Kicking out trafficking

Inter Campus’s first visit if the new season started in Slatina, continued in Bucharest and concluded in Valcea with activities – and not just on the pitch – which allowed us to ascertain how much the project is growing.

While we were in Slatina, it wasn’t just the work being done on the pitch that made our visit special, but a certain meeting we had.

There will now be a new a project involving three Italian associations (Lule, Proxima and Inter Campus) that will make its mark here in the Balkans.

The aim of the project and the people involved in it is to prevent and put a stop to the labour exploitation and trafficking of young Romanian girls, very often minors, who become unwitting victims of the terrible phenomenon of commercial sexual and pornographic exploitation. After being drawn in by the false promise of a better future, when they arrive in Italy they end up in a web of suffering and abuse from which it’s extremely difficult to escape.

A few years ago, a group of Roma girls became part of the Inter Campus family in Slatina, where many young girls and boys of Roma ethnicity play with Romanian children as a result of the work we do. And it was these girls who were the subject of the above-mentioned meeting chaired by Silvia. For 20 years now, Silvia has been involved in the Lule Project, one which aims to raise awareness among girls regarding the great danger of trafficking, what they should watch out for, how to identify a potentially dangerous situation and how to prevent the risk of early pregnancy, a problem that Roma girls often face.

All of this involves harsh realities, strong words and intense feelings. And all of this needs to be tackled with the only objective that Inter Campus has on and off the pitch in mind: the well-being of the boys and girls who are part of our great family.