Saving children from slavery: Reaching out Romania

(Vatican Radio) Rescuing children from slavery is the theme of this year’s day of prayer against human trafficking, marked annually on February 8th. Established by Pope Francis three years ago, the day is celebrated by Churches around the world on the feast day of Sudanese slave girl Josephine Bakhita, who became a Canossian sister after her freedom from captivity.

Globally, between 20 and 30 million people are believed to be victims of human trafficking, at least half of them children. They are lured, kidnapped, bought and sold for prostitution or cyber-sex, cheap labour or the trade in human body parts.

Iana Mafei is founder and president of Reaching Out Romania, an organisation which has rescued hundreds of girls from the hands of traffickers in her native country. With three safe houses and a fourth farm project currently under construction, the organisation offers medical and psychological care, as well as legal support, skills training and a loving family environment that most of the young girls have never known before.

Iana was in Rome this week, hosted by Talitha Kum, the international network of consecrated men and women against trafficking. Philippa Hitchen asked her how her work began….

Listen: 

Iana says in 1998 she was asked by police to find clothes and food for three “prostitutes” but when she met the girls she discovered they were trafficked victims, aged 14, 15 and 16. What shocked her most was the “natural” way they talked about being bought and sold, as well as the attitude of the police who offered no solutions, since they did not believe anyone could be forced into prostitution.

Iana realized the girls were in danger if they went back to the streets, so she decided to rent a flat, to stay with them, to enroll them in a local school and offer them a brighter future. Asked about the dangers for her and her 11 year old son, she replies she was aware of the risks “but the anger was bigger than the danger that might have been there”.

Nearly 20 years on, Iana says she’s still in touch with those three girls but there have been problems along the way, including a journalist who’d taken pictures of the girls against their will at the police station and re-published them a year later.

One of the challenges, she says, is building trust with the girls who live in fear of being let down again. Over the two decades, she’s seen a dramatic drop in the age of girls on the street. All except one of the 30 girls currently supported by her organisation are minors and the youngest is just 11 years old.

Most of the victims are recruited by traffickers going to Romania’s orphanages, offering love and support for the girls. During the communist era, Romanians were encouraged to have children that the state would look after and that dysfunctional family model persists, Iana explains.

Some parents sell their own children, she says, in order to buy drink. “There is a lack of love, that’s why the girls are on the streets”, she says, insisting that it’s “not poverty” but a lack of education, that drives parents to sell their children as prostitutes.

Dealing with authorities, Iana says, remains the hardest challenge, since they are “oblivious” to the needs of the children. While they may speak the language of political correctness, she says, “the mentality is still there” and they will place children back into the hands of abusers, just to get rid of the problem.

Yet the courage of the girls, she says, “is breathtaking”. “These children have the guts to put their life together and go further if you support them a tiny little bit, and it doesn’t cost money, it only takes soul, heart”, she adds.

The Churches, in Iana’s view, should be on the frontline of awareness raising “because we are Christians and we understand love, and this is what we need in order to work with these children”. Regardless of your denomination, she says, “you know God loves you and you know God loves these children? Go do something about it”.