Day 15

Thursdays, we meet at the Hope & Life office/English school for a weekly meeting/prayer time/hang out time with the whole team. It starts at 10am- so our mornings are quite rushed as we try to get out of the apartment and into a taxi by 9:45am.
We made it on time this morning. Yay!
We have a great time hanging out with everyone, but it takes a lot of creativity and patience to keep Solomiya occupied for that long. When she was younger (hmmm... a few months ago?) she took a nap at some point during the meeting, but not now. Today though, she actually handled it well because last week Chrissymasi and Sophia had gotten her interested in coloring- so I brought some crayons and a little notebook of paper.
One of the topics talked about at the meeting was that a group from 'The A 21 Campaign' (*see below for more info) is coming to Uzhhorod tomorrow.
The meeting ended around 1:30pm and we then walked across the pedestrian bridge to the center of town so that I could stop and make an appointment at the dentist's office (I broke a tooth yesterday); I'll be heading back there next Thursday and I'll give a full report.
We walked home and Solomiya slept on the way. The rest of the afternoon, Mike prepared for his evening class and I tried to prepare for my OT sessions tomorrow along with hanging out with little S. She is sleeping now, so I hope to finish the prep work for 3 OT sessions tomorrow and 1 on Saturday morning.

Also, this afternoon, I read a very cool blog entry: http://ontothewaves.com/ by Bethany (man, this girl has a gift for writing) and I read the article she referred to in her blog: http://www.prodigalmagazine.com/guarding-my-heart/.  I definitely recommend it!

*A21 website: http://www.thea21campaign.org/
They are group committed to doing everything they can to end human trafficking in Eastern Europe.
The following is some info from their site concerning Ukraine:

"Ukraine is a source country for trafficked women, and is currently one of the largest exporters of women not just to the European Union, but also to the Middle East and South East Asia.¹⁰ The "exotic beauty" of Ukrainian and Russian women has made them the most valuable commodities in the current international sex trade¹¹. Over 420,000 Ukrainian women between the ages of 15 and 27 have been trafficked in the past decade¹², just less than the 440,000 people in Ukraine with HIV, considered one of the most severe HIV/AIDS epidemics in Europe¹³. One study reveals that one in every 10 Ukrainian persons knows someone in their community who has been trafficked abroad.¹⁴
Ukraine is also increasingly becoming a destination country for trafficked victims, as its popularity as a sex tourism destination grows. These victims originate from South East Asia, Africa, and other Eastern European states.
In addition, Ukraine suffers from a huge domestic trafficking situation. Unofficial numbers state that there are 250,000 prostitutes in Ukraine, 200,000 of whom are in the industry against their will and could most likely be classified as domestic traffick victims.¹⁵ Domestic trafficking is not just for sexual exploitation, but also for organ removal and labor exploitation.

RE-TRAFFICKING

While in Asia, 20-25 percent of survivors are re-trafficked, in Eastern Europe an estimated 80 percent of rescued women end up retrafficked.¹⁶ Most of this re-trafficking occurs within the first two years of their escape. Since the year 2000, over 7,000 victims of trafficking have been repatriated back to the Ukraine.¹⁷ The need for transition and reintegration assistance for these victims has been recognized by the Ukrainian government. However so far efforts to supply this assistance have been limited by a lack of funding.^18"

This is a picture from our friend's facebook page. A photo of a different part of Transcarpathia. We are hoping to visit this area next spring.