Every minute one individual worldwide becomes victim of human trafficking. In the period 2010 - 2012 alone, 30 thousand admitted they had been exploited in this way.Annual revenues made by traffickers across the world are worth32 billion euro. In this context we should report about120 Syrian nationals detained on Monday morning as they were entering Sofia, including 30 children and 20 women. Their target was in fact the heart of the European Union. Sofia police have seized five traffickers and the driver of the truck used to transport the migrants. In data from a European Commission report Bulgaria tops the EU list as per human trafficking victims.

Kamelia Dimitrova, Secretary of the National Commission for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings at the Council of Ministers, quotes figures suggesting that every year there are more than 500 Bulgarians registered as trafficking victims in a few EU member states. Close to 80 percentof victims are subject to sexual exploitation. Almost all of them are women.

„In the recent years the capacity of all institutions working on the problem has improved, so that law-enforcement bodies and NGOs are able to identify trafficking victims. There are only few cases when victims have the courage to contact the police or the Commission. Last year we had 100 signals. There was a case with a girl that was taken to Austria by her boyfriend with the vow that they would live together there. It turned out however that she should work as a prostitute in Vienna. After a while she contacted our Commission and all institutions including the authorities in Austria and our partners from the General Directorate for Combatting Organized Crime (GDCOC). At first she decided not to benefit from our service but later changed her mind and was accommodated in the reception center of our Commission in Burgas. The girl worked with psychologists and social workers and made the courageous decision to testify against traffickers. A joint team was formed from GDCOCand the Federal Criminal Police of Austria, and investigation started as well as court proceedings. The girl testified in court and in this way six individuals were sentenced on human trafficking charges.”

In 2014 there were 92 guilty verdicts for human trafficking in Bulgaria, and 60 percent of them were suspended. Sexual exploitation victims are prevalent but there is also a trend of a rising number of labor exploitation ones who are predominantly men. In figures from the National Commission for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings, in 2014 the numbers of sexual and labor exploitation victims were equalized. Human trafficking victims include children as well who are either subject to sexual exploitation or used for pickpocketing. So far they come to 20% of identified victims.

On Monday, a special project opened to counter human trafficking. It is financed under the Norwegian Financial Mechanism and will be carried out by the European Institute in the course of 16 months.

„It is important to train close to 200 civil servants from different spheres”, explains Lubov Panayotova, Director of the European Institute. “These are multidisciplinary trainings that have shown great results in Schengen Area countries. Recruits for them will include prosecutors, investigators, State Agency on National Security officials as well as ones from the Interior Ministry and the National Commission for Combating Trafficking in Human Beings, with a view to raising the capacity of institutions and make sure they work more coherently.”

One of the project's objectives is to promote Schengen cooperation between Bulgarian officials and their colleagues from the Schengen Area. It is implemented at a moment when Bulgaria needs such assistance. In this way this country is given the chance to carry out more successful prevention; to be better informed and to deliver better social services to the victims of trafficking in human beings so that they receive proper protection and could return to their homes.

English Daniela Konstantinova