EUROPE - MISSION AND IMMIGRATION - “The Suitcase with a String”: “I didn't think they were taking us...to sell us. I decided to fight against trafficking. Now I am director of an organization. The number of victims has increased from 25 to 225 in the last three years.”

Transnistria (Agenzia Fides) – Oxana Alistratova is the President of the NGO “Interaction” in Transnistria. Her decision to combat trafficking in human persons came from the dramatic experience she herself lived through: “I am here working to prevent trafficking in human persons, thanks to my own personal history. I was teaching music in a grade school. I also played in a small orchestra. One day, the director of our complex asked me if I wanted to go to Yugoslavia and something about nightclubs. The word “nightclub” was not used often. I didn't pay any attention and I trusted in the operation. He was organizing everything. On the bus, there were only young women, all of them beautiful. As we prepared to leave the city, the police stopped us. Our instruments were full of cigarettes. I thought it was a little smuggling, but not that they were taking us...to sell us. I understood in the Prosecutor's Office. So, I decided to fight against trafficking. Now I am director of an organization. The number of victims has increased from 25 to 225 in the last 3 years. We have created a telephone “hotline.” We receive over 1,000 calls in Transnistria, where we are only 500,000 inhabitants! I can tell you two stories from our hotline number. A young woman goes to visit her friend in Turkey. She arrives and finds two people waiting for her. She suspects nothing, gets in the car, and in the end the drop her off at a brothel. She manages to call her husband, who called our hotline number and we then alerted the Immigration Office and the Turkish police. The woman was released in only two days. This was a terrible story that had a happy ending, but it is not always like this. There was a woman from Transnistria and her son, who were sold in Poland to beg for a group of gypsies. The group transported children and adults to Turkey, Ukraine, Poland, Romania, and Russia.” (Luca De Mata) (Anticipation for the television program “The Suitcase Tied with a String”: 4 episodes of a study on world immigration to be aired on the RAI beginning June 29) (Agenzia Fides 17/6/2009)