The strongest man in town

Vinh saw himself as the breadwinner.

His duty was to provide for his elderly parents.

And once he had saved enough money, he wanted to marry.

Vinh had grown up and lived in the same town his whole life, an ethnic minority village in south-central Vietnam.

So when he fell on hard times, he didn’t want to travel away for work, but it seemed to be the only option.

Vinh heard of work in northern regions and headed off hoping his fortunes had changed.

As happens so often, Vinh’s quest to find a job resulted in him being trafficked and sold. He was taken to Myanmar, where forced online scamming operations proliferate in the centre of a deadly war zone.

This week, Blue Dragon brought Vinh and two other young men home after a lengthy and complicated rescue operation.

After less than a year in captivity, Vinh returned in a wheelchair.

Torture

All three were tortured and beaten in the compound that enslaved them. Conditions were brutal for all of the ‘workers’, whose job was to scam money online from other Vietnamese-speaking people around the world.

Taking Vinh to his family home in the countryside, his family and community are devastated.

“He was the strongest man in the village,” they told us. Now he cannot stand without assistance and his recovery is far from certain.

Shortly after, we rescued a teen girl named Ly from another compound in the same area.

She is 17, but looks so much younger. In one photograph we have of her, taken shortly after she reached safety, Ly is clutching a teddy bear and a doll.

She looks no older than 12.

Ly is physically unharmed but in deep trauma.

Despite now being safe, she’s still in a state of terror. She is yet to disclose what really happened while she was in captivity, but the fear in her eyes tells us all we need to know.

Degrees of trafficking

At times I’ve been criticised for rescuing anyone other than women and girls in sex trafficking.

But the truth is, all human trafficking is horrifying and must be stopped.

There’s an estimated 300,000 people in slavery in scamming operations across Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar. Every one of those people faces the risk of torture, violence, rape and murder on a daily basis.

Refuse to obey the traffickers? That’s a beating.

Failure to meet impossible targets, such as the number of people scammed? That can result in sleep and food deprivation.

Attempt to escape? The consequences can be torture, removal of organs, or even death.

Another young man named Cong, who recently contacted us for help, had part of a finger removed as his punishment for poor ‘performance’.

His crime? He didn’t scam enough people.

Collectively, the world is still trying to grasp this idea of forced online scamming. Are the people locked inside really victims? How bad could it be, working online in a room all day?

Vinh, Ly and Cong give us an answer to this question.

This is why Blue Dragon works so hard to rescue people who call for help. It’s only August and we’ve already rescued more than 170 people this year.

And as we do this, we continue seeking interventions that will stop human trafficking from happening in the first place.

There’s real promise in the solutions we’re developing.

But until human trafficking is a relic of history, there’s so much more to do. The rescue operations must continue.

Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation is on a mission to end human trafficking.  You can help by joining the Blue Dragon Walk on September 8, no matter where you are.