Reaching Out Romania​

 

“The Reaching Out shelter and our work is about saving and improving lives. Since 1998 we have been serving the victims of one of most hideous crimes the humanity has ever witnessed: trafficking in people.

 

 Over the years we have assisted 470 victims, mostly Romanian women and girls who have been enslaved and abused in many European countries. We offered them home as well as psychological, medical and legal assistance and we made them part of our family. We shaped our activities around the needs of this extended family and we provided everybody with long term assistance with victims spending, on average, one year in the shelter. We helped many to initiate or continue their studies, to seek jobs or do whatever it took for them to rebuild their lives.

        

 We also realized that building a future for the victims of trafficking required us to get involved in efforts to change both legislation and mentalities. Reaching Out spearheaded initiatives to ignite cross border cooperation for fighting trafficking and trained law enforcement to better respond to the victim's needs.

         

We need to continue. Trafficking is still one of the most lucrative criminal businesses and too many fall prey to it. In fact, since 2007, most of the victims sheltered at Reaching Out are minors, children who need our care.”