Problems with the National Referral System

An issue that I have been interested in learning more about through my research is the apparent lack of communication, coordination, and collaboration between government bodies, NGOs, international organizations, and faith-based organizations. Over the past 10 years or so, much has been done to streamline processes and increase coordination efforts with the adoption of a National Referral System and events such as the OSCE-led Anti-Trafficking Coordination Meeting that is held monthly in Chisinau and includes representatives from the Moldovan government and a variety of orgs. I was at such a meeting this morning, and this issue was a heated topic of conversation. A representative from the Ministry of Labor, Social Protection, and Family made a comment early on about the National Referral System and how it is still not yet working the way it should. In 2006 the system was piloted, and it was officially adopted in 2008. It is meant to ensure that all the needs of trafficking victims or potential victims are met so that they are referred to the NGOs or other organizations that can best address what they need whether it is shelter, medical attention, legal consult, or a combination of many different services. She said that now NGOs help victims who call their hotlines or are referred by law enforcement as best they can but then do not cooperate with other organizations to ensure that they get care that they cannot provide themselves. The system should also work to collect correct and up to date statistics and data on human trafficking, but it is really failing in this sense and many people addressed this problem at the meeting.

Representatives from the Center to Prevent Trafficking in Women gave a presentation on their services and annual report and the same lady from the Ministry called them out on not using the National Referral System the way they should. She said that it is necessary to report all cases of trafficking victims to the labor ministry so that they can be recorded in the database and this ministry should be responsible for the repatriation process and she hadn’t been informed of any of the specific cases that the NGO brought up during the presentation. It’s clearly a complicated system and difficult to communicate easily and efficiently with all the actors involved. The long process of getting help for the victims hardly helps their situation and the ladies from the center noted that many times their beneficiaries drop their cases and just go abroad again because everything takes such a long time.

Neverending celebrations

The holidays are still going strong here in Moldova. On January 7 I got to experience my first Orthodox Christmas celebration, and the Old New Year will be celebrated January 13-14. For Christmas, I had the chance to go to a village in Gagauzia with my co-worker/friend Aliona. We arrived at her house on the evening of the 6th and I was able to be a part of the tradition in the villages where boys dressed in traditional Moldovan costume go around to all the houses and sing carols. Then we put flowers in their hats and give them money and a special round bread (although Aliona’s mom decided to give cake instead this year). By doing this, the people of the house ensure that they will have a good harvest and luck throughout the year. One of the boys also had to play the role of the cat who runs in at the end as they are about to leave and steals the money and bread from the guys. It was pretty entertaining.


On the 7th I went with Aliona and her parents to her cousin’s house and celebrated Christmas there with her relatives. Here they are.


I tried a new kind of food which is this meat jello type dish that I’ve heard other friends have had to try with their host families and I haven’t been looking forward to encountering. Yeah I wasn’t a big fan. The other stuff was good though and we had lots of toasts to give because it was going to be my birthday the next day, Aliona’s mom’s the next, and Aliona’s mom’s older sister’s on the 13th. My friend taught me how to say cheers in Gagauzian which is something like salac Allah versin and everyone got a kick out of me saying this. After dinner we went back to Aliona’s house and watched TV for a while then Aliona and I went to the village disco to meet her cousins. This was a lot more fun than I expected. It was just like in the US when you come home from college for winter break and go to the bar and everyone you know from high school is there. The DJ played one Ace of Base song I knew and then the rest was mostly traditional Gagauzian music. I got to dance the hora a couple of times so that was a first for me. That’s the traditional circle dance you see a lot in Moldova and other countries where you hold hands with everyone and sashay around the circle crossing your feet or kicking your legs up now and then. I got to meet a bunch of people including a couple of girls my age who were absolutely amazed to see an American there and I had fun talking to them. Here is a picture of the outside of the retro disco.


Overall, I thought life in the village seemed pretty good but it’s also one of the biggest villages with more than 12,000 people and I was staying in a newly renovated apartment. However, there are no jobs to speak of, most people have outhouses instead of bathrooms (including the disco), and often they do not have running water and their houses can be very cold. I like how in the villages everyone knows each other and says hi on the street and that they still carry out all these old traditions. I’m looking forward to visiting more villages around Moldova soon.

I left Congaz in the afternoon on the 8th, my birthday, and since it was difficult to find a bus because of the holiday my friend flagged someone down who was driving to Chisinau and I went with 2 other guys who were waiting at the bus stop to go to Chisinau as well. We got there a lot faster than we would have with the bus and I didn’t feel unsafe at all. The guy blasted Russian pop music the whole way and no one talked at all. He dropped us off in the center and he didn’t want to accept any money from us but I gave him 50 lei anyway which is what it would cost for the bus. About $5 for a 2.5 hour drive.

So then it was time to celebrate my birthday. I had planned with Melissa and Liz to go out to dinner because we hadn’t seen each other for a long time and had a lot to catch up on about our holiday travels. Melissa came to my house and brought earrings from Italy as well as an amazingly random bag of gifts from her host mom which included a liter of homemade wine, a bath towel, a Milka chocolate bar, soap, deodorant, hand cream, and probably something else I'm forgetting. Quite a surprise. Liz decided to stay in a hostel in Chisinau because she just really loves doing that and she met a couple of American guys and an Israeli guy who were visiting Moldova so they came out with us too. We met up with other Fulbrighters, Peace Corps Volunteers, and my Russian friend at Bier Platz. My Russian friend decided that we should carry out a Moldovan tradition and I got a little nervous when I saw him plotting with Melissa and Liz. He got 4 of the Peace Corps guys to lift me up in my chair 23 times and sing happy birthday and since my friend is really into photography he took a bunch of pictures of this happening in which I probably look absolutely terrified because I thought I was going to die. It was a cute idea though.

I will upload pictures from all the excitement soon. Don't worry.

Back in Moldova

I figure I should update my blog simply because I haven't in so long. I'm still alive. I spent a few days in December at my friend's place in Timisoara, Romania and had an awesome time. We went to a very alternative political staging of Julius Ceasar that included a live rottweiler, a significant amount of nudity and violence, and a role played by a famous Romanian ballet dancer. Very interesting stuff. Other than that, we explored the beautiful downtown of Timisoara, went to its art museum, saw Tron in 3D at the huge new mall, met some of my friend's friends who were also home on break, and went to a holiday concert. My friend's mom also cooked us some delicious food and both her parents were great hosts. After that trip, I came back to Chisinau for a day then flew home to Maine for a week where a got to see family that I hadn't seen in a long time and also quite a few friends. I got back to Moldova on Thursday but my luggage didn't make it so I was pretty worried about that for a few days since I had packed a ton of stuff in my suitcase but I was able to pick it up at the airport on Sunday so that wasn't too bad. I had a fun New Year's Eve at the Marine House and am going back to work at Winrock tomorrow. Just a few more days before Orthodox Christmas and I think I'll be spending that holiday with my friend and her parents in Gagauzia. Then my friends will be coming to Chisinau for my birthday on Saturday! Lots to look forward to.

Oh and Happy New Year! La Multi Ani! S Novim Godom!

Men Against Violence, Women for Peace

On Friday I went to a day-long round table discussion put on by the OSCE with the above title. There was a session on the role of men in combating violence against women that included an interesting presentation by an American guy who works MenEngage Europe in former Yugoslavia. An anthropologist from Latvia also gave a presentation about redefining gender roles and NGO director talked about rehabilitating perpetrators. Another session focused on the development of legislation to prosecute aggressors and protect victims, and the last session was about gender issues in the Moldovan military and border guard service. There were representatives present from the Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Labor, Social Protection and Family, and Ministry of Foreign affairs, as well as lawyers, people from the OSCE, Moldovan NGOs, and foreign experts. I’m glad I got to attend and learn more about the work being done to address the issue of gender-based violence from a variety of different areas.

On Saturday night I went to dinner at a nice restaurant with an Italian lady I had met who works for an NGO that was cooperating with La Strada to conduct research on child trafficking in Moldova because she had wanted to meet again to give me the hard copy of their report. Also at dinner was a Norwegian lady I had met who works for a rule of law project in Chisinau but is leaving soon, and I met a lady who works at the Swedish embassy who was there with her husband. She just finished writing the human rights report for the embassy so she knew a bit about trafficking in Moldova. We ended up talking about gender equality at dinner as well and it was interesting to hear more about gender issues in Scandinavia. The Norwegian lady said it’s something like 40% of executives in Norway are women now and it’s a scandal when a woman decides she wants to stay at home and raise a family. Other topics of conversation included how ridiculous the Finnish language is and how a strangely large proportion of people at the table are twins or are dating someone who is a twin.

In other news, Happy Birthday to my mom and dad whose birthdays were yesterday and today respectively. I’m working on a report for the OSCE now on Winrock’s 16 Days Campaign activities and then I’m off to Timisoara, Romania on Thursday to visit a friend for a few days. Hard to believe that in a week I’ll be in Maine for Christmas!

16 Days Campaign & Town Hall Meeting

The last couple of weeks have been pretty busy because Winrock is participating in the international 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Violence Campaign. Click here for a link to the official campaign. The very basic idea behind the campaign is to raise awareness about violence against women, and Winrock has been participating in the campaign in Moldova for several years now. I went to a Training of Trainers organized by Winrock on domestic violence on Friday that included women from Transnistria and this side of Moldova who were students, volunteers, and employees of NGOs. We also launched a Facebook campaign to advertise events and show a photo exhibition that reflects real-life stories of violence. Click here for the link to the Facebook photo album, but unfortunately the stories underneath the photos are only in Romanian. Yesterday we set up the photo exhibition with large prints of the photos in the Sociology department of Moldova State University and about 50 students came to check out the exhibit and fill out surveys about their knowledge of gender-based violence and impressions of the event. On Saturday we had a "Frisbee Against Violence" event at an indoor gym that promoted the campaign and also promoted Frisbee as a non-violent sport. The official Moldovan frisbee team, the Flying Mamaligas, came and about 7 Peace Corps volunteers/Americans were there as well. Proud to say that the Americans won the Moldova vs. USA game at the end.

On Friday I'm going to the roundtable put on by the OSCE that will include presentations by government officials and employees of international organizations and NGOs that is meant to wrap up the campaign and talk about how to work to include men in the fight against violence so that should be very interesting.

Last night I went to the Ambassador's house for the annual Town Hall Meeting for Americans living in Moldova. The house is gorgeous and the food was incredible. Not surprising. At one point he had everyone go around and introduce themselves which was great because I found out that a bunch of the people there are working with trafficking victims and I made some contacts. They were all from religious organizations. It would be interesting to compare their projects other NGOs and international orgs so I'm going to try to find out more about the work they're doing.

Other Moldova Blogs

I’ve been meaning to put up links to the blogs of the other Fulbrighters in Moldova because I think it would be interesting for people who are reading my blog to check out their entries as well in order to gain different perspectives on the country, learn about what’s going on in other regions of Moldova, and to pick up on things that I haven’t thought to write about. For example, definitely watch Liz’s video about shoes. As Melissa knows, I have recently become very Moldovan in my obsession about keeping my boots clean. It is very common to see people stop to wash their shoes in a puddle if they get the least bit dirty. We all found this very amusing at first but I have to admit that I did that when I was with Melissa on my way to a soccer game. In addition, I know my mom gets confused because I mention people’s names in my blog without any explanation as to who they are so this might help clear that up. So, here are some links:

Liz’s video blog. She is based in Comrat, which is the capital of the autonomous Gagauzian republic in the south of Moldova. http://moldovamoldovamoldova.wordpress.com/

Melissa’s blog. She’s in Orhei, which is just 45 minutes north of Chisinau. http://mmcdonald5188.wordpress.com/

Matt’s blog. He spends half his time in Chisinau and half in/near Transnistria. http://mjrellaford-adventures.blogspot.com/

Rebecca's blog. She's way south, in Cahul. http://musingsfrommoldova.wordpress.com/

Enjoy!

Election Weekend

Today I got to serve as one of the official election monitors in Chisinau. I visited 6 polling stations with a couple of embassy employees and one of the Fulbright scholars. It was a beautiful day and the turnout was surprisingly large. One of the nicest things we saw was when the president of one of the polling stations announced that it was this young man's first time voting and everyone in the room clapped for him. Several of the people we talked to said that they had seen more people come out to vote today than ever before, and we were visiting the stations early in the day; from about 10 to 2. One of the presidents complained that they were so busy in the morning that they didn't even have time for tea. It was a good kind of busy though because the election is super important and we've all be worried that there wouldn't be a good turnout. Most of the Moldovans I had talked to up to this point had said that they didn't know who they would vote for because they can't see any of the 19 parties (yes, that many) on the ballot having any real promise for helping this poor country move forward. It'll be really interesting to see what happens and what kind of coalition is formed, since it is pretty much impossible that any party will win a majority of the vote.

Yesterday was a fun day as well. I got together with some Americans, Moldovans, and one British girl to enjoy an amazing Thanksgiving dinner. One of the Americans made amazing pecan and apple pies, green bean casserole, carrot soufle, biscuits, and some other stuff. We brought over 2 of the biggest turkey legs I have ever seen, stuffing, mashed potatoes, and some desserts. It was pretty incredible. I didn't do anything on the actual Thanksgiving day so it was nice to get together and have the real deal and not just skip an important American tradition.

Backing up even more, Friday was my host sister Mihaela's birthday so my family also made a ton of incredible food for that and just a few minutes ago we finished the delicious cake they bought. A few relatives/family friends came over, and one guy brought a violin so I got to play for everyone. My boss's 3-year-old daughter was there and she had a really good time dancing around while I played. She kept ordering me to play more and explaining what she wanted in Romanian so I did the best I could with what I could comprehend. I understood her a lot better this time than last time though. When she first got here she kept asking me what my name was and where my dad is. I'd answer her, then she would ask the same thing again about 10 minutes later. I guess she really wanted to know.