The Daily Mirror travelled to Moldova as toxic influencer Tate is accused of raping woman from the Eastern European country – in a region that has become a hub for sex traffickers targeting desperately poor victims
Girls as young as twelve are being trafficked for sex in Moldova as toxic influencer Andrew Tate is accused of targeting a woman from the country.
The Daily Mirror travelled to the country to investigate how women and children in one of Europe’s poorest nations are being exploited by criminals. Tate, a self-confessed misogynist with millions of online followers, is charged with raping a Moldovan woman twice after luring her to neighbouring Romania. He has firmly denied the charge. The case highlights how the region has become a hub for sex trafficking. We accompanied British businessman Chris Lomas, 54, and his Romanian wife Zoe, 44, to projects that their Hope4 charity helps to fund, supporting vulnerable girls.
The couple moved to Moldova after Zoe read an article about 74 women abandoning their babies in the region during the pandemic.
She wept as she showed the story to her husband. Chris said: “We had to do something.” So he sold his business and the couple upped sticks from their home in Havant, Hants. Chris and Zoe took us to meet a family living in dire poverty an hour’s drive outside of the capital Chisinau.
When we arrive Adrian, eight, says he had not been to school that day because he had to buy bread. He is living with his mother Rodica Khircu, 36, and twins Ion and Mariana, 15, in a house with a dirt floor, a corrugated iron roof and no toilet.
They rely on the support of neighbours to meet some of their most basic needs. The next family we visit are also struggling to make ends meet.
Dad Serghie Hachi, 43, sleeps in the same room as his daughter Andrea, 14, and son Costel, 12, who is shockingly small for his age. Serghie, who is paid £16 a day as a labourer when he can find work, shows signs of malnourishment and is painfully thin.
Andrea tells us she loves reading and writing at school and would like to become a chef. But on top of her schoolwork, she has to keep the house clean and cook for her father and brother.
Ivan Ivancev, country director of Hope4, explains that it is youngsters like Mariana and Andrea who are most vulnerable to the traffickers. He said: “The target is girls who are coming to the end of their school when they are in a dilemma of what to do next.
“The traffickers claim to offer jobs like modelling or working in a hotel. When I was young all of my friends’ parents were working abroad and they were leaving their children.” Ivan said a young woman from his home region of Gagauzia in southern Moldova was trafficked to Turkey after being targeted by a man who said he wanted to marry her only to force her into prostitution.
Last month Moldovan national Anastasia Melega, 24, took her own life in Northern Cyprus after she was “forced into prostitution” after being promised a job as a manager. Anastasia, who had a son aged four, was found dead in the toilet of a seedy nightclub in Gerolakkos.
Reports indicate that she was lured to the Mediterranean island under false pretenses but her passport was taken from her and she was forced to become a sex slave. According to a Unicef report in 2020 about 34,000 young Moldovans were living apart from their parents, who often go abroad in search of work.
Most are left with relatives, but some are abandoned altogether leaving them vulnerable to traffickers. Chris and Zoe take us to their warehouse in the capital Chisinau where around 100 people, mainly women from neighbouring Ukraine, are patiently queueing for free clothes.
Chris said: “”In the context of the war we have had refugees flooding in who are in high risk situations, women and children who are coming across the border with nothing. If you are desperate then you are more susceptible to deception. In my opinion the only solution to stop trafficking is wealth creation so the climate is not there for the criminals to exploit.”
Alina Poliakova, 17, fled her home in Donetsk aged 15 when the Russians invaded. Alina said she worked for £4 an hour in a warehouse in the Czech Republic when she was still a child.
She told us: “They didn’t pay me my salary for my final week’s work. It’s been hard to learn a new language and leave home and it was scary to travel going over the borders.” At the Rainbow of Hope children’s home we meet Valentina Vilhrist who has cared for hundreds of abandoned children over 16 years working with youngsters.
We arrive on a day when previous residents are returning to see the staff and their love for their former carers is moving to witness. Valentina told us “Often these children can be trafficked without realising it. The causes are children being left by their parents, the parents not having enough money to buy food.
“We have two girls, twins who are 17 and were being sexually abused from the age of nine to 14. When they were 10 they were living in a garage. The mother was with a boyfriend and they were on the streets or living in a friend’s house whose parents were alcoholics.”
Chris and Zoe were at an advanced stage adopting a brother and sister aged 13 and 15 from the home when the plan was rejected by their grandmother. Chris said the girl is now being sexually abused by men who pay her for sex while the boy is involved in crime.
He said: “It’s a classic example of the issues facing young vulnerable people. Trafficking is waiting to happen because of the poverty and desperate situations young people can find themselves in.”
The US State Department recognises Moldova as a ‘tier 2’ country, meaning it does not hit the minimum requirements for the elimination of trafficking but is working towards this goal.
Tatiana Rutcovschi is leading the battle to get justice for the victims as Moldova’s chief human trafficking prosecutor. Ms Rutcovishci explained that trafficking is defined as transporting people with the purpose of exploiting them for forced labour or sexual exploitation for their own benefit.
She told us: “We have girls being exported to countries in the EU, northern Cyprus and Dubai for sexual purposes. This is mostly offline and they are forced to work in brothels. In the cases of sexual exploitation abroad most victims are over 18 but in Moldova we have cases where young children as young as twelve are being exploited.”
Speaking to us at the headquarters of the prosecutor’s office in Moldova’s capital Chisinau, Ms Rutcovishci said a number of Moldovan influencers are currently being prosecuted for sex trafficking.
“In most cases suspects use social media to recruit victims. The offender sometimes persuades the victim to exchange photographs, sometimes nude images, and they are then blackmailed into having sexual intercourse with them,” she said.
Ms Rutcovishci said the cases can be challenging to prosecute because the victims often do not realise they have been abused. She added: “Victims abroad are more of a challenge. They often do not cooperate as they may not consider themselves to be victims and don’t perceive themselves as having been exploited.”
Tate also faces civil and criminal claims in the US and UK where he was last week accused of pointing a gun at one alleged victim. The British-American, 36, has denied all the allegations against him.
