Bulgaria Holds Third Place in Number of Prostitutes

Bulgaria has moved from fourth to third place in number of prostitutes across Europe. Such are the results from the data presented in the latest researches carried out by Western European organizations. According to Georgi Petrunov such a conclusion shouldn't come as a surprise. For years various international reports include Bulgaria among the six main 'exporters' of victims of human trafficking within the European Union. The data show that Bulgaria, with around 8 million citizens, surpasses countries with much larger population in the number of victims of human trafficking. This trend is quite troubling and shows the huge scale of the problem in this country. RiskMonitor's research shows that between 8,000 and 12,000 Bulgarian women are being sexually exploited in foreign countries. The prostitutes generate between 900 million and 1,3 billion Euro annually. Some 50%-80% of this amount goes flows back into Bulgaria's national economy.

It is specific for Bulgaria that criminal organizations have almost completely overtaken the human trafficking and receive the larger part of the funds generated. Criminal organizations have a clear division of roles, they carry out various criminial activities in addition to human trafficking, like drug traffic, racketeering etc. The criminal structures usually have several hierarchical levels. However, there are cases when at certain levels they are horizonally organized, more like networks. Due to the significant role of the cirminal organizations in human trafficking the efforts of the investigating authoorities should be concentrated on them. The best possible strategy would be to follow the route of the money in order to reach from the depths to the very summit of the organizations. Recently comparisons have been made in Bulgaria with the newly adopted restrictive measures and individual penalties, applied to prostitutes in Romania. In this context Georgi Petrunov noted that in Bulgaria there is a need of a serious debate for the pros and cons for legalization of prostitution in the near future.

Interview with Georgi Petrunov
Bulgarian National Radio, Horizon Program, 26 January 2010