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“The Human Rights Centre helped me find justice”
The Human Rights Centre in Moldova is there to serve the citizens
The answer to women trafficking: prevention and help
The Centre for the Prevention of Trafficking in Women (CPTW) represents trafficking victims in courts
Fighting corruption and improving governance
“The Human Rights Centre helped me find justice”
The Human Rights Centre in Moldova is there to serve the citizens
For three years a neighbourhood on the edge of the village of Ursoaia , Cahul district, was next to a sheep pen and used the water of a well where about 300 sheep went to drink. In spite of the numerous complaints from the neighbours, the owner of the sheep refused to move the pen outside the village, while the local authorities avoided getting involved. This situation could have continued without resolution, but one morning a villager went to complain to the Cahul office of the Human Rights Centre in Moldova (CpDOM), which is an initiative of the UNDP.
The owner of the sheep set his pen next to the house of the Susanus. Victoria Susanu recalls she could not go out for days in summer. “Because of the unbearable smell, and also because of the dogs, even the post woman avoided passing by our house! The only water well in the neighbourhood, used by about five families, was also used by 300 sheep, and their dung was polluting the brook flowing nearby,” Victoria Susanu says. She and her husband tried several times to persuade the owner of the flock to move his sheep outside of the village, but the owner was not to be convinced. Victoria complained dozens of times to the mayor. “Each time the mayor told me to deal with this situation ourselves. I also went to the District Centre for Preventive Medicine. They heard us out but did nothing,” Victoria says.
The house of the Susanus is at the edge of the village, and Victoria says that the five households in their neighbourhood are on the authorities' blind spot. Before their son was born, the Susanus lived in Chisinau. “The boy had inborn intracranial pressure. The doctors told us that village air would be good for him. So we moved to Ursoaia, where my husband had inherited his parents' house. Until three years ago our son felt well. But when the air became bad, the child fell ill,” Victoria laments.
The Susanus' patience ran out in 2003, when their son, Sandu, 7, became ill with cholecystis. Later, a neighbour was admitted to the hospital with the same diagnosis. The doctors told them that the disease could have been caused by polluted water. “My husband went all the way to the mayor of Cahul to ask for help in solving this problem, but he too didn't want to hear about our miseries,” Victoria recalls.
Last summer an acquaintance advised Victoria to approach the Human Rights Centre, as it would provide the necessary pressure to move the polluting sheepfold.
For three years now, since the Cahul office opened, CpDOM is the only institution providing free legal assistance in the south of the country. Since the inception of CpDOM in 1998, UNDP has been providing support to its three offices across the country.
Victoria Susanu confirms that in less than two weeks after they had approached the Cahul office of CpDOM the owner of the flock was obliged to move his sheep away, as the law prescribes, to special grounds allocated by the town at the edge of the village. “The district Centre for Preventive Medicine, goaded by CpDOM, disinfected the water, while the police and the environmental inspection ordered our neighbour to clean the ground on which his pen had been situated, an order which remains unfulfilled,” the Susanus say.
“Justice”
Ion Raru from Cahul “For many years I was in charge of the props and sets at the B.P. Hasdeu Theatre in Cahul. One day in 1992, as I was carrying a ladder to the warehouse, I fell and broke an arm. After 11 surgeries I received the 2 nd degree of disability. The theatre management refused to compensate me after I had lost my ability to work. I had four children to take care of. I sued the theatre and won, but the court order was not enforced. Last year I approached the Cahul office of the Human Rights Centre, which helped me calculate the compensation I have been entitled to for the last two years. Now I receive the cash every month straight from a cash machine!”
“The Centre helped me prove that the fines were ungrounded”
Vera Delibozoglo from Cahul “Last year Union Fenosa [electricity provider] inspectors took out the electricity meters of 22 families from our apartment block stating that they were showing an error of 80% less consumption than the reality. Every consumer had to pay a fine of about 300 lei. Most of the inhabitants of our block are pensioners paying their bills punctually. Even though the fine was not justified, I was ready to pay it, but I took pity on the poor pensioners and went to the Human Rights Centre. There they helped me demonstrate that the fines were ungrounded, and consequently they were cancelled.”
“We hear out all the complaints”
Anatolie Cravcenco, head of the CpDOM Cahul office
“The case of the Susanu family is only one of the cases solved by the Human Rights Centre. We have now several dozen cases lined up. In 2004 we have received some 50 petitions at our Cahul office, and their number could have been a lot larger had the people, especially those living in villages, known about our work. The majority of the petitions arrive from the Cahul penitentiary inmates and from people who feel their labour rights have been violated. Some complaints are founded, others are not, but we hear out all of them. More than half of the cases taken up by the CpDOM office in Cahul have already been solved.”
The answer to women trafficking: prevention and help
The Centre for the Prevention of Trafficking in Women (CPTW) represents trafficking victims in courts
Mariana's story is a case of human trafficking which one could say has almost become typical or banal.
“I wasn't going to kill myself, although I realized this could be the last day I was seeing myself in the mirror. In the apartment there was only the cleaning woman who couldn't possibly stop me if I wanted to open the fridge to reach for the pills, which was a natural human gesture. I didn't know what sort of pills there were in the glass container, but I was prepared to take all of them as long as that got me into a hospital, and from there the way home seemed shorter.”
People have stopped responding to the tragedy of girls who are sold into slavery without them even being aware of it. “Just another one”—this is what one can hear from people who consider that the problem of human trafficking in Moldova is an artificial one and exaggerated. If they looked the girls in the eyes or actually tried to understand what they have gone through, perhaps people would change their attitude.
“I had a fight with my boyfriend,” Mariana continues, “because he didn't trust the people who had promised to help me go to Italy . I knew where I was supposed to be going. My cousin had married there several years before. She had sent me money, found a job for me and was meeting me at Rome airport. I ended up in Dubai ! On landing I became frightened when I saw so many people in white clothes and with rings on their heads. I asked for an explanation from the woman who was accompanying me. I was shouting, waving my hands to attract attention, but no one paid any attention. The woman threatened me and told me that if I didn't stop making a noise I would regret it. Then she passed me on to an Arab woman who didn't speak, but from the look in her eyes it was clear she meant no good. I froze. I didn't know what to do. I must have lost consciousness. When I came to I was in an apartment with 17 other girls who were preparing for work. Two of them had been told to give me instructions so that I could start immediately that first night. I didn't want to listen. I protested until the owner came with a club in his hands. He knew how to hit to avoid leaving marks on my face, but he destroyed my kidneys without the slightest emotion on his face. The horror continued in the night club, where I sat as still as a stone while my ‘colleagues', who were unhappy with my refusing to take part in the action, complained to the owner. The beatings took place every day until I felt I could no longer stand it. So one day I decided to escape from that prison at any cost. I knew that in the fridge there were pills. I picked the largest container and took them all, hiding from the cleaning woman behind the fridge door. Shortly afterwards, as I was feeling I was about to collapse, the owner came through the door and told me he would bury me in the house rather than take me to a hospital. He was very convincing. What I wanted was to get to a hospital; I didn't want to die, so I went into the bathroom and vomited up the pills. Then I continued to work.”
“When I returned home I didn't want to see anyone. I was afraid even to utter the names of the traffickers, but with the CPTW team I feel safe,” says Mariana. “It was here that I understood how important it was to have the people who had destroyed my inner world and killed my dreams, punished. I have nothing to lose and I will fight on, together with the people who support me, to put the criminals in prison.”
By its activities the Centre for the Prevention of Trafficking in Women (CPTW) has brought to newspaper pages and into public discussions trafficking stories similar to Mariana's.
Read another confession.
“When I was repatriated I didn't trust anyone and I was planning to take revenge on my own,” Eugenia says. “I started my search. But the qualified specialists from CPWT and the fact that everything we did here was confidential persuaded me to give up my plan and take the legal path.”
Thousands of women from Moldova go through painful situations like this one, while other people read about stories such as Mariana's and Eugenia's and pity the trafficked women. Compassion is a solution only when accompanied by action. In Moldova a series of actions are undertaken by the Centre for the Prevention of Human Trafficking, which was directly involved in Mariana's repatriation and her reintegration into society. Now the girl has free legal assistance, attends secretary courses, is about to marry and is proud of having had the courage to fight alongside the CPTW team to put the people who had trafficked her behind bars.
The first steps towards changing attitudes have been made in Moldova by the Centre for the Prevention of Trafficking in Women through information and education activities coordinated by the United Nations Development Programme and funded by the International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs of the U.S. State Department. The Centre has developed a new model of services in Moldova , which combine legal and social assistance, and develop at the same time prevention through information and training.
The Centre for the Prevention of Trafficking in Women started working in 2001. Its main objective was to coordinate and implement information, education and trafficking prevention activities, as well as raise the population's awareness about this issue. The U.S. State Department offered a grant for the first stage of the project, later extending its support.
Today UNDP supports a series of specific activities carried out by CPTW. One of them, which currently may be the most important one in terms of impact in Moldova , is the representation of trafficking victims in criminal, civil and administrative law suits. The CPTW lawyers represent the victims' interests based on the legal provisions on the crime of trafficking stipulated by the Criminal Code, Civil Code, and the Code of Administrative Violations of the Republic of Moldova . The representation of interests takes place from the moment when a suit is filed and all the way to the court ruling, including all the stages of appeal. In special cases, when there is a threat to the life and health of the victims (usually in the form of threats from traffickers or pimps), CPTW provides a complex victim-witness protection programme to complement the measures provided by the state.
More than 140 trafficking victims identified or helped by the Centre for the Prevention of Trafficking in Women in 2004 have been represented by CPTW lawyers in 63 criminal and 12 civil suits. Traffickers received up to 15 years in prison, and victims received compensations for moral and material damages.
Fighting corruption and improving governance
Corruption represents a major threat to development and progress. Every year in the world more than 1000 billion dollars are given as bribes. Corruption is characteristic both of poor and wealthy countries. In order to respond to this challenge, the United Nations Development Programme started an anti-corruption project implemented by Transparency International-Moldova. The initiative's general objective is to strengthen national capacities to fight corruption in the Republic of Moldova .
The main areas of work and achievements:
Research
Transparency International-Moldova has published a series of papers and research findings on corruption as it relates to various areas: corruption and the private sector, corruption and tax evasion, corruption in the public procurements system, corruption and the customs system, access to justice, ethics in the private and public sectors, the consequences of corruption on the country's economic and social development.
On World Anti-Corruption Day, declared by the United Nations and promoted in Moldova by Transparency International, nine new publications were launched in Chisinau, of which two presented the National Framework for Corruption Prevention and Control in the Republic of Moldova .
Institutional cooperation
“Every piece of research carried out by Transparency International-Moldova contains a series of proposals to fight corruption in the area under study, whether by amending the legal or institutional framework, or the policies promoted by the state,” says Lilia Carasciuc, TI-Moldova Executive Director. “In fact, the proposals formulated by TI-Moldova and aiming at preventing and fighting corruption in the country have been included into the National Strategy for Fighting Corruption in Moldova , while the corruption perception index has improved in recent years.”
With a partner such as the Academy of Public Administration , under the President of the Republic of Moldova , TI-Moldova has organized a series of training events for local public administrations with a focus on the threats of corruption and prevention methods. Also thanks to TI-Moldova, civil servants have now an anti-corruption guide to refer to.
Public information and awareness campaigns on the threats posed by corruption
TI-Moldova has today a collection of more than 2,500 anti-corruption cartoons by artists from Moldova , made in the last three years by participants in anti-corruption competitions for cartoonists. The drawings have been collected in 5 separate volumes.
A cartoon by the Moldovan artist Alex Dimitrov was selected to illustrate the cover and several chapters of a Global Corruption Report.
On 29 May 2004 , in Chisinau, Transparency International-Moldova organized, in the framework of the UNDP project “Strengthening the National Capacity to Fight Corruption”, a concert with the slogan “No Corruption!”. The concert was attended by more than 5,000 people and featured the following artists: Nelly Ciobanu, Constantin Moscovici, Georgeta Voinovan, In Quadro, Snails, Adrian Ursu, Elegance, Life Style and others.
A group of 55 young volunteers, wearing T-shirts with the TI-Moldova logo, disseminated anti-corruption advocacy and information materials.
“Through our work we try to create islands of integrity by involving the civil society, which has an essential role to play in preventing corruption and understanding the consequences of this phenomenon,” says Lilia Carasciuc, Transparency International-Moldova Executive Director.
TI-Moldova works with partners from among state institutions, the public sector, as well as the civil society: Supreme Security Council, Centre for Fighting Economic Crimes and Corruption, Academy of Public Administration , Small Business Association, Union of Lawyers, Union of Journalists, the media, including the local ones, artists, and nongovernmental organizations.
Copyright © 2005 United Nations in Moldova.