Surviving the impossible

Thuy’s story

When she crossed the border back to Vietnam, Thuy’s first words were: “I never thought I’d survive.”

She ventured out from home at age 28, leaving her 3-year-old son in the care of her mother and extended family.

All she wanted was the dignity of a job. To earn money for her child and parents. To have a better life.

But Thuy was tricked by people online who had gained her trust.

Instead of securing a job in a restaurant, she was trafficked to Myanmar and sold to a brothel.

The many months that she was enslaved there are a story too terrifying to tell. Trapped in a war zone, separated from her family and used as a disposable object, Thuy was sure she would die before she could ever get home.

It was almost two years before Thuy found a way to call for help. Blue Dragon organised a rescue operation and brought her home.

Even though she was free from her captors, the journey from northern Myanmar to Vietnam was frightening and tense.

Only her hope of seeing her son kept her going. And now they are back together.

Tuan’s story

Tuan was deceived with similar tactics: an online connection that seemed completely authentic.

Until the moment he was overcome with force and locked into a compound.

Tuan traveled to Cambodia in search of work.

He did his research beforehand, talking to friends and scouring the internet. He believed he knew the risks and was confident no harm would come to him.

So when he realised he had been tricked and was being forced to work in captivity, his initial reaction was to demand his freedom.

Tuan was beaten and tortured into submission, then put to work in an online scamming operation. It was more than a year before he could get word to Blue Dragon, who got him out and back to his family within a few weeks.

The chapters to come

Even though I’ve been involved in rescue operations like these for many years, I still can’t comprehend the trauma that Thuy and Tuan are living with now.

Both put their trust in others. They went in search of employment, believing they were doing the right thing.

Their choice to leave home and travel for work was not easy and their decision was not made lightly.

So the betrayal that they experienced, and then the violence they endured month after month, left them feeling helpless and weak. And guilty.

Neither Thuy nor Tuan did anything wrong. But one of the great tricks of human traffickers is to make their victims feel like it was their own fault.

On top of the physical pain of torture and the loss of freedom, they live now with doubts about their self worth. And the question that will always haunt them: Why did this happen to them?

The toll of human trafficking is a lifetime of regret, guilt and pain.

Thuy and Tuan have a chance to start over but will need help for many months and years to come.

They were fortunate, in one sense, to be rescued: hundreds of thousands of people just like them are enslaved around Southeast Asia in brothels and scamming compounds, as they were, with no way out.

But they will carry these scars for many years to come.

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