Supporting her family by selling her body on the streets since the age of 14, Christina has reportedly fallen into the hands of traffickers since this photo was taken in February. On a mud wall in the corner of the back room where Stefania Nastrut lives with her father, the names of the brothers and sisters she never sees are written in a colorful teenage scrawl. Nearby sits the car battery that is the family's only electricity. Nastrut is a rarity in this hilly region of Romania, among the poorest in the European Union, simply because she is still there.
By the time they reach her age, most teenage girls there β as young as 13 β have long quit school, with many disappearing into the realm of sex trafficking. According to the U. There, traffickers have a keen eye for those made vulnerable by their desperation to leave, making the girls ideal victims.
The Eurostat report notes that Romania was one of the top five countries of origin for victims of human trafficking in the EU, as registered by organizations governmental and nongovernmental throughout the bloc. The country is routinely listed as a top destination on websites promoting and rating sex tourism.
Since its accession to the EU, Romania has become a major sex market in Europe β a development that can be seen on the streets of the capital, Bucharest, and in online advertising of Romanian erotic massage parlors.
Strip club owner Gheorghe Anghel Alin, 30, said the market is booming. He has invested in two strip clubs in the past couple of years. When do you report her β as being trafficked last year or this year? She declined to be named because she works undercover on cases. In Romania, people who testify in court against their traffickers are publicly named by the police, making combating trafficking β an enterprise with strong ties to organized crime β even more difficult.
