Human Trafficking in [Moldova Street Children in [Moldova] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Moldova] [other countries] |
Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery In the early
years of the 21st Century - 2000 to 2010 gvnet.com/humantrafficking/Moldova.htm
Moldova is a source, and to a
lesser extent, a transit and destination country for women and girls
trafficked for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation and men
trafficked for forced labor. According to an ILO report, Moldova’s national
Bureau of Statistics estimated that there were likely over 25,000 Moldovan
victims of trafficking for forced labor in 2008.Moldovan women are trafficked
primarily to Turkey, Russia, Cyprus, the UAE, and also to other Middle
Eastern and Western European countries. Men are trafficked to work in the
construction, agriculture, and service sectors of Russia and other countries.
There have also been some cases of children trafficked for begging to
neighboring countries. Girls and young women are trafficked within the
country from rural areas to Chisinau, and there is evidence that men from
neighboring countries are trafficked to Moldova for forced labor. The small
breakaway region of Transnistria in eastern Moldova
is outside the central government’s control and remained a source for
trafficking in persons. - U.S. State Dept Trafficking in Persons Report,
June, 2009 [full country report] |
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CAUTION:
The following links have been culled from the web to illuminate the
situation in ***
FEATURED ARTICLES *** NGOs urge he Tiraspol Times & Weekly Review, Chisinau,
11/Mar/2007 At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here]
[accessed 8 September 2011] TOP EXPORT: PROSTITUTES - In Moldova, the situation is
much worse. Although formerly one of the most wealthy parts of the former
Soviet Union, Moldova is today officially the poorest country in Europe. With
nearly total unemployment, the registered daily income of 80% of the
population is below a dollar per day. This fact can explain why desperate
people sell their organs for money and sex trafficking is rampant. Moldovan
prostitutes are now the country’s main export. 40% of Moldova's sex slaves are
kids, and both the traffickers and the involved government officials know
that children are highly sought after for the sex trade. Government officials behind record rise in Karen Ryan, The At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 8 September 2011] There are villages in the Southern
region of ***
ARCHIVES *** The Department of Labor’s 2004 Findings on the Worst Forms
of Child Labor www.dol.gov/ilab/media/reports/iclp/tda2004/moldova.htm [accessed 21 February 2011] INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - According to the IOM, Human Rights Reports » 2005 Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2005/61664.htm [accessed 21 February 2011] TRAFFICKING IN PERSONS – While many different individuals have become trafficking victims, the primary target group was the female population between the ages of 15 and 30. In 2004 the IOM reported that 12 percent of the victims they assisted were minors at the time of return, and 40 percent were minors at the time of their initial trafficking. Victims often came from rural areas where economic desperation had already driven many residents to look for work abroad. According to the IOM, most victims had already suffered some form of physical or sexual abuse at home and were willing to face significant risk to escape unbearable circumstances in their families. Women and girls typically accepted job offers in other countries, ostensibly as dancers, models, nannies, or housekeepers. In many areas, friends, relatives, or acquaintances approached young women and offered to help them find good jobs abroad. The IOM reported that former victims frequently acted as trafficking recruiters, sometimes under coercion, and that over the past two years women had recruited most of its caseload victims. Newspaper advertisements promising well-paying jobs abroad also lured many victims. The IOM also noted that traffickers themselves were mainly foreign men, and the International Labor Organization's (ILO) program for the elimination of child labor reported that in many cases traffickers of children have been Roma. Another trafficking pattern involved orphans who were required to leave orphanages when they graduated from school, usually at the age of 16 or 17, and had no funds for living expenses or continuing education. Some orphanage directors reportedly sold information on when orphan girls were to be turned out of their institutions to traffickers, who approached the girls as they left. According to the Center for Prevention of Trafficking in Women, parents or husbands pressured some young women to work abroad. Traffickers commonly recruited women from rural villages, transported them to larger cities, and then trafficked them abroad. Concluding Observations Of The Committee On The Rights Of
The Child (CRC) UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, 4 October 2002 www1.umn.edu/humanrts/crc/moldova2002.html [accessed 21 February 2011] [45] The Committee notes that some measures have been
developed to combat trafficking, but is nevertheless deeply concerned about
the serious proportions of trafficking of girls from Human trafficking: The faces and sorrow at the heart of a
UN report UN News Centre, 13 February 2009 www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=29907&Cr=&Cr1= [accessed 21 February 2011] Anna (not their real names) was
beaten throughout her childhood in Ana spent five years begging in
Poland before she managed to escape and was returned to Moldova by the local
police. Moldovan sex slaves released in The At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here]
[accessed 8 September 2011] A group of girls from Moldova, Europe's poorest country,
is the continent's leading supplier of underage girls for sexual
exploitation. Human trafficking rings operate with impunity in Moldova, where
they are for the most part under government protection and where a number of
local government officials are involved as participants behind the rings. Due
to a climate of impunity, no government officials have ever been charged with
human trafficking and prostitution offenses in Moldova Professor visits fortmyers.floridaweekly.com/news/2008-03-13/Top_News/017.html [accessed 21 February 2011] Slavery In Our Times Newsweek, March 08, 2008 www.newsweek.com/2008/03/08/slavery-in-our-times.html [accessed 21 February 2011] An intelligent girl with
ambitions, Elena had been enticed to Like Elena, these victims may end
up in the sex trade. Many others find themselves condemned as slave laborers,
forced to work in domestic service, in hazardous factories or at grim sites
like the cocoa plantations of West Africa. Thousands more, many just
children, become unwilling conscripts in bitter wars. Nearly all suffer
physical or sexual abuse, creating mental and physical scars they carry for
the rest of their lives. Organ trafficking: a fast-expanding black market IHS Jane's, 05 March 2008 www.janes.com/news/publicsafety/jid/jid080305_1_n.shtml [accessed 21 February 2011] Causal Factors in the Crime of Trafficking of Women for
the Purpose of Sexual Exploitation - An exploration into push and pull
factors relevant to women trafficked from Moldova to Western Europe [PDF] Scharie Tavcer
from www.freidok.uni-freiburg.de/volltexte/4426/pdf/Tavcer_Doktorarbeit.pdf [accessed 21 February 2011] [page 163] Table 2: Type of Exploitation
2003
Trafficking in women remains a global abuse Hans M. Wuerth, Special to The
Morning Call, October 2, 2007 articles.mcall.com/2007-10-02/news/3781642_1_human-trafficking-world-s-human-rights-abuses [accessed 21 February 2011] The June 28, 2007, German weekly,
Die Zeit, published an article on the growing
problem of human trafficking in Trafficking victims prompt new Baptist ministry in Moldova Sue Sprenkle, Baptist Press BP,
Chisinau, Oct 2, 2007 www.sbcbaptistpress.org/BPnews.asp?ID=26535 [accessed 21 February 2011] "Earn money abroad. Waiters,
housemaids and managers needed for world-renowned hotel chain. Immediate
openings. Potential to earn thousands."
Natasha couldn't believe her eyes. She'd been looking for employment
ever since she graduated but there were no jobs to be found in Moldova, a
country in Eastern Europe. Seeing the newspaper advertisement, she thought to
herself, Why not try it? Most of her friends had found jobs in other
countries, why shouldn't she? She picked up the phone and made the call. Two weeks later, Natasha was
sitting in a small, windowless room with a foam mattress on the floor and a
bare bulb giving off insufficient light above her shaved head and bruised
body. When the door opens, a man quietly slips in and strips. Natasha shrinks
into a small ball -– this is not the job she applied for. Tricked and sold into slavery, Natasha has
nowhere to turn to for help. Kim Grizzard, The Daily
Reflector, July 15, 2007 At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 8 September 2011] Since declaring its independence
from the Soviet Union in 1991, "The British Helsinki Human
Rights Group did a study in 2000, and they said 60 percent of the girls that
are being trafficked out of all of Eastern Europe are coming out of
Moldova," Davis said. "That would include countries much, much
larger than Moldova. Russia, Ukraine, Romania, countries that are considered
to have really bad trafficking problems, and here's little Moldova ... and
more girls are coming out of here than anywhere." Human Trafficking Booming in Gopalan, June 28, 2007 -- Source-Medindia [accessed 21 February 2011] UN's fight against Moldova sex slavery, human trafficking The At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here]
[accessed 8 September 2011] SEX SLAVERY AMONG UNDERAGE GIRLS
FROM Data collected by UNODC show that
about 80 per cent of the victims of human trafficking, most of them women and
young girls, are forced into prostitution. The remaining 20 per cent, usually
the men and boys, face forced labor. About half are under the age of 18. The International Organization for
Migration considers Moldova the main European source of women and children
for forced prostitution in Western Europe, the Balkans and the Middle East.
Typically, young women are lured overseas with the promise of waitress or
housekeeping jobs, only to be forced into the sex trade, sometimes even sold
two or three times. NGOs urge The At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here]
[accessed 8 September 2011] TOP EXPORT: PROSTITUTES - In Moldova, the situation is
much worse. Although formerly one of the most wealthy parts of the former
Soviet Union, Moldova is today officially the poorest country in Europe. With
nearly total unemployment, the registered daily income of 80% of the
population is below a dollar per day. This fact can explain why desperate
people sell their organs for money and sex trafficking is rampant. Moldovan
prostitutes are now the country’s main export. 40% of Moldova's sex slaves are
kids, and both the traffickers and the involved government officials know that
children are highly sought after for the sex trade. The At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here]
[accessed 8 September 2011] Two American TV crews have
investigated MAIN ORIGIN OF FORCED CHILD
PROSTITUTION - Organ
trafficking and sexual slavery are mainstays of Moldova's economy. Record
numbers of Moldovan women are made into sex slaves, forced into prostitution
and lifelong servitude. Moldova holds
a dubious world record: The country is today the leading haven for pedophiles
and for traffickers who earn fortunes enslaving underage kids in a brutal
international sex trade. Government officials behind record rise in Karen Ryan, The At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 8 September 2011] There are villages in the Southern
region of Training Roma to combat human trafficking Council of wcd.coe.int/wcd/ViewDoc.jsp?id=1056663 [accessed 29 August 2011] Through a contribution of the
Norwegian and Finnish governments, the Council of Europe is organising training courses to prevent human trafficking
of Roma from The route to hell Louisa Waugh, The Scotsman, 22 August 2006 At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 8 September 2011] The advert in the local paper was brief. "Women and girls under 35. Well-paid jobs abroad." There was a contact phone number, and Olga rang the same evening. She was a 21-year-old single mother, living in the Moldovan capital, Chisinau and supporting her young son by working ten hours a day in an outdoor food market. Revealed: kept in a dungeon ready to be sold as slaves David Harrison in [accessed 21 February 2011] The women, aged 18 to 24, are from across eastern Europe, lured from Romania, Moldova, Ukraine and Bulgaria, with promises of good jobs as waitresses, au pairs and dancers. Instead, they have been forced into modern-day slavery in western Macedonia, locked in the dirty cellar and only summoned upstairs by their masters to perform sexual services for customers who are usually drunk and often violent. When they were found, the victims, some of whom had been "broken in" as prostitutes in other countries on the way to Macedonia, barely knew where they were. They had no idea what the future held but knew that it was beyond their control. Woman falls six stories, now walking Inside Collin At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 8 September 2011] The woman was kidnapped and left with a group of individuals who intended to sell her into forced prostitution. In November 2004, she fell six stories while trying to escape her captors and suffered numerous life-threatening injuries including a fracture of the pelvis and spinal column, causing her to lose the use of her legs. Merchants of Misery: Human Trafficking in Don Hinrichsen, Chisinau -- The State
of World Population 2005 report, The Promise of Equality: Gender Equity,
Reproductive Health and the Millennium Development Goals, published by UNFPA,
the United Nations Population Fund www.unfpa.org/swp/2005/presskit/docs/moldova.doc [accessed 21 February 2011] Silvia’s descent into the dark world of trafficking
began when a neighbor told the 19-year-old that she could get a good job as a
sales girl in Balkans Urged To Curb Trafficking Imogen Foulkes,
BBC News news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4397497.stm [accessed 21 February 2011] Countries in Treatment Options for Young Moldovan Woman Sex Trafficking
Victim Texas Back Institute TBI, Media Alert, April 23, 2005 At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here]
[accessed 8 September 2011] Texas Back Institute Research Foundation (TBIRF) physicians, along with a team of local specialists, will be donating professional treatment and services to a 19-year-old Moldovan woman, an escaped sex trafficking victim Freedom House Country Report - Political Rights: 4 Civil Liberties: 4 Status: Partly Free 2009 Edition www.freedomhouse.org/template.cfm?page=363&year=2009&country=7663 [accessed 21 February 2011] Stop Violence Against Women – Country Page The Advocates for Human Rights, December 2008 [accessed 21 February 2011] Library of Congress Call Number DK507.23 .B45 1995 lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/mdtoc.html [accessed 21 February 2011] Young Women From Rural Areas Vulnerable To Human
Trafficking Eugen Tomiuc,
Radio Free Europe/Radio www.rferl.org/content/article/1055188.html [accessed 21 February 2011] Tens of thousands of Moldovan
women are estimated to have fallen victim to human trafficking. Most victims
come from rural areas, where economic hardships and ignorance turn young
girls into easy prey for traffickers. "During the day, we were
locked on the third floor of a house with iron bars on the doors and windows.
We did not have a TV or a phone. It was very strict. At night, they would
take us to a hotel, which had guards and a tall fence around it, so we could
not get out. There were people guarding us around the clock," Alina said. Child trafficking in Moldova International Labour Organisation ILO, Chisinau www.ilo.org/global/about-the-ilo/press-and-media-centre/insight/lang--en/WCMS_075592 [accessed 28 August 2011] One day, while at the market here
in the Moldavian capital, she met a woman from a neighbouring
village who listened attentively to her woes and proposed that she accompany
her to From September to April 2003, Ioana was forced to sell goods on a market in Ukraine. As
compensation, she received a pair of winter clothes and food. Eventually,
Ukrainian police who had been searching for her at the request of her mother,
found the girl and returned her to her home. Paradoxically, Ioana reportedly told the police she preferred life with
the trafficker to her own home, believing life was better on the run than
among her alcoholic parents. Trafficking of children for labor and sexual exploitation
in Moldova Institute for Public Policy IPP, cloud2.gdnet.org/cms.php?id=research_paper_abstract&research_paper_id=8310 [accessed 21 February 2011] This paper analyses the problem of
child trafficking from According to the researchers, the
single most important factor that contributes to the problem of child
trafficking is widespread poverty. More than one-half of the population live on below-subsistence incomes ($30 per
month per capita or less). Joint East West research on trafficking in children for
sexual purposes in Europe [PDF] Edited by: Muireann O’Briain, Anke van den Borne,
& Theo Noten, ECPAT Europe Law Enforcement
Group, Amsterdam 2004 -- ISBN: 90-74270-19-0 www.childcentre.info/projects/traffickin/dbaFile11169.pdf [accessed 21 February 2011] [page 30]
Other countries see mostly the emigration of their young populations
to service the sex industry and labour markets abroad. The Belarus report
says that of Belarusian workers who went abroad in 2001, 70% of them were
under the age of 24. Unofficial estimates put the number of Moldavians
working abroad at between 600,000 and 1 million persons. From some
communities in Moldova up to half the population has emigrated. The Romanian
researchers point out that it is a combination of economic and political
factors at home that creates a favourable climate
in which young people want to emigrate. These include low pay, insecurity of
employment, and the inadequacy of the educational system at home to respond
to the labour market. But they also include the low level of community and
parental involvement with young people and the negative perceptions that
young people have about their futures in their own country as important
‘push’ factors. The Moldova research quotes official polls as showing that
almost 90% of young people between the ages of 18 and 29 want to leave the
country. Trafficking troubles poor Moldova Angus Roxburgh, BBC News Online
in news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3243679.stm [accessed 21 February 2011] NOT FOR SALE - The country is the source of
much of Bethany Bell, BBC, news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2931646.stm [accessed 21 February 2011] Wandering through Ana's village,
it is not hard to understand why her daughter was eager to leave. Few people here have running water, which
has to be hauled from local wells. Grinding poverty and chronic unemployment
since the fall of the Soviet Union has made many Moldovans
desperate to seek their fortunes abroad. But it does not always work out as
planned. Elena, who is 25 years old,
had been promised a job in Italy at a pizzeria by her best friend Marina. But
Marina sold her to a pimp who forced her to walk the streets of Bologna. Escaping brutal bondage in Europe Preston Mendenhall, msnbc.com, Droki
[accessed 21 February 2011] TRAPPED - Ruslan,
pretending to be her suitor, took Natasha to meet some acquaintances and said
they would take her to On buses and cars — and crossing
borders on foot — Natasha followed a path to sex slavery trodden by thousands
of other hapless women, passing, under the watchful eyes of a gang of Balkans
thugs, through Romania, Serbia and Kosovo before ending up in the former
Yugoslav republic of Macedonia. In struggling Peter Baker, www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A20602-2002Nov6?language=printer [accessed 21 February 2011] "Poverty and personal
problems force people to do this," said Adrian Tanase,
head of the renal transplant department at the gloomy, run-down hospital in
the capital of Chisinau. Every month someone walks into his office begging to
sell an organ, which the doctor turns down. "In developed countries,
that hasn't been done for a long time, but here you can buy or sell
anything." Int'l Organization for Migration Data on Human Trafficking
in Kosovo At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 8 September 2011] The International Organization for
Migration (IOM) April 24 revealed new information about the methods and the
victims of human trafficking in Kosovo. At a briefing in Geneva, IOM
Spokesperson Jean Phillippe Chauzy
told reporters that 85 percent of the
victims left their home countries in search of work when they were snared
into a trafficking scheme and forced prostitution. The data, published by the IOM
office in Pristina, Kosovo, was compiled from
interviews with victims who were helped by IOM last year. Sixty one percent came from Moldova, 19 percent from Romania, and
the rest from Bulgaria, Ukraine, Albania and Russia. Their average age was
21, and more than 60 percent had a secondary school education or better. Journey Into Sex Slavery At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 8 September 2011] Angela Slobodchuk,
25, has a story to tell. She offers it in a low monotone, in a near-whisper,
to anyone who listens. It begins in
her poor farming village in the former Soviet republic of Moldova with the
promise of a job as a waitress in Italy.
It takes her on an odyssey of torment through Turkey, Bulgaria,
Romania, Yugoslavia and Albania. She is raped, beaten, forced into
prostitution, smuggled across borders and sold 18 times from one pimp to the
next. It ends 11 months later when
police along Italy's Adriatic coast rescue the weeping woman with the
miniskirt and bruised legs and arrest her 21-year-old Albanian captor. Sex Slaves: Trafficking in human beings from British Helsinki Human Rights Group BHHRG At one time this article had been archived and may
possibly still be accessible [here] [accessed 8 September 2011] Indeed, the country is so poor
that the local police are quite incapable of dealing with the
trafficking. The Vice Squad in the
Moldovan capital, Chişinău, consists of
seven policemen who have no car nor any other dedicated equipment. This is no match for the powerful criminal
networks who control this lucrative trade Trafficking in Women: [accessed 21 February 2011] II. CURRENT CONDITIONS - A.
BACKGROUND - In
Moldova and All material used herein
reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107 for noncommercial,
nonprofit, and educational use. PLEASE
RESPECT COPYRIGHTS OF COMPONENT ARTICLES.
Cite this webpage as: Patt, Prof. Martin, "Human Trafficking
& Modern-day Slavery - |
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Human Trafficking in [Moldova Street Children in [Moldova] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Moldova] [other countries]