City in Focus: Chisinau, Moldova
PRAYER BRIEFING
You may never have heard of the country Moldova, or its capital city, Chisinau, but according to the International Organization for Migration, Moldova is the primary country of origin of women and children trafficked to the Middle East, the Balkans, and Europe. Landlocked and sort of wedged between Romania and the Ukraine, Moldova is an unassuming little country, and its single resource is rich farmland. But it is precisely the lack of resources and commerce that leaves the most valuable resource of this country–its beautiful people– open to rampant exploitation. Families in Moldova struggle to keep their children in public schools, and even graduates from Moldovan universities look abroad for work opportunities. Traffickers find an endless stream of women eager for work opportunities, and a few obstacles to keeping them in bondage.
Chisinau (pronounced KEE-shin-ow) was once only a departure point for trafficked women. Before a few years ago, a woman’s story might go something like this: a young woman from a rural farming community hears an opportunity from a friend or relative to work abroad in a tourist industry somewhere. The service offers to pay for her travel expenses, so she signs up without a hesitation. She leaves Moldova by plane or train from its principal city, but once she has crossed out of the country, everything changes. Her passport is confiscated and soon after she finds herself in a windowless cell in a foreign city, and bound to a life of beating, torture, and rape. Her captors insist that she must repay her travel expenses by prostitution, but this is an endless debt and she has no real hope of freedom.
In recent years, traffickers have capitalized on the sex-tourism trend that has been emerging all over the globe. Since a greater and greater number of clients are traveling to sex-hot spots, it is becoming less necessary to traffic the women across borders to find buyers. If Bangkok was the first city to earn its fame by this industry, and if Budapest is famed as its European counterpart, Chisinau is gaining a reputation for its cheap, exotic thrills. Many hotels will send girls directly to the rooms of male guests, even without them soliciting such services. Hotels and casinos feature back rooms for paid sex, and some are vile beyond even that. Tourists come from Turkey and Italy to spend a sex-charged holiday at a third of the price of similar services in other cities. This trend is a sure indicator that many of these women are being prostituted against their will as sex-slaves, and that the pimps are profit sharing with hotel owners and corrupt police forces.
Women who escape or are rescued from bondage in Moldova have a difficult road ahead. Some have such a difficult time shaking a feeling of filth and worthlessness after a years of sexual abuse that they opt not to return to their husbands and families. Others fight the temptation to continue in a life of legal prostitution since they have so few options for employment. If they do not change their cell phone number, their former clients will almost certainly phone them for services.
MINISTRIES
REGINA PACIS
this christian NGO based in Italy and Moldova endeavors to safeguard the freedom and dignity of girls victims of sexual abuse and exploitation of prostitution. WWW.REGINAPACIS.ORG
THE BEGINNING OF LIFE
this Baptist based NGO gives preventative training to students, teachers, and parents, and enlists area churches to minister to women brought out of captivity.http://www.wmu.com/VolunteerConnection/international/BOLNewsletters/BL1108.pdf
PRAYER POINTS
- Pray for revival in Chisinau, Moldova.
- Ask God to destroy the systems and infrastructures that facilitate human trafficking and the sex-trade in this nation.
- Pray that God would give believers in Moldova strength and wisdom to minister to sex-trade victims. Ask God to anoint his people with power to break strongholds and to minister deep healing.
