This is the reality of human trafficking: lives turned upside down, families destroyed, childhoods stolen. And this is why we must continue to fight against trafficking and slavery in all its forms, wherever it exists.

Michael Brosowski Not For Sale Vietnam Director

The rumours and speculation began almost immediately. May was not the only person missing: a woman from a neighboring house was also gone. Was there a connection?

Gradually it became clear that May had been visited by the neighbor, and that they went together to the bus station. The police set out to find them, but they were long gone and nobody knew where they went.

May had been taken by a trafficker. It was 2009.

The inexplicable loss of their daughter destroyed Do and An. They blamed themselves: if only they hadn’t left May alone. If only they had asked a relative to look after her. If only they had told her to stay inside and not go out with anyone. If only they had taken her to the fields that day…

They searched and searched, but found nothing. Was May taken to China? Or to Laos, which is not far from their village? Was she even alive?

As the days turned into weeks and months, Do and An were torn between grieving their daughter and hoping she would come home unharmed. Needing to dull the pain, An turned to drugs, finding relief in the numbness and punishing himself for his failure as a father.

May’s mother wanted to believe that all was not lost. For the first five years, she spent every Lunar New Year at the bus station, hoping that a bus would pull up and May would step down into her arms. But after five years, she could take it no more. Do went to the bus station one last time and boarded a bus to Ho Chi Minh City. She could no longer torture herself with hope and watch her husband slowly kill himself with heroin.

The years passed, and still there was no news of May. At one time Do, working in the south of Vietnam, heard that the neighbor who took her daughter was now living in Laos. An continued to descend further into his addiction, until finally he was arrested and sent to a drug rehab centre.

And then, a miracle: in July this year, May made contact through social media.

After 11 years in slavery – first as a wife and then resold into domestic servitude – she finally met someone who showed sympathy and gave her a smartphone. May went online to search for her family. She couldn’t locate her parents, but found an old school friend who raised the alarm.

Not For Sale Vietnam partners Blue Dragon sent a team to find and repatriate May in early August. Her rescue was further complicated by the travel restrictions caused by COVID-19, but we got her back to Vietnam safely and she entered mandatory quarantine along the border.

Mrs Do could not believe it. May’s return to Vietnam had seemed impossible. As soon as we told her that May was alive and safe, she left her home of the past six years and returned to her village to await May’s release from quarantine.

May was 12 when she was taken – a girl wondering what joys life would hold for her. Today she is 23 and has already lived through more terror and fear than most of us will know in all our lives.

But she is home. On Saturday, May and her mother Do held each other for the first time in over a decade. In that moment, all the pain they have been through was washed away.

This is not a happy ending – not yet, anyway. We will work with May and her mother to set things right: to find the trafficker, wherever she is, and bring her to justice. To reunite May with her father An, so that his pain too can find some release. And to give May a chance at having the life she deserves.

It will be a long, long road to healing. Much of what May and her family has lost can never be recovered.

This is the reality of human trafficking: lives turned upside down, families destroyed, childhoods stolen. And this is why we must continue to fight against trafficking and slavery in all its forms, wherever it exists.

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Whatever comes next, though, Ha has surely been through the worst that life has to offer. She is no longer a victim; she is a survivor.

Director of Not For Sale Vietnam

Both Vietnam and China have had lockdowns. This restriction on movement has been essential in keeping people safe from the coronavirus. And it’s made life a living hell for people who are trapped in slavery.

In early July, Not For Sale Vietnam partners Blue Dragon rescued Ha, a young woman who was taken into China just over 12 months ago.

Her story is similar to the hundreds we’ve heard before: she thought she knew the trafficker, thought he was a friend, believed she was on her way to a job.

What happened to her in China was particularly terrifying. She was sold to a violent man but refused to comply; she fought back, and was punished severely for it. The trafficker returned and sold her to another man; and then another.

Each time she was sold, Ha’s nightmare escalated. And when COVID-19 caused the city to be locked down, Ha found herself trapped inside an apartment around the clock with the latest horrid man who was bent on forcing her into submission. The only act of rebellion left to her was to steal a telephone and call back to Vietnam for help.

Taking someone’s phone and calling home in secret is an extremely dangerous act. Had she been discovered, she could have been beaten brutally. We know of women who have been killed for trying to escape.

It was in April that she first called; Ha was among 30 women and girls whose desperate SOS came to us in the most awful of circumstances, when there was little we could do to get them to immediate safety.

Now that the lockdowns have eased, we are bringing them home one by one. Blue Dragon’s rescue team reached Ha and brought her back across the border as soon as travel was possible. In accordance with the law, she went straight to quarantine.

A lockdown of a different kind, but this time Ha was safe.

Over the weekend, Ha’s quarantine period came to an end. She is now free to reunite with her family and start over. We picked her up from the quarantine centre and brought her to a safe house where she can receive counselling, medical treatment, and legal advice before returning to her hometown when she’s ready.

Ha’s year of terror will always be there; nothing can erase the scars of slavery altogether.

Whatever comes next, though, Ha has surely been through the worst that life has to offer. She is no longer a victim; she is a survivor.

Ha has survived a lockdown of the most terrifying kind. She is free today because she refused to accept her fate and took a chance to call for help.

We cannot stop working until every person – child or adult – has their freedom as Ha does

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This is the reality of human trafficking. Humanity is stripped from the victim; abuse upon abuse violates their most fundamental rights. And so often, it is those who are already poor and suffering who are most likely to be the target of this crime.

Not For Sale Vietnam Director

Once she was back in Vietnam, Anh’s first destination was a quarantine centre, and two weeks later she finally reached a Blue Dragon safe house.

When NFS Vietnam and Blue Dragon rescue a person from trafficking, we offer a full range of services: accommodation, counseling, clothing and food, and of course health care.

Anh’s visit to the hospital led to a shocking revelation. She was 8 months pregnant.

There was almost no visible sign that she was pregnant, and Anh had never even thought it possible. The man in Inner Mongolia who had bought her was sterile.

Anh was in shock. Having been held captive for the past 5 years, she has very little education and experience of the world. But she knew that some months previously she had been taken to a clinic and undergone an invasive procedure. On reflection, it appears she was artificially impregnated without her knowledge.

For this young woman, just going on 19, the discovery that she would soon be a mother was a massive blow. Just when she thought she could start to take control of her life, this unexpected development was the last thing she could have imagined.

But Anh is incredibly strong, and after making statements to police in Hanoi, she was ready to return to her home and be reunited with her mother.

Blue Dragon staff accompanied her home, meeting the family and along the way learning that Anh comes from extreme poverty. Her family house is made of empty shrimp feed bags stitched together and tied to a frame.

Anh and her mother, reunited in their family home after 5 years apart

Despite the incredible hardship and the shock of being pregnant, Anh was overjoyed to be home. Her reunion with her mother was desperately sad. They have missed such important time together and have so much now to make up for.

Just a few days after returning home, Anh started feeling pain. Her mother rushed her to the hospital where she gave birth – to twins. A boy and a girl.

At just 32 weeks, they are in a very fragile state and both in incubation. Their start to life has been everything it should not but they are alive and in good care.

This is the reality of human trafficking. Humanity is stripped from the victim; abuse upon abuse violates their most fundamental rights. And so often, it is those who are already poor and suffering who are most likely to be the target of this crime.

This is why we have to rid our world of this scourge. Anh’s story is far from over, and Blue Dragon will be working with her for some years yet. A wonderful family in the US has sent an incredible gift of $3,500 to pay for the care, food and medical treatment that Anh and her two children need; this will get them through a year or more.

In coming weeks we may put out a call to help rebuild Anh’s house, or help her buy land somewhere so that she doesn’t have to raise her babies in such a dire situation. We don’t yet know exactly what will be needed but this family deserves all the help they can get.

No matter how you look at it, Anh is the victim of some terrible injustices. While we can’t turn back the clock and stop them from happening to her, we can make sure she and her children have a future worth living.

And while we do that, we will continue fighting against human trafficking until every child, woman and man is safe from it.

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