Number of anti-trafficking police officers will be halved

Half of the employees of the Center for Combating Trafficking in Persons of the Ministry of the Interior will be made redundant. Deputy Minister of the Interior Valentin Zubic confirmed for Info-Prim Neo that under an order issued by the Minister of the Interior Valentin Mejinschi, all the anti-trafficking police officers have been laid off. “The policemen will be certified, but only 50% of them will be reemployed,” Valentin Zubic said. On July 16, the Government dismissed the director of the Center for Combating Trafficking in Persons, Petru Plop, and appointed Valeriu Hancu, a former employee of the Security and Information Service, instead of him. Valentin Zubic said that both of the decisions were made after the U.S. Department of State issued a report in which Moldova is included in the blacklist of countries that do not meet minimum standards for combating trafficking in human beings and after President Vladimir Voronin leveled corruption-related accusations at anti-trafficking police officers. Early in June, in the 2008 Trafficking in Persons Report, the U.S. Department of State criticized the Moldovan authorities for the insufficient measures taken to combat trafficking. Immediately afterward, the Deputy Prime Minister Victor Stepaniuc, who is also president of the national committee for combating trafficking in human beings, said that the Government of Moldova is to blame for this because the international public opinion was badly informed about the real state of affairs. At a later meeting of the Supreme Security Council, Moldova’s President Vladimir Voronin demanded that the personnel of the Center for Combating Trafficking in Persons are halved. The head of state accused the policemen of involvement in criminal schemes for transporting Moldovans abroad to work. Until present, the Center for Combating Trafficking in Persons had 44 employees.