On 15^th November 2022 the Embassy of Bulgaria in Stockholm, together with the Embassies of Romania and Poland, participated in a panel discussion organized on the occasion of the official launch of the information campaign "Before You Go", aimed at raising awareness of human trafficking issues. The campaign is launched by the Secretariat of the Council of the Baltic Sea States (CBSS) in Stockholm and the Swedish Agency for Gender Equality. It is specifically aimed at citizens of Ukraine, Poland, Bulgaria, and Romania who plan to seek employment in Sweden. In the context of the campaign, a video was created with the participation of citizens from these countries, already settled in Sweden, who share their experiences in their native language with their compatriots.

The discussion was opened with opening remarks by the Directors General of CBSS and the Swedish Gender Equality Agency – Mr Grzegorz Poznański and Ms Lena Ag.

The discussion focused on the challenges of labour exploitation and human trafficking for forced labour in a national and international context, with a special focus on the humanitarian crisis in Ukraine. Bulgaria highlighted the examples of successful cooperation with countries from the Baltic Sea region, including Sweden, on preventing cases of labour exploitation. The importance of continuing the joint efforts on prevention was emphasized, as well as the need of constantly raising the qualifications of state institutions’ employees, engaged in the fight against human trafficking, strengthening the exchange of information and deploying active information campaigns, considering the peculiarities and specifics of their target groups.