 |
Iana Matei is a Romanian activist and founder of Reaching Out Romania, an organisation which aims to find and rehabilitate victims of forced prostitution and sex trafficking. [1]
|
Iana Matei is a Romanian activist and founder of Reaching Out Romania, an organisation which aims to find and rehabilitate victims of forced prostitution and sex trafficking. [1]
Iana Matei was born in Orăștie, Romania. Her mother was a pentathlete, and her father was a football coach. When Matei was three years old, her family moved to Bucharest due to her father's work, then later moved to the industrial city of Pitești.
Matei met her husband Dmitri while she was restoring the Ghica Tei palace . They married and had a son. Matei later divorced Dmitri due to domestic violence, abuse, and alcohol abuse issues.
In 1989, at the start of the Romanian Revolution, Matei participated in riots and other protest activities against the Communist government. After an incident where Matei lost her bag with her identity documents during a protest in University Square, she believed it was no longer safe to stay in the country and fled. She left her son with her mother and illegally immigrated to Serbia, where she was captured and sentenced to twenty days of imprisonment. During her confinement, Matei went on a hunger strike, insisting that a representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) visit her and acknowledge her presence. After her sentence was completed, Matei was relocated to a Serbian refugee camp, where she was hired as a translator for UNHCP. Matei's son reunited with her from Romania, and the two moved to Australia and have become involved with humanitarian work.
On January 20, 2010, Matei was named "European of the Year" by Reader's Digest. [2] [3] [4] [5]
Matei published A vendre, Mariana, 15 ans, in 2010 (OH! Editions, France).
As part of a diploma in psychology, Matei worked with homeless children in Australia. In 1998, Matei and her son returned to Pitești and began working on behalf of homeless children.
In 1999, Matei was asked by police to bring some clothes for prostitutes they had arrested. Matei brought food and clothes for the girls, only to realize they were all underage and forced to be prostitutes. Matei became angry as the police officers refused to acknowledge that three girls were under-age victims of human trafficking. [6]
Matei set up the charity Reaching Out Romania to end sex slavery, and opened a shelter, "The House of Treasure". [7]
Sexual slavery and sexual exploitation is an attachment of any ownership right over one or more people with the intent of coercing or otherwise forcing them to engage in sexual activities. This includes forced labor that results in sexual activity, forced marriage and sex trafficking, such as the sexual trafficking of children.
Child prostitution is prostitution involving a child, and it is a form of commercial sexual exploitation of children. The term normally refers to prostitution of a minor, or person under the legal age of consent. In most jurisdictions, child prostitution is illegal as part of general prohibition on prostitution.
Sex trafficking is human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation. It has been called a form of modern slavery because of the way victims are forced into sexual acts non-consensually, in a form of sexual slavery. Perpetrators of the crime are called sex traffickers or pimps—people who manipulate victims to engage in various forms of commercial sex with paying customers. Sex traffickers use force, fraud, and coercion as they recruit, transport, and provide their victims as prostitutes. Sometimes victims are brought into a situation of dependency on their trafficker(s), financially or emotionally. Every aspect of sex trafficking is considered a crime, from acquisition to transportation and exploitation of victims. This includes any sexual exploitation of adults or minors, including child sex tourism (CST) and domestic minor sex trafficking (DMST).
Forced prostitution, also known as involuntary prostitution or compulsory prostitution, is prostitution or sexual slavery that takes place as a result of coercion by a third party. The terms "forced prostitution" or "enforced prostitution" appear in international and humanitarian conventions, such as the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, but have been inconsistently applied. "Forced prostitution" refers to conditions of control over a person who is coerced by another to engage in sexual activity.
Prostitution in Romania is not itself criminalized, although associated activities, such as procuring, are criminal offenses, and solicitation is a contravention punishable by fines.
Prostitution in Syria is illegal, but the law is not strictly enforced. UNAIDS estimate there are 25,000 prostitutes in the country.
Prostitution in Moldova is an illegal activity but is widespread and socially acceptable. UNAIDS estimate there to be 12,000 prostitutes in the country.
Human trafficking is the trade of humans for the purpose of forced labour, sexual slavery, or commercial sexual exploitation.
In the United States, human trafficking tends to occur around international travel hubs with large immigrant populations, notably in California, Texas, and Georgia. Those trafficked include young children, teenagers, men, and women; victims can be domestic citizens or foreign nationals.
Prostitution in Cambodia is illegal, but prevalent. A 2008 Cambodian Law on Suppression of Human Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation has proven controversial, with international concerns regarding human rights abuses resulting from it, such as outlined in the 2010 Human Rights Watch report.
Sex trafficking is defined as the transportation of persons by means of coercion, deception and/or forced into exploitative and slavery-like conditions and is commonly associated with organized crime.
Nefarious: Merchant of Souls is a 2011 American documentary film about modern human trafficking, specifically sexual slavery. Presented from a Christian worldview, Nefarious covers human trafficking in the United States, Western and Eastern Europe, and Southeast Asia, alternating interviews with re-enactments. Victims of trafficking talk about having been the objects of physical abuse and attempted murder. Several former prostitutes talk about their conversion to Christianity, escape from sexual oppression, and subsequent education or marriage. The film ends with the assertion that only Jesus can completely heal people from the horrors of sexual slavery.
Not My Life is a 2011 American independent documentary film about human trafficking and contemporary slavery. The film was written, produced, and directed by Robert Bilheimer, who had been asked to make the film by Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime. Bilheimer planned Not My Life as the second installment in a trilogy, the first being A Closer Walk and the third being the unproduced Take Me Home. The title Not My Life came from a June 2009 interview with Molly Melching, founder of Tostan, who said that many people deny the reality of contemporary slavery because it is an uncomfortable truth, saying, "No, this is not my life."
Reaching Out Romania is a non-governmental charitable organization in Romania that helps girls ages 13 to 22 exit the sex industry. ROR rescues these girls from the Moldovan and Romanian mafia, which have normally trafficked the girls out of Romania and into Western Europe. ROR runs a facility in Pitești that offers life skills-based education to these girls, teaching them to do things such as painting and sewing. This safe house hides the girls from their traffickers. A psychologist is on staff to meet with the girls. The organization was founded in 1999 by Iana Matei, who was named European of the Year in 2010 by Reader's Digest.
Human trafficking in Nevada is the illegal trade of human beings for the purposes of reproductive slavery, commercial sexual exploitation, and forced labor as it occurs in the state of Nevada, and it is widely recognized as a modern-day form of slavery. It includes "the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring or receipt of persons by means of threat or use of force or other forms of coercion, of abduction, of fraud, of deception, of the abuse of power, or of a position of vulnerability or of the giving or receiving of payments or benefits to achieve the consent of a person having control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation. Exploitation shall include, at a minimum, the exploitation of prostitution of others or other forms of sexual exploitation, forced labor services, slavery or practices similar to slavery, servitude or the removal of organs."
Sex trafficking in the United States is a form of human trafficking which involves reproductive slavery or commercial sexual exploitation as it occurs in the United States. Sex trafficking includes the transportation of persons by means of coercion, deception and/or force into exploitative and slavery-like conditions. It is commonly associated with organized crime.
The history of sexual slavery in the United States is the history of slavery for the purpose of sexual exploitation as it exists in the United States.
Sex trafficking in China is human trafficking for the purpose of sexual exploitation and slavery that occurs in the People's Republic of China. It is a country of origin, destination, and transit for sexually trafficked persons.
Slavery has existed in various forms throughout the history of Nigeria, notably during the Atlantic slave trade and Trans-Saharan trade. Slavery is now illegal internationally and in Nigeria. However, legality is often overlooked with different pre-existing cultural traditions, which view certain actions differently. In Nigeria, certain traditions and religious practices have led to "the inevitable overlap between cultural, traditional, and religious practices as well as national legislation in many African states" which has had the power to exert extra-legal control over many lives resulting in modern-day slavery. The most common forms of modern slavery in Nigeria are human trafficking and child labor. Because modern slavery is difficult to recognize, it has been difficult to combat this practice despite international and national efforts.