The Foundation for Social Welfare Services (FSWS) has dealt with a total of 86 cases of human trafficking in 2018 and 2019, Minister for the Family, Children's Right and Social Solidarity Michael Falzon said in Parliament.

He was answering to a question which PN MP Claudette Buttigieg put forward.

She asked for the Social Solidarity Minister to provide the number of cases that FSWS has dealt with with regards to human trafficking between 2014 and 2019. She also asked for the information to be divided depending on gender, age, and new or known cases.

In his tabled response, Falzon revealed that while there are no statistics from 2014 till 2017, in 2018 and 2019, the FSWS took care of 86 human trafficking cases in total. Notably, he explained that some of these cases could be the same across years as individuals can make use of Intake & Family Support Service (Human Trafficking Service) for more than just one year.

In 2018, the number of new cases was 25 while there were 23 known cases totalling to 48 cases. Similarly, 2019 also had 48 cases, however, there were only 9 new cases with another 39 that were known cases.

The numbers are also identical across both 2018 and 2019 when it comes to the division of cases depending on gender as in both years, 19 of the 48 total cases were male while 29 cases were female.

The table also showed that these cases mostly range between people aged 25 -34 year olds, followed by those aged 20-24 year olds. There were no cases relating to 0-19 year olds or people who are in their 60s or over.

The minister added that the service is manned by professionals in the field. There are also a number of safe houses that were loaned form the private sector in order to provide shelter from any victims without a home until the team of professionals help them find employment.