Bulgaria in the State Department's Report on Human Trafficking - 2011

The document classifies the countries into categories depending on the extent to which they meet the minimum standards set by the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA).

› Tier 1 - Countries that fully cover the minimum standards.

› Tier 2 - Countries that do not fully meet the standards, but are making significant efforts in this direction.

› Tier 2 - Watch List - Countries that do not meet the requirements, make efforts to improve, but the number of victims is significant and there is no clear evidence of their progress, but rather declared intention for the measures to be taken.

› Tier 3 - Countries that do not meet the standards of the TVPA and show no efforts for a change.

Another issue of the report, when Bulgaria did not manage to climb up the ladder of improvement. The authors characterize the country as a source and to a lesser degree as a transit point and destination for trafficking. The measures to decriminalize the victims and the investment in social services for them are marked as a positive trend. Weaknesses were found in the investigation, prosecution and punishment of the perpetrators of trafficking. In the same Tier 2 are listed countries like Greece, Brazil and Israel.

Source: US Department Of State

See the section of the report on Bulgaria here (in English):