moldova

We were excited when Field and Courtney, from Mission Europe, invited Abolishion to come to Moldova and run some awareness and prevention sessions.

First up was a session for social workers, health professionals and teachers. These guys work with some of the most vulnerable people in one of the most vulnerable countries in Europe. They’re often the first ones in direct contact with survivors of human trafficking and are in a good position to identify people who are being trafficked.

After showing them the film Nefarious, we presented to them some more specific information relating to human trafficking in Moldova. A common method for traffickers is to offer jobs abroad (that are actually fake jobs), they’re successful due to the lack of employment opportunities in Moldova and also the poor living conditions. 

Shell’s part of the presentation was to make sure that all the professionals were aware of some organisations in Moldova that provide assistance and advice to them, as well as specialised care to the survivor. This included a toll-free helpline that actually checks the legitimacy of job offers and provides assistance for safe migration. She also presented on some basic do’s and don’ts in providing initial care to a client who presents as a survivor of human trafficking.

   Tim had the fun job of talking        about pornography and how it      is linked in the system of human    trafficking. 

He also shared some of the information that we picked up in Maria’s presentation on pornography and it’s similarities to drug addiction from the EFN conference back in April.

We basically repeated this session for a handful of pastors from Chisinau the next day, making it relevant to their role in the community.

We also went to a state-run transition home; this place exists for orphans who are too old for their orphanage and are not independent enough yet to be out on their own.

After showing them some of the movie Nefarious, we split up into a guys group (this is where Tim used some card tricks to illustrate to the guys some truths about trafficking) and into a girls group to chat about the realities of trafficking for them. The young people actually knew quite a lot about trafficking already, some even from their own experiences. 

In the girls group, which was quite small with just 4 girls in it, we started to discuss the movie and one of the girls said, “this isn’t a movie, this is our real life”. This statement pretty much sums up the situation in Moldova. Every time we mentioned a trafficking technique each of them started to tell a story of a friend who had been trafficked or how someone had tried to take them. You could really see the fear on their faces as they began to relive the events to share with us. It really hit deep when they shared their different stories, some of rejection, some of abandonment and even some of how their parents were killed, leaving them in such an isolated situation. Most of them actually weren’t supposed to be still living in the home, the director should have kicked them out years ago but has let them stay knowing that if they’re kicked out they have no where to go but the street, leaving them prime targets for trafficking. 

So because of all of this we felt like the most important part of our time there was that we could give them the toll-free hotline for Moldova, where they could call and get assistance if they found themselves in trouble. The girls had it stuck to the inside of a chap stick to keep with them and the boys had it on a playing card to keep in their wallets. 

Field and Courtney have started a program to help move these young people to independence, we’re looking forward to seeing how we can support them in this. If you would like more information on their project in Moldova let us know and we can get you in contact with them. We had such an awesome time with Field, Courtney and Simeon in the few days we were there, they are great people, with big hearts, doing awesome things on the front line of this fight against human trafficking.