Organized crime in Europe: Free movement and human trafficking inside EU borders

Abstract: Despite the fact of being considered as one of the safest regions in the world, the EU reports a wide number of cases of human trafficking every year in its Member States. Moreover, free movement of persons that EU membership grants makes it easier for human trafficking criminals to transport and exploit victims within Member States. The country that has shown by far to have the largest number of nationals falling victims of human trafficking during the last few years was Romania, and the goal of this thesis was to find what are the main reasons for it. In order to do so, this thesis consists on a study on the phenomenon of human trafficking in Europe, and more specifically, in the levels of development and gender equality in Romania on the basis of a theoretical framework composed by theories on international political economy and gender to determine to which extent they influence on the prevalence of human trafficking. The analysis has shown that, in this specific country, development and migration have a broad impact in human trafficking, as Romania is one of the least developed countries in the EU and high youth unemployment rates, low wages and unequal income distribution make women more vulnerable to be depicted and recruited as victims of human trafficking. However, gender has surprisingly shown to have a smaller influence that expected.