Caritas on trafficking in Romania: “Exploiting the vulnerable”

(Vatican Radio) Experts say that Romania has become a global centre for buying and selling slaves. Its geographical position means that it is both a source, a transit and a destination country for this highly profitable trade in vulnerable human beings. Laura Sheahan of Caritas Internationalis has just returned from a fact-finding trip to Romania where she spoke to former victims of human trafficking. She also saw at first hand what Caritas and the Catholic Church is doing to both increase awareness of the dangers posed by the traffickers and help rehabilitate victims. She spoke to Vatican Radio’s Susy Hodges about her impressions.

Listen to the extended interview with Laura Sheahan of Caritas Internationalis:

Sheahan says although numbers are hard to come by, human trafficking of both adults and children is "very widespread and "a big, big problem in Romania." She says the majority of victims are forced into prostitution but she also told us about one particuarly shocking case she came across involving a Romanian boy who became a victim of trafficking after he was sold as a baby without the knowledge of his birth mother. Sheahan says the traffickers meted out appalling brutality to the boy as he grew older. "They made him beg, they made him steal, they beat him a lot and he was even chained" to stop him trying to run away." She says the good news is that there was a happy ending as the boy managed to escape and is now "doing really well in school" and has even been reunited with his birth mother.

Sheahan says the trafficking of children is far more widespread than many assume and points out that when we see children "begging at a lot of tourist spots" in Europe, many of those same kids are the victims of traffickers and are forced to give all the money they earn to their captors. The traffickers, she adds, are totally without scruples: "they prey on the vulnerable and tkey keep changing their tactics; it's really despicable what they're doing."