Not for Sale by David Batstone

Author:David Batstone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins

TRAFFICKING ORPHANS

Orphanages have become one of the few (legal) growth industries in eastern Europe over the past two decades. The collapse of the family led to massive numbers of abandoned children with nowhere to turn.

Imagine the impact of emigration on the family in a country like Moldova, from which an estimated one in four people emigrated between 1991 and 2002.3 It is not uncommon for parents to leave their children behind when they leave the country. Other children lose parents to alcoholism, death, or outright destitution.

Despite the proliferation of orphanages, the need is still greater. Nearly every orphanage in eastern Europe overflows its capacity and has a line of kids waiting to get in. To deal with overcapacity, the orphanages usually force the older children to leave once they reach the age of seventeen. Few of these kids have savings or vocational training that might lead to a job. Quick to identify their vulnerability, sex-slave recruiters view these children as ripe pickings.

Recruiters have started pursuing children who live inside the orphanages as well. Sadly, the recruiters find willing collaborators inside the orphanages who will betray children for the right price. Human-rights groups report that orphans in the region are sold and trafficked internationally for use in child-pornography rings. For instance, in its 2003 report card on human trafficking, the U.S. State Department exposed orphanage directors in Moldova for selling background information on children to traffickers and in some cases arranging their abduction. The report details similar travesties in Romania, where “many orphanages are complicit in letting girls fall victim to trafficking networks.”4

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