For several days one week, I was hired by the Regional
Center for Social Science and Sustainable Development (RCSD) to accompany them
on a high-level capacity building workshop on the Return, Repatriation and
Reintegration of Trafficked Persons.
There were five delegations from five countries (Myanmar, Viet Nam,
Cambodia, Laos and Thailand) comprised of high-level officials within
Ministries border guard and police forces that convened in Thailand for two
weeks to discuss issues involving trafficked persons.
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| Trafficked victims at the shelter |
For three days, I had the opportunity to travel with them to
various government agencies within Thailand, and learn about the current issues
facing trafficked victims. We mainly
focused on government-sponsored shelters, where victims of trafficking were
rescued and placed in a shelter until enough information could be collected to
send them back to their countries safely.
In Thailand, the majority of trafficked victims come from Myanmar and
are trafficked for migrant work (especially in fisheries) and sex work. Other victims come mainly from Laos, Cambodia
and Viet Nam – with a recent large influx of Vietnamese women trafficked as
surrogates in Thailand. We visited
migrant shrimp factories and fisherman boats, migrant communities, and shelters
where trafficked victims were being cared for.
Walking around the Kredtrakarn Protection and Occupational
Development Center, where trafficked women and girls were sheltered, was
surreal. It was incredibly difficult to
witness the interaction between border police, deputies, directors and officers
with children from their own country.
The girls were separated by age, and as we would walk into each room,
the delegations would say in their native language, “Raise your hand if you are
from Myanmar? Laos? Cambodia? Thailand?”
These delegations would isolate girls from their country, and by going
down a row of girls under the age of twelve, they found that some girls were
trafficked from their state, their district – even one woman from her
hometown. As they smiled behind their
sewing machines or grinned over their textbooks, these girls, no older than
twelve, had been taken or sold from their home countries and villages and
brought to Thailand for the purpose of prostitution. In the nursery, one five year old girl from
Myanmar was asked whether she knew why she was brought to Thailand. “Yes” she said and her face lit up with
acknowledgement of her knowing the answer, “Sex.” The Myanmar delegation let out cries, gasps
and sighs – we all did. The Myanmar
officer then asked her if she knew what “Sex” meant, and she looked at the
floor and shook her head no but that her parents said it would help the family,
so she had to go.
With such emotional and difficult
stories I had to restart my emotional intake button with each room we
entered. So many women and children with
lives that were destroyed – and often by people whom they knew and
trusted. In one discussion, we met with
trafficked women, who had been tricked by their own family members and
neighbors, into ‘working in a Thai restaurant’ only to learn when they arrived
in Japan that there was no ‘restaurant’ and they were sold into prostitution.
I had been feeling rather sorry for myself and incredibly
stressed with school – I wasn’t sure if I could handle anything else and
debated whether or not I could take this job.
After seeing the children, hearing their stories, and witnessing the
interactions between these government officials and victims, you come out
overwhelmed - thankful for all of the reasons you are so blessed. In closing, I will leave one story, perhaps
my favorite story, because it speaks about the wrongs of first impressions,
perseverance, heartbreak and the start of rehabilitation. In this moment, I realized exactly why I am
so passionate about what I do, and why I wanted to continue working for
development, and for victims such as these:
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| One of the Pakkred Boys getting a haircut! |
At the Pakkred Reception Home for Boys, we learned about
young boys – as young as six years old, who were trafficked across the border
(often times by their parents) for work and sexual exploitation. Listening to the Shelter’s Superintendent
list statistics and describe stories of these children was gut-wrenching and
difficult to absorb. But what was most
effective for me personally on this trip, was what came after the presentations
and fact-reciting. During one
presentation, the breakdown of nationalities of children within the center was
given. One individual from the
Vietnamese delegation stood up and asked to speak with this child, and was
upset when the Superintendent stated that would not be possible because the
child was protected. She further
explained that he has a very upsetting and emotional experience and was
undergoing a serious criminal procedure to catch his perpetrators and for these
reasons, was unable to be questioned or seen at this time. If I learned anything from my time in Viet
Nam – it is that Vietnamese people are persistent. I grimaced watching the delegation huddle
together and strategize and prepared for more trouble. We received a tour of the facilities, and it
was at this point I immediately recognized the strategy they had so secretively
devised - the Vietnamese group had panned out, approaching each child, and
quietly speaking in Vietnamese, waited for a reaction, or acknowledgement from
one of the children that they understood the language. On our tour of the facilities we observed the
occupational room where boys were learning to be barbers; the arts and crafts
room, where they were making bows; the education center where they were
practicing their Thai; the physical fitness area, where they were playing
football; and finally, the nursery. And
there he was.
It was difficult to watch these ministers, directors, and
border guards reach out to a child from their country that they did not know or
had never met. Some cried, others smiled
and spoke with the child, asking for his name and family back home whom the
center had not been able to locate. The
man who I felt was incredibly arrogant with his questioning and demands to see
the child in the beginning seemed aloof, as he took a step away talking on his
cell phone, yelling to someone on the other end. The Center volunteers and social workers were
overwhelmed at this group’s persistence, but were overly cautious of the boy
and kept telling the group to step back.
All of a sudden, the loudmouth Vietnamese man comes shoving past social
workers and our group and presses his cell phone against the boy’s ear. The boy’s face goes from sheer terror, to
utter joy, and he exclaimed “Me?!” which is Vietnamese for “Mom?” It turns out that he was the Director of the
Department of Investigation with the police force on social-related crime
within the Department of Police on Crime Prevention in Viet Nam. He was within the Ministry of Police and
spent the past twenty minutes calling every deputy in the region to locate this
boy’s family. Watching the power of
these six people from Viet Nam – was not only impressive, but beyond
inspirational. I truly have no words.
