Bulgarians Often Become Victims of Labor Exploitation Abroad - EU-wide Study

Bulgarians often become victims of labor exploitation abroad, according to a report of the EU Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA).

FRA's new report is the first of its kind to comprehensively explore all criminal forms of labor exploitation in the EU affecting workers moving within or into the EU.

The findings show that criminal labor exploitation is extensive in a number of industries, particularly agriculture, construction, hotel and catering, domestic work, and manufacturing, and also that perpetrators are at little risk of prosecution or of having to compensate victims.

According to the findings of the FRA, corruption is identified as one of the main legal and institutional risk factors for labor exploitation in Greece and Bulgaria.

According to the report, in half of EU Member States (Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Latvia, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, and Sweden) slavery, servitude and forced labor are criminalized only in specific contexts.

The report shows that Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, and Slovenia protect only third country nationals in irregular situations

As regards severe forms of labor exploitation, some existing services exclude particular groups.

Institutional bodies that work on trafficking in human beings often focus exclusively on cases that are investigated and prosecuted as such. Therefore the help they provide is not accessible to victims of severe labor exploitation unless the case also comes under trafficking, as can be observed for instance in Bulgaria, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.

For example, in Bulgaria the legal framework concerning social assistance or access to support...