The plan, in line with international guidelines on the matter, is drafted based on a range of strategic objectives, including “assuring the victims of trafficking better access to their rights, consolidating and upgrading intervention,” the government said in a statement issued after its regular weekly cabinet meeting.

The plans also foresees efforts to raise public awareness of the problem and stepping up the fight against organised crime networks, in particular dismantling their business model and “trafficking chain”.

According to the government, the plan was drafted based on a “wide consultation of specialists and civil society organisations” that are represented in the National Network for the Support and Protection of Trafficking Victims.

It notes that trafficking “is taking on ever more diverse, complex and sophisticated forms of operation” and that as a result there is a need for a “strategic orientation” aligned with the United Nations’ Agenda 2030 sustainable development goals, “responding to the main risks and internal and external threats and fostering integrated protection of victims.”

According to Portugal’s most recent Annual Report on Internal Security (RASI), in 2016 there were 260 presumed victims of trafficking logged, up 35% from 2015.

Situations were also found in which Portugal is believed to have served as a transit country, with the victims being adolescents originally from Africa.