Romania Human Traffickers arrested in Dolj and Gorj

January 19, 2011

Comment: In an article dated January 19th 2011, and entitled “Human traffickers arrested in Dolj and Gorj”, the Romanian local newspaper “ Gazeta de Sud” reports on a police operation which led to the identification of 2 organized crime groups involved in trafficking in children and adults for sexual exploitation in Italy.

According to the newspaper, the operations consisted of several police raids and house searches in the Dolj county, and a border crossing operation in Gorj in which police officers stopped a bus with victims of trafficking, among them an underage girl. Both operations led to the arrest of accused perpetrators and several head of trafficking rings.

The police investigation is still on-going, and it is estimated that between 2006 and 2010 the organized crime group, composed of at least 6 persons, has exploited 7 victims in Bari, among them 2 minors, all from Dolj.

While no trial has taken place yet, the article divulges all the names of the accused. While a child rights perspective is clearly absent from the text, the article underscores that perpetrators were of Roma origin, without backing up this assertion with any kind of evidence and therefore contributing to a further stigmatization of a group already well subject to negative stereotyping.

One will also note the picture illustrating the article which depicts a group of sex workers in a random street, chosen to attract the reader’s attention on one side of a phenomenon that has much more complex causes and consequences than what the article and the iconography poorly reflect.

Comments: Pierre Cazenave, Child Rights Officer, Terre des hommes’ Regional Office for Central and South Eastern Europe.