diary

This autumn trainers of the "La Strada" Moldova International Centre conducted a number of workshops dedicated to the commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) and the various forms of sexual abuse, including via information technologies. The CSEC phenomenon attracted the attention of specialists from the "La Strada" Moldova International Centre after the famous case Bianky, the U.S. citizen sentenced by the U.S. justice for sexual abuse of a number of minor boys from Romania and the Republic of Moldova. This phenomenon, along with the sex tourism involving foreigners, has been reported in the recent years in several criminal cases in the Republic of Moldova as well. However, being relatively new and latent phenomena, neither the Law in force nor the case Law, are able to ensure the due level of their combating.

The reasons mentioned above and the numerous calls at the 0 800 77777 Hot Line of the "La Strada" Moldova International Centre during the last two years, signalling the child sexual abuse by adults, have served as grounds for the "La Strada" staff to launch a new direction of activity – the prevention of commercial sexual exploitation of children. The activities under the new direction began with a public awareness campaign with the same title and were targeted towards the youth of the educational establishments. The campaign was backed up by a wide information package: social TV spots, numerous participations to TV and radio programmes and the wide presence in printed media with an overall circulation of 200,000 copies. The awareness campaign included more than 500 activities.

This autumn workshops refer to more specialized activities and are held under two cycles: one for teachers and representatives of child protection services and the second is addressed to policemen, prosecutors and social workers. The main goal pursued by both cycles of workshops is to strengthen efforts undertaken for the CSEC combating and to ensure child protection against sexual abuse, including trafficking of children, the latter very often being the result of sexual abuse.

By the end of this year trainers of the "La Strada" Moldova International Centre plan to conduct more than ten workshops dedicated to this issue with a participation of more than 150 beneficiaries.

This autumn new persons have joined the team of volunteers of the "La Strada" Moldova International Centre, thus starting the seventh generation of volunteers. They will participate to a new cycle of activities within the "peer-to-peer" Programme. Starting with this year they will focus on commercial sexual exploitation of children, which is a totally new direction, in line with present requirements. This is a follow up of the activities undertaken in July 2010 - May 2011 in the summer camps for youth and high school students, when volunteers carried out over 200 workshops informing and testing the student’s knowledge about sexual abuse of children.

In recent years, in conditions when very many mothers left abroad in search of work, sexual abuse of children by adults have become very numerous. This phenomenon could not remain unnoticed by the society and the NGOs specialized in the protection of children's rights, including the specialists from the "La Strada" Moldova International Centre. Lately, more and more frequently calls are coming to the hotline of the Centre, when beneficiaries report about such cases. The abuse of children, girls in particular, is committed most of all by fathers or close relatives, in whose care children were left after their mother went to work in a foreign country. At present when such phenomena as the commercial sexual exploitation of children, including by foreigners, and the sex tourism have not by-passed the Republic of Moldova, also the boys are exposed to the same risk. In some cases the above circumstances generate an even worse phenomenon – the child trafficking.

That is why, additionally to traditional activities (safe migration and prevention of trafficking in human beings, including trafficking in children, prevention of domestic violence), a new compartment – the commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) - has been added to the "peer-to-peer" Programme. Teachers, after a special training, will carry out more activities dedicated to the prevention of the commercial sexual exploitation of children.

One should also notice that in the last seven years, the team of volunteers of the "La Strada" Moldova International Centre conducted 3,000 seminars and other awareness raising activities, attended by approximately 70,000 beneficiaries.

The library of the "La Strada"–Moldova International Centre has recently acquired two new publications produced by the above mentioned NGO that focus on one and the same social scourge, namely the commercial sexual exploitation of children. Their titles are: What do we know about the commercial sexual exploitation and Hearing the children victims/witnesses of commercial sexual exploitation. The appearance of the two new publications is not accidental, they representing the output of a number of social campaigns focused on trafficking in human beings and child trafficking, carried out by the experts of the Centre. The phenomenon and its proportion turned out to be rather significant in the country. Starting with this year the commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC), also via information techniques, has become one of the main activities of the "La Strada"-Moldova International Centre.

In spite of the still modest experience in the area and in a situation when the research has only started, the staff of the "La Strada"–Moldova International Centre has decided to immediately start the dissemination of knowledge acquired from various sources, including from the first practical activities, being convinced that they could be useful for teachers and the personnel providing services to children. The content of the first publication will assist these beneficiaries to do an early identification of children at risk within the context of CSEC, but also the ones who suffer or have suffered from sexual abuse. This is exactly the goal of the first publication, which in reality represents an informational support for participants to a number of workshops and other activities launched this fall.

The second publication is also a practical guide and is meant to be used by the law enforcement experts conducting hearings of children victim/witnesses of the CSEC. It contains an explanation of a number of terms referring to this phenomenon and a package of legal instruments from the international and national law. Additionally, in the recommendation formula, the authors give a detailed description of the entire hearing process from the planning stage to its completion and evaluation, taking into account the present new requirements and the best practices of the European and international case law. The reader finds here the description of an innovative element, namely the child's Hearing Room of the "La Strada" International Centre. The latter was designed to substantially improve the quality of the criminal investigation and the judicial examination process, and also to avoid the repeat victimization of children who have suffered from sexual abuse or child trafficking, thus contributing to streamlining of the national child protection mechanism.

Why would certain people look for and „collect" child abuse and simple child pictures? How dangerous for children are such „passionate” collectors? How can one diminish the risk of a child sexual abuse connected with the so called tourists with sex mobile and how to fight against this kind of offences? What would be the right way to conduct a proper investigation, given the cross country character of these crimes, and which is the way to properly monitor the suspected offenders and the ones with criminal records of this kind? About 40 representatives of the law enforcement bodies from Belarus, Republic of Moldova and Ukraine will seek to find an answer to these and other questions during the regional seminar „Combating Sexual Exploitation of Children – sharing best practices”;

— The objective of this regional workshop, organized together with the Ministry of Internal Affairs, is to increase efficiency of identification and investigation of child sexual exploitation crimes, committed by travelling sex offenders or those using Internet for this purpose, - says Ana Revenco President of the „La Strada” International Centre. We believe that by the end of the four days workshop the criminal investigators will learn things describing the behaviour of perpetrators in the virtual area, of travelling sex offenders, including practices of grooming of children. We expect them to learn to identify elements of the child risky behaviour and methods used by criminals in the exploration of this behaviour. Participants will become familiar with fantasies and „galleries” of child abuse images, learn the way the criminals spiral of sexual abuse and how they choose the countries of destination. Finally, the law enforcement representatives of the three countries will exchange information on the legal framework and qualification of the sexual offence against children, the strategies of investigation, protection of child-victims and cooperation with the child protection services.

More and more the law enforcement staff and the child protection specialists have to deal with the investigation of crimes related to sexual assault of minors, which has become a reality. Given the nature of the crime and the age of victims, the investigative work falls into the category of the most complicated ones. It is particularly important that a specialist possesses the necessary knowledge and skills, knows and understands the psychology and the behaviour of the sexual offender. It is no less important to know that the Internet development and the increase of its users has opened up new „perspectives” also for individuals with sexual attraction to children.

—Joes Sullivan, Doctor of Laws, one of the prominent specialists in the field of forensic psychology in the United Kingdom and trainer during this workshop, thinks that the emergence of the online networks constitutes an aspect of this virtual world, they being full of images showing child sex abuse and allowing offenders to share obscene images and sexual fantasies between individuals of the same interest across the entire world. And this virtual world has its own victims, not at all few in number. The electronic information, the chat rooms and the possibility of instantaneous conversations play a special role in the lives of many children and teenagers. Unfortunately, more and more individuals with sexual interest to children, take advantage of these opportunities and cruelly explore their vulnerability with the purpose to attract them in the sexual exploitation trap. The survey of the relationship between the use of Internet and the sexual offences against children is by no means an easy task.

On the other hand, the Internet has „revolutionized” the possibilities of such offenders, ensuring their contact establishment and exchange of information. More than that, some of them carry out remote guidance of other offenders, telling them the name of regions, countries where it is easier to find child-victims, instructing them how to get in touch with people who might facilitate the contact with minors and even informing them about the areas where police is less efficient and less pro-active. Circumstances such as poverty, debauchery, lack of adequate social infrastructure, or an ambiguous legal system may also be causes of vulnerability of children to their sexual exploitation. In many countries or regions individuals who show sexual interest to children may buy their access to the victims. We are witnessing a sad reality when many wealthy people take advantage of the available tourist infrastructure and fully explore such areas for the purpose of sexual exploitation of children. They are skilful enough to avoid countries and regions with severe systems of child protection in place and strong agencies of crime investigation and monitoring of offenders.

Indeed, the law enforcement bodies are facing a challenge not simple at all, and the organizers of the regional workshop expect that issues of this kind will be largely covered during this event.

On July 1, 2011 volunteers of the „La Strada” International Centre participated to festivities organised on the occasion of the International Chldren’s Day in the Chsinau Central Park named after Stefan the Great and the Saint. Their contribution was the organisation of a quiz with the title „Stay safe while navigating the web”. In spite of the fact that all activities were rather festive, the „La Strada” team managed to combine the recreational aspect with the educational and preventive ones. They took advantage of the possibility to talk both to the target group – the children, and to their parents present there. In a very skilful way the volunteers used the funny games to talk with the children and the adults about the safe navigation of children on the web and to ask them questions in this connection. Of course, this conversation, could be possible only following the dissemination of handouts regarding the commercial sexual exploitation of children.

„We are glad to see that somebody makes efforts to organise this kind of games with our children. We too, have learnt a number of useful things”, - mentioned some parents present there. „Most of all I like to answer the questions asked during the quiz and to receive gifts and sweets” – mentioned the small ones in addition to the statements of their parents. Volunteers of the Centre were satisfied with the contribution of the participants, who showed interest to the topics covered by the quiz, and who turned out to be rather informed of this issue. Although children demonstrated that they were well familiar with the Internet, nevertheless, both the children and their parents admitted having learnt new things: the first signs of a sexual harassment, the online recruitment of minors and their subsequent sexual abuse, places they could address to in case of sexual harassment, etc.

One more thing to mention here is the fact that the learning educational activities carried out with this occasion were party of an NGO fair, organised by the UNICEF Moldova. A number of other non governmental organisations working in our republic participated to this event, among them (Terre des Hommes, Amici de Bambini, Every Child Moldova etc.).

- The subject that we want to discuss today is an old one, but because of this reason is a difficult one: the sexual exploitation of children in Moldova. And if a few years the activities of the International Center "La Strada" to inform were focused on the danger of trafficking of children, in 2010 we warned the audience for the first time, through a social advertising spot, but also a series of actions in the field, on other forms of child abuse, namely anchoring / request children and adolescents online with the purpose of sexual abuse and sexual abuse of children by foreign citizens, said Ana Revenco, president of the International Center" La Strada "in opening press conference on March 14th with the theme " Moldovan children, sexually abused by foreign citizens". The social advertising spot, presented during the conference, far from reflecting an invented reality - all the scenes are based on common elements of sexual exploitation cases of children by foreign citizens, assisted by the International Center "La Strada" from 2005 to present. And he has generated from past awareness campaigns numerous reports and signals, less expected by the players, who have targeted these very topics and which can be divided absolutely conventional into two categories.

The first category includes cases of sexual abuse of children, especially girls with ages ranging from 3 years and above. Seriously is that child abuser comes from the near environment- mother’s lover, family friend, neighbor, godparent of baptism, uncle, etc. And that in most cases it's someone left to take care of children, parents are gone to work abroad. Because of the increased vulnerability of child the community, or so-called friends and family, abuses in the most perverse way possible, having a logical excuse: "The child doesn’t have with whom to talk to so there is nobody to punish me". The seriousness of the situation is followed by the sexual abuse that child had to experience in the family or in the near environment makes him highly vulnerable to various forms of sexual exploitation, as is the involvement of children in prostitution. In case of children abuse of age 11-13 years, an incident of abuse can lead to others - the abuser boasts with this "trophy" and then the victims are more vulnerable to other series of abuses: the victims are labeled as "village’s prostitute"; with antisocial or immoral behavior, they are made responsible for what happens to them. The real responsible for the consequences are not punished, it is totally ignored the fact that the minor is living in fear, cannot break out from this vicious circle, in fact, he is trying to survive. Who to ask for help when everybody makes him responsible for the abuse that was committed against him?

The second category concerns to a less-publicized phenomenon: children sexually abused by foreign citizens who came to Moldova with this purpose. The analysis of the International Center "La Strada" actually confirms previously recorded signals on a newer phenomenon - sexual tourism involving children, sexual abuse via Internet. The last one is aimed basically for the boys from different regions of the country, including the Transnistrian region, brought to Chisinau, of age 12-15 years, which the abusers manipulate them through primary needs for this age: food, shelter, pocket money, affection, attention from the "adult", through his interests also - access to the Internet, computer games, etc. Although some have families, their parents do not take care of them, being deprived of affection, the child usually doesn’t feel well at home, so that manipulation is most often evidenced by the offered gifts (cellular, brand clothing and footwear, other goods of interest for children), children are lured into cafes, playgrounds, walking together, such moments are assuring to abuser a close and constant "communication". There are cases when some parents are happy when someone proposes to take the child on a trip, to provide them an "occupation". In fact, speaking of manipulation, the decisive factor is often not the goods or money offered, but the attitude of care, simulated affection, making the child "accomplice" at the abuse, buying his trust and feeding the perception that such things are normal. The manipulation continues with the exposure of child to pornographic materials and images, where appear peers of the same sex, age, after those children are encouraged to try same things. After that photographing the nude body, followed by other embarrassing situations. The abuse takes place, usually in a private environment (mostly in rented apartments), even at the abuser’s place and may be with more children.

Usually the abusers are simple tourists in Moldova, their primary purpose is having sexual relations with children. But there are cases when they are in the Republic of Moldova as specialists, experts of various foreign agencies or protagonists of philanthropy/charity actions, which show interest in the welfare and future of Moldovan children. Children are recruited either through the internet/social networking websites, either by locals or people trusted by abusers. Recruitment can also take place in chain - those who already "communicate" with the abuser are encouraged to bring other boys from the same environment. Abusers and their accomplices may also act under the pretext of socialization environments of sexual minorities.

What common elements of these cases could serve as signals that should put the caregivers of children on guard, to alert the community in general?

• The child may be missing the nights from home, justifying that he was invited by a new friend who's an adult stranger; the foreigner or his intermediate could get acquainted with the caregivers to get the permission to become friends with the child.
• Appear some valuables (cell phone, jewelry, clothes, and computers even) or cash.
• The child may have some ambiguous emotional states - from apathy, depression up to aggression manifested openly and spontaneous.
• The child avoids talking about new friends, how he spends time with them, and when asked more insistently, he becomes aggressive.
• The child can quit school or skip classes, spending more time in internet cafes or usually with older friends.

Among the recommendations that are require the specialists of the International Center "La Strada" suggest, on the one hand, the continuous information of children about safe browsing online, about the risks posed by social networks. On the other hand, the need to create opportunities for online reporting of the abuse and/or request assistance, improvement of legislation in order to define and recognize the child landing/claim actions as a crime. It is imminent, also, the arrival capacity and resources of law enforcement agencies and other empowered institutions to combat online sexual abuse, including monitoring the websites, domains that promote, encourage, including the distribution of sexual abuse materials with children, having sexual relations with minors. And ultimately, encourage internet providers, social network managers to promote a code of ethical conduct in cyberspace.

This proposal was in fact one of the main itineraries to strengthen the information capacity within a two days training (13-14 December 2010), held in Chisinau for the International Center "La Strada" collaborators. Led by moderator Elena Zabadîkina, journalist and psychologist, (Regional Public Organization for social projects in the field of population welfare "Stelit", Saint Petersburg), specialists from "La Strada" have made a comparative review of relatively known definitions(commercial sexual exploitation of children, child prostitution, sexual tourism), of international and national legislation, etc. Even if certain things seemed known to the audience – 70% of prostitutes begin to offer sexual services from 14-15 years old, listening techniques, the plan and the stages of an interview, Kaufman’s Triangle – this comparative review highlighted a number of less known issues like: differences in the state of affairs in the field betweenthe Russian Federation and the Republic of Moldova, EU countriesconsideredas the largest producer of pornographicproduction, USAconsidered as the largest consumer of pornographic production (or perhaps rather because here, unlike other parts of the world, they keep a record of that consumption).

A special interestwas raised to the training participants bya number of practical exercises related to the techniques of effective networking with the victims of sexual exploitation-children and the establishment of a contact with this particular category of minors, the specifics of conversations with children on sex and sexuality themes, the training of professional specialist’s position in the industry. Trainees have also remained impressed by the variety of methods for working with children, depending of a specific situation, age features, character, education level, aggravating circumstances, etc. Especially since they were all secundate of specific workouts designed to contribute to a better absorption of theoretical knowledge, practical skills training, strengthening the information capacity in this area.

The training session ended with mind hygiene for the collaborators and new knowledge concerning the prevention of professional burning syndrome.