Webzine first draft

Rachel Wallace

Word count: 677 w/o sources

June 18, 2014

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. This is known as the Romanian "Black Market".  The market was made around its street children.  To either sell to them, or worse sell them. 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, petty theft, or as pick pockets.  

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 implimenting an adittional 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 had.  The governments ploy to make a huge workforce was in full effect, yet the income generated was not enough to supplement most Romanians incomes for caring for multiple 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 on the streets or runaway children, who either  broke out of their abusive orphanages or left home for similar reasons. Most of 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."  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."  

 

ROMA

Roma or Romani is the correct term for what some once called gypsies.  These are a group of people who originated from northern India and have been "traveling" since the 11th century.  Because of their Roma blood,  Romanian citizens, choose to willingly do nothing to help them.  This is in result of a severe ethnic prejeduce.  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.  Also because, "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."

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>.