Have you ever heard of Transnistria? It's okay if you haven't, it's actually not even a country, Actually, I hadn't even heard of Moldova before the World Race! A little brief history of Moldova will explain Transnistria, so here goes. Moldova was a part of Romania, but was seized by the USSR and turned in the the Soviet Republic of Moldova. When Communism fell Moldova became it's own country, but was then seized by Romania again and is now, again, it's own country. That actually might not be entirely correct, but it's close enough. So, Moldova has been tossed around from one ruler to the next and mostly under Communistic dictatorship. As a free nation, Moldova is no longer communist, but one small part of the country still wanted to be and so they made up their own country, Transnistria, the 'breakaway republic'. They make their own money, have their own form of law, you even have to check your passport at the border, even though they can't legally stamp it. It is only recognized has a country by Russia and North Korea, besides themselves, and we live about 30 minutes away from it.
One of the main hardships around here is sex trafficking, a lot like Thailand. Actually, Moldova is called the 'engine for the sex tourism problem in Eastern Europe'. Women are being promised amazing jobs in other countries, so they sign up with the person and when they leave, they find that it was all a trap to get them into prostitution. No job, no house, just a drug addiction, pimp and hungry tourists. Sometimes it is just a contract they can't break, but by the time it is finished they are so addicted to drugs that they have to come back. Sometimes there really is a job, but it is just a facade. They work long enough to send a paycheck home, so their family thinks they are alright and then everything changes. The Moldovan government has made it harder to steal the local women, but the people have just gotten smarter. Now they steal the women and keep them in Moldova. New hotels are going up all over Chisinau, the capital, and it's mostly for the sex trade. Awful, it really gets me upset thinking about how people can do this to another person. Although, these women are trapped and so are the men, bound by chains of addiction and deceit. We need to pray for both sides of the story and pray against the strongholds the enemy has on Eastern Europe!
Below is an anti-trafficking video from Transnistria. It's in Russian, but you can still understand the video.
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