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The Romanian Prosecutor's Office investigates eight people, four of whom have been arrested today, suspected of systematic mistreatment of German minors sent to Romania in a project for their social reintegration financed by Berlin, but which apparently exploited teenagers in forced labor.

As reported by the Romanian mediafax agency on Wednesday, four people have been arrested so far , after police raided yesterday at eight properties in the province of Maramures, in northern Romania, where the program was taking place. One of the detainees is a male of German nationality.

According to a statement from the Prosecutor's Office, the suspects investigated - including a German couple who coordinated the activities - brought minors to Maramures under the so-called "Maramures Project", a supposedly German-funded re-education program recognized by the Romanian authorities , whose website is still online.

Four children of German nationality are under the "special protection" of the Romanian Directorate General for Social Assistance and Child Protection (DGASPC) waiting for their "legal representatives" to arrive from Germany to Maramures, the institution said Wednesday a statement.

The investigators of the case have taken testimony to the minors. According to the Prosecutor's Office, "the young people were subjected to a regime of lack of freedom, prohibition of communicating with the outside, with the families of Germany or with other people or with the Romanian authorities."

Children between 12 and 18 years of age, who saw their schooling and medical treatments interrupted, were forced to do "strenuous" forced labor on the properties of residents of Maramures, suffered "humiliating" and "degrading" treatment and lived in a regime of "slavery" and constant threats and beatings.

The group that acted behind the façade of this legal program would have committed crimes of "human trafficking, child trafficking and illegal deprivation of liberty," the Prosecutor's note said.

Some of the minors - who were sometimes deprived of food as "punishment" to straighten their behavior - attempted suicide.

The initiative was presented with an offer of recreational activities in nature and treatment for the rehabilitation of young people at risk of social exclusion by specialists in pedagogy, psychology and other related disciplines.

According to the Romanian news network Antena 3, a total of 160 teenagers have gone through the "Project Maramures" program in the five years it has worked. The case has been uncovered after one of the affected adolescents escaped from the place where he was staying and reported the abuse.

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