One thing that never changes

Ngoc is the first child we rescued from human trafficking.

Aged 13, he had been taken from his sea-side village to sprawling Ho Chi Minh City, where he was forced to sell flowers to tourists for 12 or more hours a day.

When we investigated, we found that hundreds of children from his central Vietnamese community had been trafficked. Like Ngoc, some were selling flowers on the streets. Most were in garment factories, toiling away for no pay in terrible conditions.

Chi was the first person we rescued from a brothel in China. She had been trafficked and sold at age 17 by someone she thought was her boyfriend.

When we went to find her, we released 6 other girls and young women who were also enslaved. We’ve been working on cross-border human trafficking in the years since.

But those initial forms of trafficking we dealt with no longer exist in any substantial form.

Shifting sands

Village children are no longer being trafficked to factories and to sell flowers. Blue Dragon worked with the community for 12 years on this issue before it reached an end. It’s now a relic of history.

Nor are Vietnamese girls being trafficked into Chinese brothels as they were. What was once a serious issue is now a rare phenomenon. This is largely thanks to efforts by Chinese authorities to crack down on brothels.

The issues that once fully occupied our radar are now occasional blips on the screen.

However, that’s not to say that human trafficking has ended. Instead, it’s morphed – several times over.

In each new iteration, it takes on new characteristics and new forms of brutality. Today, the main form of slavery we are dealing with is the trafficking of Vietnamese people to Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos for forced online scamming.

Just a few years ago, this was unheard of.

And what is now a significant crisis, with an estimated 300,000 people enslaved and forced to scam money from people online, will one day be an awful memory.

Online scamming will certainly continue, but AI is likely to replace the need for large numbers of people to be forced to work online day and night.

And as the pressure on governments to take action against organised scamming continues to grow, the traffickers are already looking at alternative business models.

The next wave?

In northern Myanmar, there are indications that some of the gangs running the scam compounds are turning their attention to cannabis production for the Thai market.

If this happens, they’ll be looking for slave labour for not only the growing, but also the processing and packaging of their product to give themselves a competitive advantage in the marketplace.

Is this to be the next major iteration of human trafficking in Southeast Asia? It might be. Or it could be something else that’s yet to surface.

Because the one thing that’s absolutely certain with human trafficking is that it will continue to change. The specific types of slavery we see today will end, or at least reduce substantially.

And something else will rise to take their place.

That’s why there’s no single ‘fix’ for human trafficking. No silver bullet.

The answer: Agility

Blue Dragon’s interventions range from prevention programs to rescue… and then to the care of people after they have been set free. Over time, all of this is needed.

Specifically where and how we do these things will keep changing. So we must be agile enough to keep changing along with them. And that change has to be quick.

We’ve built agility into our organisational structure and our mindset. When a new issue emerges, or even a global crisis like Covid, we’re able to pivot to meet the challenge.

This gives us confidence that we can really make a difference.

Because if some forms of trafficking can be ended, then they all can.

On Sunday September 8, the Blue Dragon Walk will be held around the world. Thank you to all who’ve registered to take part! It’s not too late for you to join – sign up here. And if you’d rather sit the day out, please consider sponsoring the Walk of our co-CEO Vi Do. Donations for his walk will be doubled by our friends at APT Travel.