Missionaries for Birmingham-based Make Way Partners returned last week from Romania, where they built a security fence surrounding a shelter for young women who were victims of sex trafficking.
"It's the only shelter in all of Romania for victims of human trafficking, but it's one of the worst countries in the world for human trafficking," said Kimberly Smith, executive director of Make Way Partners. "We'd like to be able to take in more girls."
The shelter, called House of Treasure, houses 12 girls who were rescued from forced prostitution, Smith said. Three of them are 14 years old, she said.
"They are Romanian girls rescued from brothels in Spain, Greece and Germany," Smith said. "One of the girls, her mother sold her when she was 9 years old, out of desperation."
Dire poverty leaves many children living on the streets of Romania. Organized crime recruits girls by deception, promising jobs in foreign countries. "Sometimes they're lured because they are homeless," Smith said. "They are tricked. They put them on a plane and tell them they'll have a nice home and a job as a nanny."
They are then sent to brothels and kept by force. "They are raped so many times they are afraid to try to escape," Smith said.
Make Way Partners contributes about $125,000 a year to run the shelter, Smith said. The House of Treasure was founded by Iana Matei, a psychologist who has received international acclaim for her rescue work, while enduring threats from organized crime rings that run prostitution networks exploiting girls as young as 10 to 12.
Hundreds of girls, typically 14 to 19, have been through Matei's spiritual counseling and vocational training, Smith said. Once they learn job skills, Matei helps them get an apartment, learn to handle money and develop social skills for interacting with the public.
Smith said that with more help, Matei's efforts could be expanded into a network of homes to rescue victims of sex trafficking, a rampant problem in the former communist nation.
Matei has helped prosecute some sex traffickers and send them to prison, Smith said. The U.S. State Department Trafficking in Persons Report in 2006 named Matei one of 10 "Heroes Acting to End Modern-Day Slavery" worldwide.
Make Way Partners is best known for its work in Africa, where it has built two orphanages that have rescued hundreds of abandoned children in Sudan.
A mission team of about nine people from the 150-member Cottonwood Baptist Church in Cross Plains, Texas, went to Romania in August with four staff members of Make Way Partners.
"It's an amazing ministry to girls," said Mindy Estes, a member of Cottonwood Baptist. "They are so broken, so wounded, and have been through so much. They look so much older than they are. There are a lot of really good things happening through the ministry."
Some of the women have jobs; others are going to school. One of the women ¥had a 4-year-old son living with her at the shelter. "He's very happy and secure," Estes said.
"There's a lot of hope there in the brokenness, in the pain, for the girls to have a better future," she said. "The men on the team built a fence and repaired the roof. They need a fence there for protection. They still have traffickers looking for the girls. The girls there have never known men to do anything for their protection and security. They don't know men like that."
Women on the trip taught the girls gospel songs and had them paint pictures.
"We worked with the girls, showing them things that are beautiful," Estes said. "We let them know that they are beautiful, that they are loved by God and by us."
Smith, a former missionary to Portugal who helped break up a sex-trafficking ring there, had been looking for ways to fight sex trafficking and slavery when she founded Make Way Partners in 2002.
"Make Way wants to bring awareness to the problem of human trafficking in the world," Estes said. "Part of our mission is to come back and tell people what we saw. If we do nothing, it will never be stopped. We knew going there, it's a drop in the bucket. You've got to start somewhere. I came away with so much joy and hope for the girls. We believe there's healing in Jesus, and there's hope for them."
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Birmingham based mission helps make way for girls to escape slavery | al.com
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