As many as 1,525 children have been identified by the Romanian authorities as victims of human trafficking in the last five years, the executive director of Justice and Care Romania, Madalina Turza, said Tuesday at an international conference on child trafficking organized by Justice and Care Romania and the Senate.

According to a qualitative research conducted by Justice and Care Romania and the University of Greenwich, between December 2023 and June 2024, the Romanian child victim of human trafficking is mostly a girl, the average age is between 14 and 15 years old, comes from rural areas, lives in a family where there is at least one parent, the standard of living is low, but it is not about extreme poverty.

Madalina Turza pointed out that school dropout correlates with the moment of recruitment of the victim, whose distinctive elements are a behavioral and clothing hypersexualization.

The head of Justice and Care Romania said that the girl victim of human trafficking uses a smartphone and social networks, and from the point of view of psycho-emotional development, she can distinguish between good and bad, but she does not have the autonomy to oppose risks and self-harming behaviours.

This pointed to the fact that parents confuse behavioural and clothing hypersexualization with growing-up, do not understand the risks associated with social platforms and do not have the ability to establish communication and trust relationships with children.

For his part, the ambassador of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland in Bucharest, Giles Matthew Portman, drew attention to the fact that the fight against human trafficking is not easy, especially when the victims of this phenomenon are children.

According to a press release from Justice and Care Romania, the community where child trafficking occurs is predominantly rural. There is a normalization of deviance, in the sense of the disappearance of the „moral compass” at the community level.

AGERPRES