More than 70 people were convicted of trafficking in human beings last year. Sexual exploitation remains the main form of child exploitation, while labor exploitation is the main form of exploitation of adults, IPN reports, with reference to the Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime and Special Cases.
Prosecutor Tatiana Rutkovski said that 170 victims were identified in criminal cases of trafficking in human beings and children, of whom 25 children were exploited sexually, through labor and begging, mostly on the territory of the country. Cases of child sexual exploitation occurred mainly in Chisinau, in rented apartments.
Among the main ways of committing trafficking in human beings are deception, abuse of the victim’s position of vulnerability, confiscation of documents, threat with the use of psychological violence.
In a human trafficking case, a couple of elderly persons from Cahul were sentenced to 12 years in prison for organizing the transportation of two young women to Germany to be sexually exploited for commercial purposes there.
The penalty for trafficking in human beings is six to 20 years in prison, while for child trafficking - 10 to 20 years behind bars or life imprisonment.
The prosecutor urges the people, before accepting any job offer on the territory of the country or abroad, to inform themselves about the employer, not to give their passport to anyone and, in difficulty, to contact the police, the consulates or the Embassy of the Republic of Moldova in that country. One can also contact the Prosecutor General’s Office on +373699999021 or write to antitrafic@procuratura.com, the Center for Combating Trafficking in Persons on +373 22254998, or the International Center “La Strada” on 0 900 77777.
