Are Romanian children Left behind a vulnerable group to Human Trafficking?

Abstract

After the fall of the Communist regime the Romanian population has decreased approximately 15%, due to the high level of labour migration. The migration of the Romanians was even more intensified later on, after Romania has joined the European Union. This decrease of population was due to an increased demand of the West-European population for domestic, construction and agricultural workers, corroborated with the entitlement of the new European citizens to free movement of workers within the territory of the European Union. As a direct consequence, a minimum of 82,464 children was left behind. Given that, more and more national and international reports have started to consider children left behind as a potential vulnerable group to human trafficking, the authors of this article have started to conduct a qualitative research intending to determine, if and to which extent, children left behind are vulnerable to human trafficking. The findings of the research are presented herein.