It’s not what you think

When Blue Dragon rescues someone from slavery, we have a practice of announcing the operation on social media as soon as it is safe to do so.

It’s a way of sharing information with our supporters. The people who donate to make our work possible deserve to know what impact their giving has.

Sometimes, however, the response to our posts is different to what we expect.

A recent post announced that we had rescued a young woman from a forced marriage. We went on to say that she would soon be reunited with her family.

That brief comment attracted a curious response, with a significant number of readers demanding to know why we would reunite this woman with the very people who had trafficked her.

The problem is: Her family had nothing to do with it.

In fact, her family has spent years searching for their daughter. They’re ecstatic to have her back.

So why would people blame the parents for what happened to the daughter, when there is no evidence of this?

 

The short answer is that people made an assumption, with no basis in fact.

The longer answer is that, in reality, we do this all the time. We may have once heard a shocking anecdote… Or seen something on TV… Or just had a ‘feeling’…

Armed with this sense that we know about the topic, we give ourselves license to judge others. And then we share that in the public domain of social media.

It’s true that there are stories of parents selling their child, or one sibling selling another.

It does happen. But it is very, very rare.

Statistically, in Vietnam about 3% of trafficking cases involve a close family member, like a parent or sibling.

Another 3% involve a more distant family member, like an aunt or uncle.

That’s it. 94% of known cases do not involve a family member at all. Yet it’s the 6% that shapes public opinion the most.

Misinformation and misconceptions shape what we think of street kids: “They don’t have parents” / “They’re not interested in changing their lives”.

And homeless people: “They get so many handouts by staying on the street”.

And so many other groups of minority and vulnerable people.

There’s a real cruelty in blaming the victims, yet those who do so often start out with good intentions.

Perhaps they’re outraged by a crime and want to see the guilty punished. I understand that.

But we can stand up for justice without jumping to conclusions.

We can be honest with ourselves and realise that the reality is often different to what we think.

Most social problems are far more complex than we wish.

There’s a lot of grey in our world, lying between our simple black-and-white visions of good versus evil.

The best response is to challenge ourselves to see beyond the surface, questioning our assumptions.

Only then can we truly stand with those who need our support the most.

Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation is on a mission to end human trafficking.