The United States State Department published its annual report on human trafficking on June 17. The report cites Bulgaria as a "source, transit, and, to a lesser extent, a destination country for men, women, and children from Ukraine, Moldova and Romania trafficked to and through Bulgaria to Germany, Belgium, France, Italy, Spain, Austria, Norway, the Czech Republic, Poland, Greece, Turkey, and Macedonia for the purposes of commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor", as reported by Focus news.

According to the data, children are trafficked within Bulgaria and to Greece and the United Kingdom for the purposes of forced begging and forced petty theft, indicating that 15 per cent of identified trafficking victims in Bulgaria are children.

On the same day, June 17, the Bulgarian news agency (BTA), said that three Bulgarians, two of them lawyers, were apprehended and charged with child trafficking, the state agency for national security (SANS) had said.

They were involved in the smuggling of 16 newborn babies, 13 of whom were ferried to Greek couples. The other three were sent to Bulgarian parents. 

Reportedly, the lawyers managed to persuade pregnant women to sell their babies for between 3000 and 5000 leva before selling them on to Greek couples for as much as 40 000 euro per child, the SANS report said.

The Greek couples claim that they were unaware of the illegal proceedings as they were listed by the justice ministry "and applied legally" for the babies.

In Bulgaria, DNA tests are not used to prove the legitimacy of the couples of paternity results, thus it was easy for the adoptive father to walk into the clinic and 'claim' his child.

Meanwhile, the State Department report says that some Bulgarian women and men are trafficked internally, primarily to resort areas along the Black Sea coast and to border towns near Greece, predominantly for sexual exploitation and forced labour.

In turn SANS announced that shortly after the releasing of the report three persons had been arrested.