26/05/2016
Încurajam
Timp de 18 ani, Iana Matei, psiholog român, a salvat sute de fete și femei tinere de traficanții de persoane – misiune pe care a inițiat-o în urma unei întâlniri întâmplătoare cu trei tinere traficate, în 1998. Poliția locală a întrebat-o dacă ar putea să facă rost de niște haine pentru câteva „prostituate” care erau ținute la secție; acolo psihologul a constatat că era vorba despre trei fete pline de vânătăi și îmbrăcate în haine care abia le acopereau corpul. Iana Matei a rămas șocată atunci când un reprezentant al protecției copilului i-a spus că nu poate să le ducă la un orfelinat deoarece ar fi un exemplu negativ pentru copiii de acolo. Chiar în acea săptămână a ajuns să deschidă primul adăpost pentru victimele traficului de persoane. După aceea au urmat și altele deschise prin intermediul ONG-ului REACHING OUT ROMANIA, ajutând astfel peste 450 de supraviețuitoare să-și reia viața – de multe ori salvându-le direct de la traficanți.
„Nu știu dacă sunt curajoasă, dar știu că sunt furioasă. Sunt furioasă pe oamenii care fac asta, care lovesc o tânără, o violează și o obligă să se prostitueze, ceea ce o traumatizează pe viață. Și sunt furioasă pe societatea care închide ochii. E atât de nedrept.” – Iana Matei
(text adaptat din limba engleză)
Puteți să aflați mai multe despre activitatea Ianei Matei pe: http://bit.ly/1peveUh sau pe website-ul Reaching out Romania accesând adresa http://www.reachingout.ro/
For 18 years, Romanian psychologist Iana Matei has rescued hundreds of girls and young women from s*x traffickers -- a mission she embraced after a chance encounter with three young trafficked girls in 1998. The local police asked if she could provide clothing for several "pr******tes" being held at the station; there, she discovered three terrified girls in their early teens covered in bruises and dressed in skimpy clothing. She was shocked when a child protection official told her, “I cannot put these wh**es in an orphanage because they will set a bad example for the other children.” Determined to find a way to help the girls and others like them, she opened Romania's first shelter for s*x trafficking victims that week. Since then, she has opened multiple shelters as part of her non-profit Reaching Out Romania and helped over 450 young survivors of trafficking start a new life -- often rescuing them directly from the traffickers herself. “I don't know if I am courageous, but I do know that I am angry,” Matei says. “I'm angry at the people who do this, who beat up a young girl, r**e her and force her into prostitution so she'll be traumatized for life. And I'm angry at society for turning a blind eye. It's so unjust."
Romania has the highest reported rate of trafficking in the European Union, and girls and women sold into the s*x trade make up the majority of victims. The problem exploded in the late 1990s with the wars in the Balkans, which provided both vulnerable populations and a network to “distribute” trafficked girls. “Human traffickers had the networks of arms smugglers and drug traffickers. But selling humans proved to be much more profitable," Matei reflects. "You can sell a gun only once, but a girl, you can sell her a thousand times. Depending on how long she lasts, of course.” In recent years, Matei says the victims are getting younger. “You'll find nine-year-old girls working the streets,” she says. "The traffickers put make-up on their faces and dress them up provocatively. But you can still see that they are very, very young.”
When Matei set up her first shelter in Pitesti, she gave up a comfortable life in Australia, where she had lived for nearly a decade, so that she could live in a rented apartment with the first girls she rescued. Charitable donations allowed her to hire social workers and provide other resources to help the traumatized girls recover and resume regular childhood activities -- including school and arts and crafts, which Matei explains “keep them from thinking too much.” Integrating the girls back into society is a challenge, Matei says, because "the hardest thing is to change the mentality of the people... In the village, my girls are called names. Once a girl has been in prostitution, the people here don't want to have anything to do with her. No matter if the girl was forced or if she is underage -- she's just a filthy pr******te, they'll say. But how on earth can you call an abused 13-year-old girl a pr******te?”
As Reaching Out Romania has grown, however, attitudes have started to shift, and now many of the girls are referred to Matei by police, other NGOs, or the Child Protection Department. Once there, Matei and her colleagues provide counseling and set up an individual plan for each girl, with a focus on developing education and other skills. "These girls often have absolutely no life skills; they don't know how to do anything," explains Matei. "Their story is always the same: They come from extremely dysfunctional families where they have suffered all kinds of violence and emotional abuse."
Even as more girls are referred to her by organizations, Matei -- who was named the 2010 European of the Year -- is still more than willing to “kidnap” girls right out from under their traffickers’ noses. “It's dangerous because anything can happen. But, on the other hand, the traffickers don't expect you to challenge them. They know everyone is afraid of them, so they're not vigilant. Whenever I kidnap one of their girls, they are in shock,” she says with a smile. But she keeps most details about her direct rescues to herself: “We always plan these rescue operations carefully, but I don't want to give you too much information because I want to save more girls in the future.”
You can read more about Matei’s work with the trafficking survivors of Romania at http://bit.ly/1peveUh or on the Reaching Out Romania website at http://www.reachingout.ro/
For an excellent though challenging novel about one Nepalese girl's experience being trafficked into prostitution, we highly recommend "Sold" for readers 14 and up at http://www.amightygirl.com/sold
For a gripping memoir by a woman dedicated to ending the trafficking of girls in the U.S. as the founder of Girls Are Not For Sale, who herself is a survivor, check out “Girls Like Us: Fighting for a World Where Girls Are Not for Sale” at http://amzn.to/1X2brW7
The powerful young adult novel, "Dime," also tells the story of a young American teen who is trafficked into the s*x trade, for ages 14 and up, at http://www.amightygirl.com/dime
To learn more about human trafficking, as well as about the exploitation of girls and women in general, we highly recommend "Half the Sky: Turning Oppression into Opportunity for Women Worldwide" at http://www.amightygirl.com/half-the-sky and the accompanying documentary, for ages 13 and up, at http://www.amightygirl.com/half-the-sky-documentary
Many girls and women are vulnerable to trafficking due to poverty; for a fantastic book full of ideas on how you can help empower girls and women around the world, check out the "100 Under $100: One Hundred Tools for Empowering Global Women" at http://amzn.to/1H9CoRl
