting for 36.5%), Wiltshire (37 victims or 15.4%), Hampshire (32 victims or 13.3%), Bedfordshire (20 cases or 8.3%), Manchester (12 victims or 5%) and West Midlands (8 victims or 3,3%).
• A fairly similar picture is given by the NCA Strategic Assessment on the Nature and Scale of Human Trafficking (2014), where the majority of Romanian victims were reported in West Midlands (69), London (60), Northern Ireland (53), South West (35) and North West (26), with further 56 victims exploited in multiple locations and 44 victims for whom the geographical area of exploitation was unknown.
• For the first time at the research level, IASC report has succeeded in empirically connecting several areas of origins of the potential victims and traffickers in Romania with the exploitation areas in the UK, while simultaneously underlining the type of exploitation specific to the respective sets. As such, the research has identified direct relationships between the most prevalent area of origins in Romania, the county of Dambovita, and the London Metropolitan region, with 21 potential victims and 24 traffickers involved in sexual exploitation investigated in 7 distinct cases. There are also two other significant areas of origin in Romania connected with London: county of Galati (with 10 potential victims and 21 traffickers, all in 3 investigations) and Botosani (with 7 victims and 6 offenders in 4 cases) and the main form of exploitation is also sexual. Although at a lesser level, there seem to be similar relations between the counties of Braila and Tulcea in Romania and Bedfordshire in the UK (12 victims and 2 traffickers, in 3 investigations for sexual exploitation), as well as Prahova and Hampshire (with 13 victims and 1 trafficker in 4 investigations for sexual exploitation and 1 investigation into forced criminality). The county of Ialomita in Romania is connected to both Hampshire (5 victims and 1 offender in a domestic servitude case) and West Midlands (2 investigations for labour exploitation with 4 victims and 5 traffickers).
• In terms of labour exploitation, the county of Bacau in Romania is related to the area of Wiltshire in the UK with 2 investigations related to 11 potential victims but with only one trafficker identified.
UK Independent Antislavery Commissioner’s Strategic Plan 2015 – 2017
NCA Strategic Assessment on the Nature and Scale of Human Trafficking for 2014
NCA UKHTC National Referral Mechanism Statistics (2015)
ANITP – Romanian Agency against Trafficking in Human Beings (RO)
Home Office: UK Modern Slavery – Strategy (2015)
* For the purpose of this guide, “information” is a “blanket” concept, encompassing data that may be received from various sources, from an allegation at a Police Station, through a request of police assistance received from a foreign law enforcement agency, finding victims when conducting welfare visits or via a referral from an NGO.
A special emphasis is given to the law enforcement requests of police assistance received via the existing channels of police cooperation, as, although they are primarily sent with the view of obtaining any available data related to offenders/victims/criminal activities from a foreign jurisdiction, they are equally a valuable source of information for the receiving party. Therefore, the receiving law enforcement agency could, unless otherwise stated, develop further and action the intelligence received, ideally in partnership with the requesting party.