site.btaTraffickers in People Are Usually Greedy, Manipulative Men in Their Mid-30s – Report

The typical trafficker in human beings in Bulgaria is a man in his mid-30s, a materialistic, manipulative and narcissistic individual with an incomplete self-image. The conclusion has been made in a report by the Criminology Research Council under the project "Trafficking in People: Trends and Prevention," published on the Justice Ministry website.

The report describes the quintessential human trafficker as a shallow, insincere, irresponsible and adventurous person with a self-centred, hedonistic system of values dominated by greed. Such a person would use any means, including aggression, to get the benefits, advantages and concessions he wants. Human traffickers have outstanding skills of cheating, lying and denying responsibility.

Their most notable trait is a consistent desire to build a misleadingly positive image of themselves in accordance with other people's expectations and trust. Such individuals show high resistance to correctional programmes, the report says.

As convicts, they are adaptive and able to stay away from trouble while serving their sentence, and even receive commutation as a reward for work in jail, but there is usually no authentic correctional process.

Human trafficking can be conducted for the purposes of sexual exploitation, forced labour, begging, stealing organs, tissues and cells, forced submission, selling newborns or buying a wife, the experts say. They believe it is a social phenomenon rather than an ethnic one.

In Bulgaria, trafficking in adult women for sexual exploitation is the predominant type of trafficking in people. The analysts report increasing shares of trafficking for the purposes of forced labour, begging and submission of men as well as women.

Men predominate among human traffickers worldwide and among the leaders of crime networks, the report says. The share of women in human trafficking operations is growing.

The typical human trafficking victim has poor education and low culture. She or he is socially incompetent, gullible, trusting, inexperienced and prone to manipulation, lacks an effectively supportive environment and has low self-esteem. According to the report, the victims of this kind of crime usually come from marginalized or segregated social groups. They are often cut off from the education system and the labour market and are susceptible to discrimination and violence.

The report recommends express criminalization of labour exploitation and enslavement, and filling all gaps in the national regulations on human trafficking by taking into account the latest amendments to EU law. It proposes revisions to the Combating Trafficking in People Act. The authors lay emphasis on the need to regulate the so-called recovery and reflection period for victims of trafficking. This is the time when victims should not be forced to return from abroad and participate in the criminal process.

The report also calls for changes to other laws to make the trafficking victims indemnification system more effective by letting prosecutors play a more active role.