While it's not necessarily the biggest holiday of the year, Christmas is a major one in Moldova. I plan to make a few posts on it - this one about the "Ne unește o iubire" / "A love unites us" concert held on Sunday, December 18th, in the National Filharmonic building in the capital, Chișinău.
This was a ”concert de caritate”, a ”charity concert,” organized to support children born and raised through age three in the Moldovan prison system. As described by the event's organizers on Facebook:
”În penitenciarele din Moldova se nasc copii. Ei rămîn cu mamele lor timp de 3 ani. Atît! Cumpărînd bilete la concertul din 18 decembrie, îi vei ajuta pe acești micuți să zîmbească, condamnați fiind pe nedrept să ispășească pedeapsa nemeritată alături de mamele lor. Dacă aveți posibiltate puteți aduce la concert și hăinuțe, obiecte de igienă personală, scutece etc., Multă suferință și lacrimi de durere am văzut acolo.” "Children are born in Moldovan penitentiaries. They stay with their mothers for three years. That's all! Buying tickets to the concert on December 18th, you will help these little ones to smile, who are condemned to serve an undeserved punishment alongside their mothers. If possible, please bring clothes, personal hygeine items, diapers, etc. We have seen much suffering and many painful tears there." The general message of the video below (used in promotion of the event and at the start to provide context) is: Announcer: 20 innocent children live behind prison walls in the Republic of Moldova. Why, we ask ourselves? Mom 1: Here in the prison he grows three years exactly with me. Announcer: Daily, they share the same space with their mothers, the same music and joy and long wait. Mom 2: (something about the difficulty, particularly for those who don't have support at home, don't have any family members who can help) Announcer: October 18th at 4:00PM we wait for you in the main hall of the filharmonic, where we will try to put a childhood smile again on the faces of the innocent. Love - only it will unite us.
The concert was a success as a fundraiser - they raised 23,000 lei (approximately $1,150) and received tables full of donations. The concert also contained a message of love and empathy throughout, encouraging all present to challenge our judgements and assumptions about people in prison.
In many ways, it was a concert like I've described previously - our emcees included poetry in announcing acts, there were multiple performances by singers and dance troupes who performed both modern and traditional music, important people gave short speeches, and people received certificates and presents. It was a very entertaining as well as moving event. The penultimate performance was put on by women from the prison "Rusca", some of whom danced and some of whom sang a song about the relationship between mothers and children (I'll admit, I cried during a part about missing our mothers, as it is hard to live apart from my family for so long). At the end, several of the children who live in the prison came on stage to see Santa Claus.
(women from the prison Rusca and some of their children on stage with Santa Claus and the event's emcees (far left), taken from here)
Coming from a country were we incarcerate around as many people as the estimated number of citizens who actually reside in Moldova (the US criminal justice system holds more than 2.3 million people; 1/4 to 1/3 of the citizens of Moldova are estimated to be abroad), the criminal justice system is of interest to me. It was meaningful to be at the event and learn about women's prison experiences. Prior to this, I'd only heard a few scattered pieces about Moldovan prisons: human rights issues in prisons (especially for people with disabilities), the "Moldovan Model" of harm reduction in prison (link 1, link 2). As unfortunately difficult as it is to find information about pregnancy and childbirth in the US (some context), I have found it even more difficult to find information about it for Moldova. The event's materials and speakers, as I understood them, mentioned that women who are pregnant or are raising their children born in prison serve time in one specific prison ("Rusca") and that there are 20 children living there in total, permitted to stay through their first three years. While not the best sources, here is a piece about similar prisons in the US and about prenatal care and delivery. Towards the end of the show, an announcer read a message written by the group of mothers: "We are humans. We have made mistakes and are conscious of the harm we did, we are paying our debt to society. Our children are not guilty. They deserve the same rights and happiness as every child." At its core, this concert was a Christmas event - it was full of Christmas songs and even Santa Claus came! It was special in that it was for people who want to support incarcerated children and their mothers.
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Rebecca LehmanHealth Education volunteer serving at Boris Dînga Middle & High School in Criuleni, Moldova. Archives
May 2017
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