No silver bullet

Blue Dragon is soon to mark a significant milestone: our 2,000th rescue of a person from slavery.

We never imagined that our first rescue operations, about 20 years ago, would be the start of something bigger. At the time, Blue Dragon was a very small organisation and all we wanted to do was help kids get out of trouble and onto a better path. There was never an intention to rescue hundreds or thousands of people.

While it’s significant, this is a milestone that we’re not celebrating.

Because we wish that there was nobody in need of this type of help. That human trafficking was a relic of the past. That when people were in such dangerous situations, systems would kick into place to protect them.

So our rescues are a response to a situation that we wish didn’t exist.

Not helpless

And yet, that doesn’t mean we’re helpless. On the contrary, over the years a vision has taken shape that gives us hope that there may yet be a day when our services are no longer needed.

Because every rescue operation gives us insight into how human trafficking works. Every time we reunite a trafficked person with their family and community, we understand more clearly what’s needed to keep people safe.

Over time, we’ve adapted that knowledge into systems that prevent human trafficking from happening. Slowly but surely, we’re building our knowledge and scaling up in areas of Vietnam where people are most vulnerable.

Loan

One young woman we have rescued is Loan. She was 20 when she was trafficked.

A single mother with a toddler, Loan just wanted to work. She didn’t want to be a burden on others; she wanted a job of her own so she could earn money to raise her daughter.

She came across a job ad online and applied for a position in a company. It would take her away from her village in the north-central region of Vietnam, but she could safely leave her child with her mother for a few months while she got started.

Loan was aware of the risks of human trafficking. She’d heard the stories and followed the news. But this job was in Ho Chi Minh City, far from the enslavement compounds of Cambodia and Myanmar. So she set off, hoping that this job might mean a better future for her baby.

What transpired was very different to what Loan dreamt. She was met by traffickers posing as business people who took her by car to Cambodia without her knowledge. Within a day of leaving home, she was sold to a criminal gang who forced her to work as an online scammer.

To refuse meant certain torture. If she was to survive, Loan had no choice but to follow orders.

She was in captivity for 6 months before she found a way to call for help. Blue Dragon was able to locate her and get her to safety within a few days, and soon she was home with her family.

Recovery

Once home, Loan was free but not OK.

The reasons that she had to travel away for work – her extreme poverty and need to care for her child – were now even more pressing. On top of that, while in slavery she had received no treatment for an autoimmune condition so her health was incredibly fragile.

And every person who experiences exploitation comes away with trauma. Loan had spent 6 months living in fear of her life, watching those around her be beaten violently.

Her effort to improve her life had made everything so much worse.

Tao

Tao is a young man who Blue Dragon also rescued from slavery.

Aged 19, we rescued him along with nine others from a scam compound in Myanmar.

Having grown up together in the same village, the group thought they had safety in numbers. They went online and found jobs advertised as sales positions in Laos. The ‘company’ even covered the cost of traveling from their home to get there. With little understanding of the world beyond their mountain home and minimal formal education, they had no idea what might lie ahead.

Once they reached Laos, their recruiters split them up and took them into Myanmar, where scam compounds operate on an industrial scale. Civil war keeps them safe from the eyes of the world but the chaos of the region makes it possible for Blue Dragon to rescue Vietnamese people who have been trafficked there.

Just like Loan, once Tao and his friends were home, their problems were far from over.

Tao was driven to find work to ease his family’s debt. While he had been in slavery, he had not been able to send money home – so the debt was now even worse.

Beyond rescue

The stories of Loan and Tao show us that people are vulnerable to being trafficked for very practical reasons, and often there’s more than one single factor.

Loan was a single mother in poor health with no hope of finding a job near home.

Tao had no formal education; no job; no knowledge of how to safely migrate for work; and debt to pay.

Conventional wisdom says that anti-trafficking organisations need to raise awareness to keep people safe. But we can see from these real-life situations that people need education, jobs, training and support services. Sometimes they need cash in their hands – direct financial aid – to get them through a rough period. And all of this has to be delivered by well-trained social workers, psychologists and law enforcement staff.

These are all very practical needs and they demand a practical response.

Working around Vietnam in both rural and urban areas, Blue Dragon has developed protective systems that are owned and implemented by local communities.

These systems include setting up volunteer boards who take the lead to keep their community members safe from human trafficking. When a family is struggling to earn an income, or a child stops going to school, or a person is planning to travel away for work, the boards have a role in offering assistance and advice.

The result is profound and simple. When kids are going to school and when people have decent living conditions, human traffickers don’t stand a chance.

And because all of these initiatives are led by community members, the system can be rolled out wherever it’s needed.

That’s what Blue Dragon is working on now. Refining the system we’ve developed and scaling it up.

While we do this, we continue to rescue people who have been trafficked.

Our reason to celebrate isn’t that we’ve rescued 2,000 people and it won’t be the day we reach 5,000 or 10,000.

The real reason to celebrate will be the day we don’t need to rescue anyone ever again.

Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation is working towards a world where we are all free from exploitation and slavery.