The Government of Moldova does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking. However, it is making significant efforts to do so. The government demonstrated increasing efforts compared to the previous reporting period. Therefore Moldova was upgraded to Tier 2. The government demonstrated increasing efforts by investigating and prosecuting more suspected traffickers, including complicit officials, and increasing budgets for victim protection, IPN reports, with reference to a press release of the Ministry of the Interior.
The U.S Department of State’s 2018 Trafficking in Persons Report says the government increased law enforcement efforts, maintained victim protection efforts and increased the budget intended for such measures. The Center for Combating Trafficking in Persons, Moldova’s specialized law enforcement body, filled its leadership vacancies and increased staffing, which led to improved working relationships with civil society and international partners.
The report includes a number of recommendations for improving the measures aimed at fighting all forms of human trafficking, such as to vigorously investigate, prosecute, and convict traffickers and government officials complicit in human trafficking; implement measures to address corruption in the judicial sector and law enforcement community; improve protection of victims and witnesses during court proceedings. Moldovan police officers were trained to early identify cases of trafficking in human beings.
The Trafficking in Persons Report is an annual report issued by the U.S. State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons. It ranks 184 governments based on their perceived efforts to acknowledge and combat human trafficking . The report divides nations into tiers based on their compliance with standards outlined in the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) of 2000. These tiers are: Tier 1 Countries whose governments fully comply with the TVPA’s minimum standards; Tier 2 Countries whose governments do not fully comply with an TVPA’s minimum standards, but are making significant efforts to bring themselves into compliance with those standards; Tier 3 Countries whose governments do not fully comply with the minimum standards and are not making significant efforts to do so.
