NGOs Accuse Romania of Inaction on Human Trafficking

Civil society organisations have accused the Bucharest government of allowing Romania to remain the country of origin of most victims of trafficking in the EU.

On 19 November, 2019, 63 NGOs addressed an open letter to the then new centre-right government, demanding that it take measures to more efficiently fight human trafficking.

More than a year later, that government's days in office are coming to an end, and the NGOs have voiced deep disappointment.

"None of the solicited measures has been correctly implemented," the NGOs said in a monitoring report distributed on Sunday that examines the record of each relevant official in undertaking these reforms one by one .

Former Prime Minister Ludovic Orban is reproved for his failure to push a legislative initiative now stuck in parliament, aimed at "amending criminal legislation regarding human trafficking and making more efficient the activity" of the organised crime prosecution unit.

Orban became PM in November 2019, after the ousting of the former Social Democratic Party government, whose widely criticized reform of the criminal code included a general reduction of prison terms and statutes of limitations. Orban resigned last week after his National Liberal Party, PNL, fared badly in the 6 December general election.

Law and human rights expert Silvia Tabusca, of the European Centre of Legal Education and Research, ECLER, told BIRN that her NGO and the other organisations who produced the report expect the new government "to accept the very bad situation" regarding human trafficking and show "the political will to adopt better polices" - for example, by implementing a National Strategy against Organised Crime.

In their report, the NGOs also slam Interior Minister...