Effects of Involving Specialists in Human Trafficking Victim Support and Protection
Effects of Involving Specialists in Human Trafficking Victim Support and Protection

Summary/Abstract: As the level of criminality at European level in continuous growth, a recently introduced legislative package aiming to protect and promote victims’ rights has been introduced by the European Commission. The provisions of the “Victims Directive”, alongside of the First European Strategy to protect and promote victims’ rights are practically urging the member states to a full reversal of the victim’s position both within the civil society and within the justice system, as the victim goes from being the passive subject of a crime, to the active subject within the European support and protection mechanism. The present article reveals the results of a research conducted in the main source country for victims of human trafficking, Romania, with the aim of examining the extent to which the new provisions have been introduced into the national framework and into the national practice. By involving both practitioners and victims of crimes into the qualitative research, a series of systemic and procedural gaps have been identified and addressed and some positive, transferable practices could be revealed and promoted. Through the study interpreting data collected by means of structured interviews we came to the conclusion that most provisions of the new legislative framework have not been integrated into the generic victim support practice for reasons stemming from the obvious lack of funds to accommodate considerable societal institutional changes in a quick manner, to lack of personnel training and in some cases, attitudinal deficiencies of practitioners. On the other hand, a multidisciplinary, victim centred approach based on a public private partnership has proved to have positive results in the field of human trafficking victim support and crime prevention.

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