eLiberare at Street Delivery Festival 2015

This past weekend from June 13th-14th eliberare was able to participate in the tenth edition of Street Delivery.

Street Delivery is a great street festival that gives the streets back to the people (no cars are allowed throughout the entire weekend) and cultural and artistic projects are promoted in an engaging and creative way.

In addition to the activities we had at Femei pe Matasari Festival, we were able to showcase an incredible piece of street art to raise awareness about human trafficking. Thanks to RO QIC, the street artist, and Dragos Mazo, one of the coordinators of Street Delivery, we came together with a great concept to touch upon some of the aspects of human trafficking that many people are not aware of.

 

There were four separate images:

One depicting the Loverboy Model. Through this method, the trafficker invests time in a relationship with the victim to get close to her and pretends to become her boyfriend. He convinces her to trust him and demands conditional love. (For example, “If you love me, you’ll do this.”) He wants control and loves money. After a long time of courting the victim, he moves fast when he knows he has her trust and affection.

 

One depicting Forced Labor. There are many misconceptions that only women are victims to human trafficking. The reality is that forced labor is also a serious problem in which many men are exploited as slaves, often times in the agriculture or construction industries. We like how RO QIC made the victims working the fields as if it was the hair on top of the traffickers head. While many men take these jobs believing they will get money, the reality is that they work as slaves and only the traffickers profit.

 

One depicting forced Pornography. Many people do not understand the connections between pornography, prostitution and trafficking. They are often categorized as completely different issues, to be dealt with separately. But in reality, the three are intimately interrelated. Many people don’t realize that pornography is often used to train girls and women how to perform while prostituting themselves, and many women who are trafficked are often used to make porn films, and other erotic materials. Sometimes supporting the porn industry can also mean supporting traffickers.

 

One depicting Forced Begging. Forced begging is a type of exploitation in which individuals, often family members, or trafficking rings recruit adults or minors, and tend to operate in a local area. Individuals may appear to be begging on their own behalf or on behalf of a charity or religious organization. For example, some local peddling rings recruit younger children ages 9-14 to sell various items and front as youth leadership development programs. Forced begging rings may offer token items in exchange for donations, such as trinkets, candy, or water bottles however in the end, the children are exploited and only the traffickers profit.

 

eLiberare had the pleasure to participate and collaborate with some amazing partners. We want to thank the Interesting Times Bureau for collaborating with us and sponsoring this project, RO QIC who worked very hard over the entire weekend to make this vision come to life, and of course the Street Delivery team without which none of this would have been possible.

While our team is still inputting the number of people that signed up to be Freedom Fighters, we are happy to say we are currently counting over 800! Thanks to everyone involved for providing eLiberare with a new platform to engage Romanian citizens in conversations about trafficking, spreading awareness through innovative new methods, and empowering people to take a stand up and fight trafficking.