Innocents abroad

Some heart-rending stories from children sold into sex slavery.

FEATURE

Children are especially vulnerable to human traffickers because they may be uneducated and easy to overpower and convince. They are duped by strangers and sometimes even by the people they know. They are kidnapped, whisked away, never again to be seen by their families. They are sold to recover a family debt.
Their only crime is their desire to make life better for themselves and the ones they love.
Their stories are harrowing, their voices lost in the cesspool of sexual exploitation and bonded labour.
Consider the story of Ah Thien (not her real name). She was recruited at the age of 15 by someone she met at a café in Vietnam. He told her she could make a fortune in Malaysia. To her, it was a ticket out of poverty. Her journey was arduous, by road through Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and finally Malaysia.
She was housed in a home just outside Kuala Lumpur along with other girls. They were shuffled to different parts of Malaysia, forced into the flesh trade against their will. Ah Thien was a minor in a strange land that spoke a different language. When she refused to comply, she was threatened with rape, deportation, and hunger.
So she complied, for three years. And she became pregnant when she was still a minor. She got the courage and strength to escape one night when she overheard a conversation in which someone said her baby would be taken away from her and sold.
She and her friend ran away in the dead of night, seeking the assistance of a sympathetic client. He put them in a taxi and sent them to the Vietnamese Embassy. They were referred to Tenaganita, a human rights organisation that provides shelter for rescued victims.
Psychological trauma

Ah Thien was five months pregnant. With the information she gave to police, she saved another victim and had the traffickers arrested. She has since been safely repatriated to Vietnam and has given birth. She is now married to a man who helped her deal with her trauma and see past the shame and indignity. Her family, who had suffered for years with the pain of not knowing whether their daughter was alive or dead, were ecstatic when she returned home.
Ah Thien’s story has a happy ending. But there are 120 million other stories and counting, all with the same stomach-churning and blood-curdling details of degradation and humiliation. Most of them don’t end so well.
In 2006, 19 Malaysian girls were rescued when the British Metropolitan Police raided two brothels in London and Birmingham. Two of those girls were referred to Tenaganita because they were brave and willing to be witnesses in the trial. Liza (not her real name) became pregnant when she was still a minor.
Her crime? Poverty. Her father had walked out on them leaving her to feed, clothe and sustain her family. She was just a teenager.
She borrowed money from a loan shark and soon chalked up a debt of RM7,000 that she could not settle. So the loan shark forced her to go to London to work in brothels. If she refused, they would not hesitate to harm her younger sister. She knew they would see through their threat and she left home, never to be the same girl again.
“The state of these girls when they come to our shelter is horrific,” explains a caregiver. “They have been subjected to the most degrading of acts, beaten, forced to drink alcohol and even take ecstasy pills to keep them addicted.
“The psychological trauma and scarring is so deep it takes them a long time to trust and talk to us. The girls have been violated at several levels. Many carry the stigma of shame and guilt because of what their perpetrators have forced them to undergo – botched abortions, anal sex, being made to service a minimum of eight men a day, confined to the brothels with threats of violence.”
Long road to recovery
The road to recovery is a long and arduous one, often with dismal results. “Even when we repatriate these girls, it has to be done with great care”, she adds. “Often, the perpetrator has informed their counterparts in the girls’ home country and they are waiting for them, ready to re-traffic them.”
Listening to the caregiver’s first-hand account of the trauma these young girls live through is chilling. “One girl told us that she was not given a rest even when she was menstruating. She had to insert a sponge into her vagina and continue to have sex.”
“How do you begin to understand what they have been through? A young girl from India kept talking about worms crawling in her body, for she felt dirty and tainted. No matter how much she scrubbed her body, she was unable to see herself as clean.
“Many have nightmares, they wake up screaming and some have been so used to waking up in the middle of the night to put on their make-up and get into their work clothes because of habit.”
Their scars run deep like the veins that course through their bodies. The violation of their body and mind is vicious, cruel and often irreparable. These are children who should be singing nursery rhymes and playing in the rain, watching movies or hanging out with friends.
They have families and dreams, and sometimes their biggest regret is to have dreamt to break free from poverty and abuse. But their yellow brick road was fraught with danger, agony and misery. We must listen to the stories they tell and not turn the page until we have done something to help them turn their lives around.