” “"But those trucks never leave Moldavia, at most they may go to Romania or to the former Yugoslavian countries", specifies the director of the Caritas agency of the poorest country in Europe along with Albania. And the saddest thing, she adds, "is that the demand for 8-10 year-old girls is increasing from such cities as Paris and Saint Petersburg". Since 1993 the year of the great crisis following the fall of the Soviet Empire the population has got dramatically poorer, and 1 million Moldavians (about 25% of the population) are estimated to have migrated abroad. To try to counter the plague of the trafficking of humans, the only possibility for Caritas is prevention: in schools, with street children, through vocational training and the promotion of local employment and development. Hence an appeal to foreign investors, "not to open factories just to exploit the cheap labour costs without feeling responsible for local development as well". And a request to Europe, "to open the markets, because there’s no point producing things that we cannot export".” “
