Reality
and Process of Trafficking of Romanian Minors in Relation to Migration
by Olivier Peyroux,
sociologist[1]
The purpose of this article is analyzing and
understanding the mechanisms leading to the exploitation of Romanian migrant minors.
In developing our research we had recourse to:
- the observations and interviews with young
people, their families and the organizations responsible for their protection
in the country of origin and the countries of destination,
-
scientific work,
- press articles and other information
documents.
As the theme chosen might incite value
judgments, two pitfalls should be avoided: the stigmatization of the whole of Romanian
migrants and a culturalist reading regarding Romanians and Roma justifying or
condoning the situation without trying to analyze.
For the first point, it is easy to demonstrate
with the help of some figures that the population we are interested in is a
very small minority compared to the whole of the Romanian diaspora often
invisible to the public, because very well integrated.
According to the census of the Romanian
population of 2002, the diaspora to the Western Europe is between 4 and 7 million people. The groups
entailing risks of exploitation of minors represent less than 5% of this whole. We must therefore be wary of any
generalization concerning Romanian migrants, who, in fact, are extremely
heterogeneous (business managers, students, political refugees, entrepreneurs,
workers,…). Concerning the Romanian Roma we may recall that
the myth of an exodus to the West is inaccurate, as according to highest estimates
the migrants would represent a maximum of 10% of this population estimated at
approximately two million people[2].
Regarding the distinction between the non-Roma
Romanians and Roma people, we have chosen to describe the strategies put in
place by groups of migrants without reference to this distinction. In fact,
cultural heterogeneity among different groups of Romanian Roma and among
Romanians makes any attempt futile and stigmatizing. Furthermore, the choice of
strategies related to migration is limited, many groups, although culturally
different, have similar behavior.
Taking these precautions, it is important to
clarify the limits of this article. In order to better describe the process we
have opted for historical, economic and sociological simplification. The
strategies described are among the most common but are far from exhaustive. For
the purpose of clarity, they are presented in a distinct and chronological way;
however, in practice, there are many combinations.
The first two parts of this article shall
relate to the process of adaptation of certain groups to socio-economic changes
taking place in Romania
I/ Redistribution of
the social conditions and the emergence of migration strategies involving the
risk of exploitation of children
The collapse
of the communist regime and the transition to the market economy resulted in a
deep social reorganization. The categories of the Romanian active population
most affected by these changes have been the workers, peasants and craftsmen.
In these three groups we find both Roma and non-Roma Romanians. For these
people, the loss of their jobs following the restructuring of State-owned enterprises,
the dismantling of the agricultural industry, associated to a lack of social
protection has forced them to return to the land and to particularly exhausting
manual labor[3]. Among
these categories, migration has often become the only dreamed strategy for
social advancement and the only means of escape from undesirable,
non-profitable and often painful activities.
Until the years 2000, namely before the
abolition of short stay visas[4],
access to the Schengen area for Romanians without qualification coming from
villages required a genuine logistics and a solid network of acquaintances.
Some villages have then organized around the migration activity. Among the
first Certeze (Satu Mare county), north-west of the country, is probably the
most known, but there is also Separaus (Arad county), to the west, the origin
of Roma migrants of Montreuil, Borsa and Marginea (Suceava county), to the east,
wherefrom a part of the villagers went
to Milan, also those from the village of Corod (Galati county), south-east, who
went to Padua, those of Sambata de Sus (Tara Fagarasului), in the north, who
went to Rome and the Lazio region, those of Dobrotesti (Teleorman county), in
the south, who went to Coslada, near Madrid, of Dragasani (Valcea county), who
went to Jerusalem [5]…
These villages have often common
characteristics:
- the habit of mobility prior to the communist
period, for labor export
- a strong feeling of identity making
villagers to consider themselves as belonging to a minority. This position is
often reinforced by the adoption of a different religion than
Christian-Orthodox
- Individual conformism to strategies adopted
by the group
In these communities, which we can qualify as
pioneers, the normative aspect of the group induces a process of self-exclusion
from the Romanian protection systems, rendering migration the only possible
future. The mechanism is the following: adults leave, the children remain with
their mother or their grandparents. The first signs of material success appear
in the village by the construction of houses, reinforcing then the group in its
strategy of migration. Children are less and less motivated to go to school, as
they already know that in order to “succeed” they must leave. The education
becomes optional, the young people do not get the professional qualifications
needed to be employable in Romania
The houses of the migrants impress the
villagers who remain in the country to the point that some families decide to
send abroad some of their members, preferably unmarried boys able to work
(around 16). Some people see in this new labor force that is easy to exploit
and manipulate a windfall to earn a lot of money. Different types of exploitation
are set into place: undeclared employment of young persons, petty crime from
looting of ticket machines to male prostitution. Back in the villages, more and
more new and shiny houses start flowering creating a form of competition
between families for having the most expensive house. The villagers who were
reluctant to send their children let themselves persuaded and each turns its eyes
from the origin of the money, dazzled by the material success which serves
social status.
This type of group migration has represented
and represents a strategy that could lead to the exploitation of Romanian
minors. The shift from group migration to exploitation appears when
intermediaries, often from the same village, use a vulnerable category to
bypass the legislation of the country of destination for their own material interest.
After a relative economic development and
better information of families, this phase tends to disappear, as families
become reluctant to submitting themselves to some individuals. Each person then
resumes its share of autonomy in relation to the group and puts in place his
own strategies. The process goes from a phase that we will call
"collective exploitation" to a phase of “family emancipation” or even
a phase of "individual emancipation". Adults have found work for a
"boss," children that entered an institution finished their
formation; the members of the family decide to continue together or start
keeping one’s distance. Finally, the group of villagers will return to normal
and each family is well inserted in the country of origin as well as in the
country of destination. However, this phase of adaptation has often very serious
consequences for those who experience it. Many adults have serious medical
problems while many young people who have not succeeded their insertion into
the country of destination get into vagrancy for long periods and their
activities of survival are damaging their physical health and sometimes their mental
health.
II/ Open frontiers: arrival of more vulnerable
populations and the development of systems of exploitation
After 2002, Romania
-
children
not attending school in Romania
-
saturation
of the illegal labor market in the countries of destination and extremely
complex access to legal employment[8],
-
migration
structured by compatriots who make people with no family networks pay for all services,
-
emergence
of very developed exploitation systems which make entire families prisoners of
certain groups.
-
finally,
decrease of social protection in the country of destination.
The contribution of minors then becomes, little
by little, very necessary to family income. Their ability to bring in money
being often greater than that of the adults, particularly in periods of massive
unemployment, different groups seek to take over these young people for the
purposes of exploitation.
III/ Different forms of family exploitation
Depending on constraints experienced by the
family, the use of the work of minors is very variable. It must be pointed out that
the majority of migrant families are trying to do everything to ensure their
children access to normal schooling, but some poor groups face economic necessities
that they can not cope with without use of all the members of the family
including the youngest of them. In most cases families contract debts toward
neighbors as they need an income to satisfy immediate needs. The amounts are
variable and the children help their parents after school and in the weekend by
begging or selling flowers. This practice concerns largely the Roma families, where
the mother and the children ensure the daily financial supplies for the current
expenses of the family.
Among the groups recently arrived and not
benefiting from any aid network some must pay every month a high price of stay,
which creates a pressure on all the members of the family. Minors must bring
their contribution and often this leads to lack of schooling and dangerous
activities (hard jobs, begging up to late hours, theft, prostitution). To avoid
these different forms of racketeering, families who do not have access to aid
networks decide to get out of the group and often are lodging in free but extremely
precarious conditions and subsequently are turning to the social services for
help and ensure a minimum of social protection. In Paris Romania
The systems related to the camata[9]
(system of contracting debt) pose threats to the family and lead to very
violent forms of exploitation of children. Contrary to conventional borrowing,
the harshest camata have the function
of making a family totally dependent towards its creditor or of ensuring the
confiscation of the family house. This system is based on exponential rates of
interest and on the selection of families that are not able to pay back. The
practice of the camata occurs mainly
in the south-east regions of Romania Craiova France
Since 2007, independent associations and
Romanian authorities noticed a significant increase in recruitment of minors
directly in Romania Western Europe .
IV/ Empowerment strategies of the exploited
children
It is interesting to observe the different
strategies put in place by the young people in order to free themselves from
these situations of exploitation.[12].
We will start presenting the most dangerous strategies and will close with ways
of integration that are much less problematic.
Empowerment through the group of peers. This
strategy is common to minors who for several years have practiced theft or
prostitution either before their departure abroad or upon arrival in the
countries of destination. During the course of migration these young people had
cut their links with their families, the institutions (school, institutions for
the protection of children), and had come together with compatriots usually met
in the country of destination, and practicing the same activities. In order to ensure their lodging,
food and income-generating activities, these young people recreate then a
system that is familiar to them, but a very precarious one because very unstable.
Depending on the opportunities and the people they meet they are brought to moving
from one country to another. After several years, many have serious physical
and mental health problems. Some continue their vagrancy by alternating
delinquency and imprisonment. Others try to get out, often by approaching the
institutions of protection in order to solve their health problems or by
reestablishing social links through marriage and children.
Empowerment through a
group of compatriots.
It regards the young migrants who have managed to establish a local network of acquaintances,
not necessarily very important, but sufficient to place themselves as
intermediaries and take advantage of this position to obtain a remuneration.
This can go from the "rent" of a squat to other compatriots to relations
to business owners or providing social service addresses. With the years, these
activities may develop more or less into legal activities by short-term jobs[13]
to local businesses, the buying of a
minibus for transportation of persons, the creation of a construction company…
or may turn into activities of exploitation of compatriots by the “renting” of
the land to several dozen families, recruiting easy exploitable workforce,
lending money at usurious interest rates…
Empowerment through the insertion into the
country of destination. It concerns the minors that risk exploitation
but had rapid access to education in the country of destination and obtained a
diploma.[14] These
people then behave like the vast majority of migrants in deciding to work or to
start a business in the country of destination while sending money home to
their relatives.
The return to Romania Romania Romania
Concerning the female victims of
sexual exploitation, they may choose an
empowerment strategy through the group of compatriots, but on a limited
model, by taking a more dominant position in the network (coaching of other
girls). The real freedom from the network of exploitation often goes through
protection via an institution, allowing insertion in the country of destination
or of origin.
As a conclusion we will take a case
that illustrates the process leading to the exploitation of minors.
The case of the Romanian village "T"
or the illustration of the risks related to the disengagement of public
authorities at European level
The village T is relatively poor and isolated from
the main networks. The occupation of the majority of its inhabitants was the
fabrication of bricks. The economic changes having rendered obsolete this activity,
the villagers, short of money, had no other choice than to become daily workers
in the neighboring farms.
Faced with the increase of the cost of living
and the degradation of the Romanian school system, parents decide not to send
children to school, preferring to make them work in order to provide for the
family’s needs. The school system employees allow them to do this and falsely
register children to school in order to avoid having problems with parents and
superiors. These families are then “recruited” by villagers returned from
abroad who offer them better paid work in agriculture in Italy South Italy . Despite the young age of some of these
children nobody reports this situation to the Italian child protection
authorities. Some children are then sent to Berlin Paris
In the end it is obvious that, despite the
unacceptable situation, in all European countries that this group passed
through, the authorities have not responded for various reasons:
-
acceptance
of the situation due to massive disengagement of the public sector concerning
protection of children (the case of Italy Romania
-
rigidity
of systems of protection making any experimental method very slow to put in
place (France
-
police
action motivated mainly by the preservation of public order and not by
protection of minors (France and Germany
-
difficulties
of cooperation between institutions (France
-
absence
of European cooperation of various institutions concerned.
Although the phenomenon of trafficking has
structural causes that are difficult to solve, it is striking that the level of
exploitation is enhanced by institutional gaps in Romania
The overwhelming institutional failures present
in our example are unfortunately quite revealing for the lack of commitment of the
European States to truly address this problem of fighting trafficking and seem
to recall that the protection of victims must not be limited to conventional speeches,
but demands political decisions, for which many solutions still need to be
found.
[1] Also deputy director of the association Hors
la Rue (protection of minors from Eastern Europe ).
[2] The number of Roma in Romania
[3] Many foreign clothing companies are
operating in Romania in the working areas most affected by unemployment, in
particular the Italian textile enterprises of LONE (assembly of parts pre-cut
abroad) which may put their employees to work 12h per day, 6 days per week.
[5] Mihail Dumitru, Dana Diminesc, Valentin Lazea, Dezvoltarea
rurală şi reforma agriculturii româneşti, April 2004,
http://www.cerope.ro/pub/study54ro.htm.
[6] Nominal document recording the
period and position of employment. The document is necessary for unemployment
benefits, retirement pension and for the calculation of salaries.
[8] In France
[9] In the late-1980s, some Roma of the
South of Romania, in particular those from the region of Craiova
[10] BOT Malin, Mafia
camatarilor, Humanitas, Bucuresti,
2004
[11] There are four different
methods of "recruitment". The most frequent is the promise of a well
paid job abroad. Sometimes, the recruiter pay the proposed benefit (ensuring
travel, accommodation and job) upon arrival in order to be more credible or to
have a future means of pressure by the incurred debt. The three other methods
are seduction, when a man starts a relationship with a girl in order to bring
her abroad and to prostitution, kidnapping, and recruitment of “experienced”
prostitutes in search of a protector and supplementary income. Source: compilation
of articles from Romanian local press synthesized by J-P Légaut.
[12] These observations were made during my work for several years to the
association Hors la Rue which hosts each year approximately 250 new young
people, most of them from Romania.
[13] Many young people who learned the
language and found a job in a private business during their stay choose, after
marriage, to alternate their stay. This system has many advantages, namely that
the children can follow normal school in their country while the income abroad
is still superior to that of Romania
[14] « Que sont-ils
devenus ? », a study of Credoc coordinated by R. Bigot, covering 100
young people who went through the association Hors la Rue and ESA of Paris. The
results for the young people having accepted the institutionalization are very
encouraging because the vast majority renounces the dangerous or illegal
activities they practiced before and get professional qualifications in more
than 90% of cases.
