Europe, Gender, Headlines, Human Rights, Migration & Refugees

MOLDOVA: Trafficking Not As Bad As the U.S. Thinks

Claudia Ciobanu

BUCHAREST, Jun 18 2008 (IPS) - Moldova is considered the main European source for human trafficking. A June 2008 report of the U.S. State Department downgraded Moldova to the category of countries that “neither meet the minimum conditions to combat trafficking, nor make efforts to meet those minimum conditions.” But reality on the ground may not be so gloomy.

Silvia is one of the more than 2,000 victims of trafficking that the Moldovan branch of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) helped to recover.

Originally from small town Ungheni in western Moldova, Silvia found herself a single mother at 19, with no hope to find work. A neighbour put her in touch with two men from capital Chisinau, who supposedly would fix her a job as a sales clerk in Moscow. But as soon as she arrived in Moscow, the men took her passport away, and threatened that if she did not do what she was told, she would never see her baby again.

For one year, she was held in captivity in a hotel in the Russian capital, and forced to prostitute herself, with virtually none of the money being given to her. The same traffickers from Chisinau then smuggled her to Turkey. Silvia was freed after the Turkish police raided the hotel where she was kept. She spent two months in a Turkish jail and then was repatriated with the help of IOM.

“When I came back from Turkey and collected my daughter, it was the lowest point of my life. I had no hope for the future,” Silvia recounts. Like the majority of women in her situation, she was suffering from deep emotional trauma, as well as a venereal disease.

But gradually things got better, as Silvia received medical treatment and counselling. She was helped to complete training to become a beautician. Now, she hopes her story will help other women avoid what she went through. “At first, I thought all the accounts about trafficked girls were fake,” she says. “But now I know better, and I want to help others understand this is real and can happen to anyone.”

Moldova (between Ukraine to the east and Romania to the west), considered the poorest country in Europe, has a population of around four million. Between 600,000 and one million Moldovans are estimated to be living and working abroad, and one to two percent of them are thought to have been victims of human trafficking at some point.

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has calculated that nearly a third of Moldovan children have lost at least one parent to emigration, leaving them particularly vulnerable to trafficking. About 100,000 women aged between 16 and 24 are thought to be the prime risk group, and are especially monitored by organisations involved in combating trafficking.

Moldova is mainly a source country, rather than a destination of trafficking victims. Most trafficked Moldovans end up sold to non-Moldovan crime networks. That makes prevention especially important for the tiny Eastern European country. A national information campaign about the risk of being trafficked has been launched, centred on popularising the movie ‘Lilya 4-Ever’ (the story of a young Ukrainian woman trafficked to Sweden). A hotline called La Strada has been started for potential victims.

More information about trafficking also helps actual victims become aware of their status, and of possible sources of help. “A growing number of trafficking victims are being identified, especially men trafficked for labour exploitation, children and mothers with small children trafficked for begging, and minors trafficked for sexual exploitation,” Matti Sidoroff, spokesperson for the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Moldova told IPS. “This may be because of better awareness due to media projects and public awareness campaigns, which enables more people to self-identify and come forward to seek services, prosecute or seek restitution.”

According to Martin Wyss, chief of the IOM mission in Moldova, not only the number of identified victims, but also the number of actual victims has decreased. This is due to the prevention efforts and the fact that some of the poverty in Moldova is starting to be alleviated.

A major obstacle in further combating trafficking from Moldova is the involvement of police officers and state officials in trafficking, as well as the consequent “lack of visible follow-up on allegations of government officials complicit in trafficking”, which, according to the U.S. report issued Jun. 5, “greatly offsets” all progress made by Moldova.

In response to this negative review, Moldovan deputy prime minister Victor Stepanciuc, who acts as president of the National Committee for Combating Human Trafficking, said that “the international public opinion has been poorly informed about efforts made by Moldova”, and promised to prepare a government report to repair this information gap.

Martin Wyss from the IOM agrees that the very critical tone of the U.S. report might be partly due to communication problems between the authors and Moldovan authorities. While agreeing that there is evidence that certain members of the Moldovan police and state authorities are involved in trafficking, Wyss told IPS that “it is a pity to punish the whole country for failures in the prosecution.” According to Wyss, the Moldovan government can be commended for efforts made lately in the fields of prevention of trafficking and rehabilitation of victims.

Wyss further said that Moldova already has “more than enough” legislation aimed at combating trafficking, and that focus should be now placed on implementation.

In Chisinau, IOM runs a Rehabilitation Centre for Victims of Trafficking, able to receive 21 people at one time. This is the first place where victims, like Silvia, come after being repatriated. Since 2001, the centre has helped, on average, 300 victims yearly, providing not only medical help and legal assistance, but also counselling, and educational and recreational activities.

But, since the majority of Moldovan victims come from impoverished rural areas outside the capital, the Chisinau centre was not considered sufficient. So, in 2007, the Ministry of Health and Social Affairs and the IOM launched a National Referral System for Trafficking Victims, aimed at monitoring and providing continuous assistance to victims who could not stay in the capital.

The prevention of trafficking and recovery of victims is a struggle of the entire society. According to La Strada, 89 percent of the trafficked women had been victims of domestic violence. Many also have to face stigma when they return.