\nAccording
\nto the European Commission between 2015 and 2016 more than half of
\nthe human trafficking in the EU 56% was done only for sexual
\nexploitation and this remains its most widespread form. In this
\ncontext as expected women and girls accounted for two thirds out of
\nthe total registered victims, 68%. This percentage would go up to 77%
\nif we eliminated statistic data from the UK, which is no longer an EU
\nmember. The first five European countries of residence for the
\nvictims were Romania, Hungary, the Netherlands, Poland and Bulgaria.
\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nThe
\nsituation doesn’t seem to have changed significantly in the present
\nas in 2018 Romania was still one of the source-countries for human
\ntrafficking, according to the National Agency against Human
\nTrafficking and half of the total number of victims were minors. Some
\nof these girls, who somehow managed to break out of this type of
\ncontemporary slavery are being helped by activist Iana Matei, the one
\nwho 20 years ago opened a shelter for the protection and social
\ninclusion of the victims of human trafficking. According to Iana
\nMatei, ever since its foundation, the aforementioned NGO entitled
\nReaching Out Romania has offered assistance to over 600 sexploitation
\nvictims.
\n<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nIana
\nMatei: We
\nstarted with an apartment that we rented back then, after that the
\nnumber of girls increased and I think in 2000 we registered the
\nlargest number of girls. Most of them were being trafficked in the
\ncountries of the former Yugoslavia. Later we had to build a shelter
\nfor them and added another one as their number also increased. The
\ntwo centers that we have at present can accommodate 18 girls and at
\npresent there are 12 girls living in these centers. We still have
\nanother accommodation facility in a lavender farm in Craiova,
\nsouthern Romania, because we wanted to create an alternative for the
\ngirls who don’t want to continue their studies. Most of them come
\nfrom villages and at our lavender farm we teach them how to develop
\ntheir own businesses and trades. The girls in our centers have ages
\nbetween 12 and 14 and from my point of view we should be speaking
\nabout pedophilia here, not about human trafficking. This is violence
\nnot against women but against children.
\n<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nAt
\nthe lavender farm, these girls are offered the occasion to learn the
\nskills they need for a trade so that they may not resort to
\nprostitution again but at the shelter founded by Iana Matei they are
\nalso offered psychological assistance. Sexploitation causes specific
\ntrauma, which are difficult to overwhelm; victims are suffering from
\nlow self-esteem as they were being deprived of affection at a very
\nearly age. These issues are usually exploited by traffickers who
\noften resort to the ‘loverboy’ method to seduce young girls into
\nprostitution. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\nIana
\nMatei: The
\nloverboy method allows the trafficker to annihilate the young girl’s
\nidentity. We are speaking here about young girls who don’t actually
\nknow what love is and that makes them easy prey for these predators.
\nUnfortunately, these young girls become sex-addicts in time. If they
\nstart their sex-life at around 11 or 12 years old and have about
\n10\/15 clients a day, a certain type of addiction is formed, but this
\nsubject is taboo as nobody wants to talk about it. Furthermore, these
\nyoung girls will often have to deal with a lot of finger-pointing as
\npeople are very judgemental and eager to do blame-shifting. The first
\nthree months are the most difficult because what they want to do most
\nis to go back to their job, their addiction. State institutions
\naren’t very helpful in this respect. For instance, under the law
\nany child must go to school, but these girls, victims of
\nsexploitation, have a special situation and cannot go back to school
\nvery soon.
\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
According
\nto Iana Matei, human trafficking requires an integrated approach,
\njoint actions from the ministries of education, health, of the
\ninterior as well as the various directions for fighting organized
\ncrime. These should cooperate with the NGOs, which know the situation
\nfirst hand. Furthermore the collective outlook of the rural
\ncommunities, these girls are coming from, where sexploitation is
\nmisunderstood and blame-shifting is common, must radically change.
\nBlame-shifting is also commonly related to another phenomenon
\naffecting women nowadays, namely domestic violence. Here is Elena
\nSamoila, programme coordinator with the FILIA Center, an association
\ncampaigning for women’s rights.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Elena
\nSamoila:
\nVictim
\nblaming is a widespread phenomenon in society nowadays. Victims are
\noftentimes blamed for their decision to hold on to an abusive
\nrelationship or are scapegoated for the abusers’ behaviour. People
\noften say: ‘well, there are two sides to every story, she must have
\ndone something’. To cut a long story short, we are living in a
\nsociety where women are blamed for triggering their partner’s
\nabusive behaviour and are supposed to endure violence at the hands of
\ntheir partners and put a brave face on things. Men, who are most of
\nthe time the abusers in a relationship, are usually getting away with
\nit.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
\n
\n
\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Experts
\nare cautioning that under the present circumstances, the number of
\ndomestic violence cases is on the rise all over the world, as many
\nwomen are confined to isolation with aggressive partners.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
(translated by bill)<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Romanian NGOs are fighting human trafficking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":143499,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[42997],"tags":[43797,32363],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-143498","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-society-today","tag-sexploitation","tag-trafficking"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n