Germany, Great Britain, Italy and Spain are the main target countries aimed at by human trafficking groups for the exploitation of Romanian victims, the General Inspectorate of the Romanian Police informed on Tuesday, according to Agerpres.

The Romanian Police, together with the Spanish National Police and the National Agency Against Human Trafficking, launched, on Tuesday, the International Campaign for Awareness and Prevention Against Human Trafficking.

According to a press release from the IGPR, the objective of the campaign is to prevent human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation by reducing vulnerabilities to trafficking and discouraging the demand that favors this phenomenon.

„It is the first campaign carried out at the European level, which addresses in a coordinated manner both dimensions of the traffic, respectively the demand and the supply that favor this phenomenon,” according to the quoted source.

In the next period, the IGPR reports, the Institute for Research and Prevention of Criminality, in cooperation with the National Agency Against Trafficking in Persons, will carry out preventive activities in vulnerable environments, activities that will focus on potential victims of human trafficking.

With regard to human trafficking in Spain, the Inspectorate shows, cooperation took place in the form of requests for assistance through specialized structures within the IGPR (International Police Cooperation Center), through concrete exchanges of data and information with Romanian internal affairs attachés, accredited abroad, but also with foreign liaison officers, accredited in Bucharest, as well as through rogatory commissions and European orders of investigation – judicially, through the Directorate for Investigating Organized Crime and Terrorism (DIICOT).

Thus, in the period 2019-2022, joint investigations were carried out, under the auspices of EUROJUST and EUROPOL, following the online coordination meetings organized.

„In Romania, in the first 9 months of 2022, in order to reduce the phenomenon of human trafficking, the police from the structures to fight organized crime destroyed 20 organized groups, made up of 141 people who were sent to court. 172 people were detained and 128 arrest warrants (preventive and at home) and 80 orders for judicial control were issued,” the General Inspectorate of the Romanian Police also says.

Agerpres