Revised webzine

Rachel Wallace

Word count: 1384 w/o sources

June 20, 2014

I change a lot in each section, plus I added the actual efforts made by the government.  I also added another source.

WEBZINE

Romania has become a modern day human trafficking hot spot. Here it is common, yet illegal to purchase a man, woman, or child on a backstreet in Bucharest. Romania not only has a huge problem with its own citizens being trafficked, but also has become a layover destination for adults as well as children, being trafficked all over the world.  Yes it seems Romania has become a modern day hot spot for human trafficking.  The huge volume of traffickers doing business in Romania have put  it's street children in exceptionally high risk of falling victim to their many manipulative ploys.  Here Meredith Gamble, a human right expert, states that, "Children from families or backgrounds lacking healthy affection and love are susceptible to traffickers and recruiters who will, perhaps for the first time in a child’s life, give them affection, praise, and attention though they are used at the same time for sexual abuse and trafficking." Here she states that if the traffickers give the children positive attention, they will yearn for it and in return do whatever the trafficker asks.  This false love is a direct violation of the Universal  Declaration of Human Rights. These children are only looking for love, yet they're being taken advantage of.  No one is to infringe upon another's rights, especially those who are so fragile.  The problem of human trafficking in Romania is one of huge proportion.  60% of all trafficking victims found in Romania were nationals.  Of the children trafficked 75% of them were used for sex trafficking.  The other 25% were used for labor, such as being forced to beg on the street, forced to commit petty theft, or pick pocket tourists. (U.S. Embassy in Romania 2014 report)

GOVERNMENT

    The problem in Romania involving the trafficking of its street children is directly related to its past and present governments. From 1965 until 1989 Romania was ruled by a communist government.  This government felt the need to build up its workforce by implementing strict laws banning contraceptives and abortion. As well as implementing an additional 20% tax for all woman, single or not, who were childless.   All the while giving huge tax breaks to woman with large families, giving huge exemptions for each additional child documented.  The governments ploy to make a strong workforce was failing.  The the income generated from the tax was not enough to supplement most families while caring for countless children.  Because of this, alot of Romanians were forced to give their children up, and by the fall of the communist regime over 100,000 Romanian children were in poorly run, low funded orphanages.  When the government change from communist to democratic happened, Romanian's currency plummeted, government jobs vanished, as did grants for public assistance. This caused an over pour of additional children being abandoned in poorly funded orphanages. Worse part is, this number does not include the privately run orphanages,runaways or those abandoned on the street.  Most of the children who are alone on the streets either broke out of their abusive orphanages or left home for similar reasons. These children are left without any documentation.  Here a human rights expert from the University of Nebraska writes, "Street children who lack identification validating their citizenship in Romania are stateless persons, despite jus soli eligibility. Their human rights are not only violated by this status but they are at high risk of falling victim to multiple other forms of human rights abuses, including trafficking."  With no documentation, these children are not able to attend school, get real jobs, or become a productive member of society.  Some do not even know what their names are, only going by what their friends have nicknamed them.  

GOVERNMENT EFFORTS

The Romanian governments efforts in stopping human trafficking have been dwindling since the new government came into reign in 1990. Their efforts in ending the human trafficking problem amongst its street children are non-existent.  They have put forth little to no direct efforts to stop this problem. Here Christina Andromache, a Stanford University student claims,"The government is letting these innocent children fall thru the cracks, leaving them undocumented, a national of no country, and a son or daughter to no one.  The police seem to be little to no help with the stations, often understaffed and struggling to attend to all sectors of law enforcement, police are overwhelmed, leaving street children ignored."  Without the proper resources the police are not able to attend to all of their citizens needs.  Authorities are forced to pick what are the most immediate needs of the country as a whole, and apparently the country's future is not as important as whatever the countries present needs are . These children are their future, they are our worlds future, yet they are viewed as nothing.  In the last five years, Romania's government chose to reinstate its government program to stop human trafficking.  In doing so they cut all public funding to GMO's who were the trafficked street children's major allies.  This caused over 33 GMO's to close or change focus.  Because of this the country as a whole, especially those in need, have been suffering greatly.  The number of arrests of human traffickers have been greatly reduced, as is the sentencing of their crimes. Also because of the rampant STD epidemic that started in 1997 with syphalis, the government has been debating over the legalization of prostitution.  Being that the street children are the majority of the sex workers, the topic of street children came up recently in their congress.  Andromache states, "When the legalization of prostitution was being debated, many of Romania’s leaders argued that street children are an area which cannot be taken care of at the moment."  They are forever being put on the back burners of their legal system, as well as in society.  Andromache also states that, "...they are further abused by the people that abandoned them in the first place. Rather than taking the blame themselves for abandoning them, these people not only abuse the street children, but also—hypocritically enough—place the blame on the children themselves for ruining Romania’s image.  If people could look outside of themselves and see these poor innocent children for what they really are, abandoned by the world, then maybe they would be more sympathetic to those that are less fortunate.  How can a small child be blamed for being parentless, for being alone and scared?

ROMA

Roma or Romani is the correct term for what some once called gypsies.  After hours of research I could not report on this topic without including this group of people.  They originated from northern India and have been "traveling" since the 11th century.  Because of their Roma blood,  Romanian citizens as well as most of Europe, treat them as second class citizens.  choose to willingly do nothing to help them.  This is in result of a severe ethnic prejudice.  Although some government agencies and GMO's  feel that, "Roma street children are not favorable to pimps or clients because they are “dirty” and “unclean” and are therefore unfit for prostitution, the precarious socio-economic situation of Roma street children suggests that they are among the most vulnerable groups to sexual exploitation and abuse."  These people are oppressed by their society just for their  race, making them an additional target for human traffickers.  When in a family unit they are usually "traveling", have had little to no medical care, and are almost always undocumented.  The Roma hold a gender bias against its woman and because of this the woman are more likely to be taken advantage of due to their lack of education.  Roma children are more likely to be street children because of the oppression and poverty their nationality endures.  As well as the fact that their families are usually poor, uneducated, and abusive.  Roma are also extremely prejudice towards their woman, forcing them to marry early, and stay ignorant.  Because of this many Roma girls either already are street children, or eventually will become street children.  Once on hype street they are swooped up quickly and trafficked for prostitution.  The street most common street child in the world is a boy from 10-14.  Because all of the girls are taken to be trafficked. 

SOURCES

Gamble, Meredith, "Sexual Exploitation and Abuse of Street Children in Romania: Catalysts of        Vulnerability and Challenges in Recovery" . Second Annual Interdisciplinary Conference on Human Trafficking, 2010. Paper 17. 01 Jan. 2010. Web. 17 June 2014. 

http://digitalcommons.unl.edu/humtrafconf2/17 

Andromache, Christina. "Index of /class/e297c/trade_environment." Index of /class/e297c/trade_environment. N.p., n.d. Web. 17 June 2014. <http://www.stanford.edu/class/e297c/trade_environment>.

"Embassy Of The United States." 2012 Human Rights Report. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 June 2014. <http://romania.usembassy.gov/mobile//2012_hrr_en.html>.