Children in Moldova are subjected to the worst forms of child labor, including in commercial sexual exploitation, sometimes as a result of human trafficking. Children also engage in child labor in agriculture. (1-5) Table 1 provides key indicators on children’s work and education in Moldova.

Source for primary completion rate: Data from 2020, published by UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2022. (6) 
Source for all other data: International Labor Organization’s analysis of statistics from Labour Force Survey-Child Labour Survey (LFS-SIMPOC), 2009. (7) 

Based on a review of available information, Table 2 provides an overview of children's work by sector and activity.

† Determined by national law or regulation as hazardous and, as such, relevant to Article 3(d) of ILO C. 182.
‡ Child labor understood as the worst forms of child labor per se under Article 3(a)–(c) of ILO C. 182.

Lack of information limits an assessment of the types of work that children perform and the sectors in which they work, including in the separatist region of Transnistria, which is not under the control of Moldovan authorities. (1-3,8,16) Civil society sources report that the child labor situation in Transnistria does not differ significantly from the rest of Moldova. (1,2) However, survivors of child labor and human trafficking in Transnistria do not have access to Moldovan legal protections or social services. (5)

Both boys and girls as young as age 10 are forced into various forms of commercial sexual exploitation. (3,4,14,17,18) Online sexual exploitation of children, including the production and distribution of child pornography, has increased in recent years. (1,8) Moldova is also a destination country for tourism for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation of children. (4,17) Due to travel restrictions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, reports of human trafficking outside of the country decreased during the reporting period. Most cases of commercial sexual exploitation of children occurred in the capital city of Chisinau. (1)

Trafficking of children, particularly those suffering from familial neglect, continues to be a concern in Moldova and Transnistria. (4,5,10,13,16,19,20) Traffickers exploit children ages 5 to 14 for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation and child labor, mainly in the agricultural, service, and industrial sectors. (17) Children living on the street or abandoned by parents migrating abroad remain particularly vulnerable to child labor and human trafficking, and observers express concern that corrupt management in state institutions like orphanages and boarding schools exploits children in domestic services or on farms. (1,5,8,13,16-19) Vulnerable children from Transnistria are at an increased risk of being trafficked through Ukraine’s Odessa region. (18,21,22) 

During the reporting period, the Ministry of Education, Culture and Research mandated the reporting of daily attendance in all preschool, primary, and secondary general educational institutions. While formally established for medical reasons, authorities report that the mechanism proved to be effective at reducing dropouts and absenteeism. (1) Children in Moldova are also guaranteed free transportation to school, and no fees are required for schooling through grade 10. However, students in grades 10 through 12 are often charged fees to rent textbooks. (1,2) Children from Roma communities continue to be at higher risk of dropping out due to discrimination by school officials and non-Roma students, and are more vulnerable to child labor and human trafficking. (1,2,13,17) Schools in rural areas often lack a sufficient number of teachers, and mainstream schools lack adequate resources to address the needs of children with disabilities. (1,2)

Moldova has ratified all key international conventions concerning child labor (Table 3).

The government has established laws and regulations related to child labor (Table 4). However, gaps exist in Moldova's legal framework to adequately protect children from the worst forms of child labor, including the minimum age for work.

In 2021, the Prosecutor General's Office (PGO) introduced legislation aimed at standardizing sentences for individuals convicted of offenses related to human trafficking and commercial sexual exploitation. The draft legislation also includes provisions for harsher sentences in cases involving aggravated circumstances. (1)

The Labor Code's minimum age provisions do not meet international standards because they do not apply to all children working in the informal sector. Although Article 46(3) of the Labor Code permits children as young as age 15 to work, the law does not specify the conditions in which light work may be undertaken. (23) In addition, the minimum age for work is lower than the compulsory education age, which may encourage children to leave school before the completion of compulsory education. (23,34) 

The government has established institutional mechanisms for the enforcement of laws and regulations on child labor (Table 5). However, gaps exist within the authority of enforcement agencies that may hinder adequate enforcement of their child labor laws.

During the reporting period, laws and practices introduced as part of government restructuring in 2017 and 2018 continued to limit the power of the State Labor Inspectorate (SLI) to enforce child labor laws. Laws No. 179 and No. 131 mandate that all labor inspections begin with a desk review and permit site visits only if the subject of an inspection provides insufficient documentation or if a risk assessment procedure finds reasonable indicators of a possible violation. (1,2,8,17,40-44) Site visits, including those conducted in response to complaints, cannot take place until after the target of an inspection has had 5 days to respond to a request for documents. This request serves as de facto advance notice of an inspection. (2,5,8,40-44) These laws permit inspectors to forgo the documentary inspection and proceed directly to an onsite inspection with managerial approval if a risk assessment indicates an immediate threat to the environment, life, health, or property. (40,44)

However, in practice, this exception is not widely used, and the government reports all inspections that are not in its annual published inspection plan to be "unannounced." (1,2,38) Although the SLI is able to receive complaints, procedures to submit a complaint can be cumbersome, and complaints cannot be anonymous. (1,2,8,45) Furthermore, labor inspections that take place onsite can focus only on the potential violations that have been identified in advance through either the complaint process or a desk review, even if other violations, such as child labor, are observed. (5,38,41) Labor inspectors may face disciplinary action or civil liability for investigating issues outside the scope of the specific complaint that triggered the inspection. (38) In 2021, these strict measures continued to limit the number and scope of onsite inspections, including unannounced inspections, that labor inspectors were empowered to conduct. (1,8,40,42,43)

The Transnistrian region is not under the control of Moldovan authorities, who are prevented from carrying out inspections and law enforcement there. (1,2,5,46,47)

Labor Law Enforcement

In 2021, labor law enforcement agencies in Moldova took actions to address child labor (Table 6). However, gaps exist within the authority of the Ministry of Health, Labor, and Social Protection that may hinder adequate labor law enforcement, including a lack of unannounced inspections in sectors in which child labor is known to occur.

In January 2021, Law No. 191 went into effect and returned all labor inspection responsibilities to the SLI. (1,8) Moldova reported employing 104 labor inspectors in 2021, all of whom are permanent employees of the SLI. This staffing increase was the result of Government Decision 149, which increased the SLI staff limit to 104, up from 78 in previous years. (1) According to the ILO's technical advice of a ratio approaching 1 inspector for every 20,000 workers in transition economies, Moldova would need to employ roughly 65 labor inspectors. (50,51) However, the SLI has reported that its funding and the number of labor inspectors are insufficient to adequately conduct child labor inspections. (1,2,8) Although the SLI can recommend that penalties be assessed for labor violations, the authority to impose and collect these penalties remains with the courts. If an inspector finds that a violation of labor law has occurred, they must issue recommendations to the offender on how to resolve the violation. (1,2) If the violation is not resolved after the prescribed period (no less than 30 days, but no more than 90 days), then the SLI may refer the case to a competent court. This approach often results in employers making the recommended remediation to avoid a fine, then resuming the offending practice after the case has been cleared. (1)

By law, labor inspections must begin with a request for documentation from the employer, except in cases in which a risk assessment indicates an immediate threat to the environment, life, health, or property. (1,2,38) When reporting inspection data, the SLI divides inspections into two categories—those that appear on the annual inspection plan and those that arise during the year when triggered by complaints or incidents. The latter are considered to be unannounced whether they are preceded by a desk audit or not. (1) It is therefore not possible to determine whether any truly unannounced inspections took place in 2021, and if so, how many. During the reporting period, the SLI reported 31 labor violations involving minors. (1) The SLI also referred six cases to courts for penalties, one of which was rejected. Courts imposed fines in three cases, and two remain outstanding. (1) In one case, the SLI found that a firm illegally employed minors at a clothing factory and made recommendations to the firm on how to bring their employment into conformity with Moldovan labor standards. However, before any further action could be taken, the minors reportedly left the firm. (1) Both government and NGO sources reported that the child labor violations identified by the government during the reporting period did not reflect the magnitude of the child labor problem in Moldova due to an insufficient number of labor inspectors, budget limitations, cultural acceptance of child labor on family farms, and legal limitations on the government’s ability to conduct inspections. The number of child survivors of abuse, trauma, and exploitation supported by NGOs is substantially greater than the number of government investigations of such cases. (1,5)

During the reporting period, the government did not provide labor inspectors with any training specific to child labor. However, the ILO supported a training for 83 inspectors on creating a modern and effective labor inspection system. (1)

Criminal Law Enforcement

In 2021, criminal law enforcement agencies in Moldova took actions to address child labor (Table 7). However, gaps exist within the operations of enforcement agencies that may hinder adequate criminal law enforcement, including a lack of training for new criminal investigators.

During the reporting period, law enforcement authorities took several steps to prevent and eliminate the rise in cases of online commercial sexual exploitation of children, such as obtaining new specialized equipment from the U.S. Government to investigate cybercrime, including child pornography. The Committee for Combating Trafficking in Persons (CCTIP) and other law enforcement agencies sent officers, both newly employed and veterans, to at least 15 different trainings on human trafficking, child pornography, child online sexual exploitation, and child protection. (1,53) Additionally, the PGO, in coordination with an NGO, created a guide on addressing sexual abuse and exploitation of children through information technologies among children who spent significant amounts of time online as a result of the pandemic. The government also made efforts to reduce the demand for commercial sex acts by developing, in collaboration with an NGO, the methodology for a behavioral analysis study of convicted child sex offenders. (5)

In 2021, authorities initiated 14 new investigations into cases of trafficking children for commercial exploitation, and 4 new investigations of trafficking children for labor exploitation. Courts also convicted 25 individuals for child trafficking and 24 individuals for child pornography offenses. (53) The government reported additional investigations, prosecutions, and convictions for child labor offenses, but did not provide any further details for inclusion in this report. (52) However, reports indicate that many authorities still lack adequate training to identify potential child trafficking survivors. (5) Laws providing special interview services for child survivors of human trafficking are also not uniformly applied, which can result in re-traumatization of survivors. In some cases involving child survivors ages 14 to 18, judges permitted traffickers to be present during child interviews and often refused to apply special interviewing measures, such as conducting interviews in specially equipped rooms and with a psychologist present. (4,5,53) Even in cases in which children are provided with alternate means of testifying, such as from a separate room with video and audio recording, these rooms are often not adequately soundproofed which results in the child being able to hear everything that is happening in the main courtroom, including the suspect's reactions to their testimony. (53)

The PGO expanded its mandate to investigate child sexual exploitation cases involving information and communication technologies, and approved guidelines for identifying, investigating, and prosecuting such cases. (4) Within the judiciary, specialized judges are trained specifically to handle cases involving human trafficking and other related crimes, such as child pornography. (13) Judges sometimes reclassified cases from human trafficking crimes to crimes with lesser penalties, such as pimping. When such reclassification occurs, survivors of human trafficking are no longer protected by the provision of the criminal code that exempts trafficking survivors from criminal liability for offenses committed because of their exploitation. (5) Sources report that child survivors of human trafficking were in some cases charged for their participation in unlawful acts that they were compelled to commit as a result of being trafficked. (5)

Criminal investigators within the CCTIP have well-furnished offices as a result of U.S. Government support over the last 10 years. However, the CCTIP does not have sufficient vehicles or fuel allocations for its daily investigation activities, nor does it have updated computer equipment. (1,2) High staff turnover in the past year has also hindered the CCTIP's effectiveness. (1,2,17)

The government has established mechanisms to coordinate its efforts to address child labor (Table 8). However, gaps exist that hinder effective coordination of efforts to address child labor, including a lack of coordination efforts of the National Council for the Protection of Child Rights.

The expansion of the National Referral System into a National Referral Mechanism that would merge with other survivor assistance mechanisms and offer protection and services to additional vulnerable populations, proposed in 2020, has not yet been approved. (2,5) As in previous years, the number of survivors referred for services continues to be far lower than the number of victims identified due to limited resources. (53)

The government has established policies related to child labor (Table 9). However, policy gaps exist that hinder efforts to address child labor, including a lack of implementation.

‡ The government had other policies that may have addressed child labor issues or had an impact on child labor. (8,55)

In 2021, the government funded and participated in programs that include the goal of eliminating or preventing child labor (Table 10). However, gaps exist in these social programs, including the inadequacy to address the problem in all sectors.

† Program is funded by the Government of Moldova.
‡ The government had other social programs that may have included the goal of eliminating or preventing child labor. (4,8,18)

Civil society organizations have assisted in removing children from exploitive situations, but much of this work is done with the support of foreign donors. Observers report there are insufficient services for resocialization and reintegration of child survivors of sexual exploitation and sexual abuse. (1,2,5,13) Existing social programs do not meet the current level of need, particularly for children working in agriculture and child survivors of human trafficking who require long-term care. (4,8)

Based on the reporting above, suggested actions are identified that would advance the elimination of child labor in Moldova (Table 11).

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