Only officially identified victims of trafficking can receive state funded assistance, however it is not conditional upon victims’ capacity or willingness to cooperate in criminal proceedings.
A victim of trafficking can be officially identified by the police, court or prosecutor. If the victim is unwilling to cooperate with the police or there are not enough evidences to initiate a criminal proceeding, the service providers (mandated NGOs) have the power to grant the official victim status after a review by a commission of multi-sectoral experts consisting of a social worker, psychologist, lawyer, and a police officer.
Victims themselves can apply for the status of an official victim. The application is reviewed by the same commission of multi-sectoral experts.
The final decision is made by the Social Integration State Agency, that within three working days takes a decision to assign services to the person or to include the person in the queue of the recipients of services or to refuse to assign services to the person, and notifies the service provider and a victim regarding their decision.