Two brothers and an accomplice were sentenced to 14 to 22 years in prison for the sexual exploitation of three needy teenage girls in 2016-2017. The Prosecutor’s Office said that the victims are from central Moldova and were then only 16 and 17 years old and one of them was the mother of a one-month-old child. Another teenager came from a family with seven children and in the case of the third victim, her mother was begging and her father was a day laborer, IPN reports.

The Prosecutor’s Office for Organized Crime and Special Cases (PCCOCS) noted that, in addition to the girls’ precarious financial situation, the defendants took advantage of their young age, the absence of supervision from their parents, which made them much more exposed to the risk of sexual exploitation. The individuals met one of the victims at a nightclub in Chisinau. The second teenager (the friend of the first victim) was psychologically influenced by the defendants to provide sexual services in an apartment in the capital city, after they had met in a park. With the minor victim, who had a child of only one month, they met near a hotel in the capital city.

The defendants knew that the victims were younger than 18 (the age up to which sexual exploitation is punished more harshly, as a crime of child trafficking). Furthermore, the individuals celebrated the 18th birthday of one of the victims. The teenage girls provided sexual services in various apartments rented by the defendants in Center and Râșcani districts of Chisinau, for 24 hours, and the clients are offered the opportunity to choose from the three girls.

After a month of sexual exploitation of two of the three teenagers, until they were “promoted” in Romania, by continuing their activity and with higher salaries, in the autumn of 2017, the three men were arrested by the officers of the Center for Combating Trafficking in Persons. The men are 25, 28 and 36 years old, respectively, the first two being brothers from Telenesti, and the third one is from Soroca. In 2018, the defendants were convicted by another decision of the Buiucani Court of Chisinau City, which was upheld by the Chisinau Court of Appeals’ decision of 2023, also for the sexual exploitation of other Moldovan adolescents in Timisoara.

In the fight against the phenomenon of child trafficking, PCCOCS prosecutors in 2024 alone sent another 10 cases to court, seven of which are related to sexual exploitation. In this connection, state prosecutors encourage parents to maintain a close relationship with the teens, to monitor their electronic communications and relationships in the process of initiation, including with real life people.