CASE STORIES CHINA A few years ago, in a rural part of south-west China, traffickers were working their way down the valleys and picking off women one by one, village by village. These villages were living in real and persistent poverty and so people were easily convinced to take traffickers up on the opportunities they were apparently providing. But these promises were not what they appeared. The problem became so bad that some villages we visited had lost all of their women because of trafficking. The Salvation Army started to respond to this situation in a number of ways. We worked alongside the local government to carry out prevention work in vulnerable communities, running workshops so that people are more aware of the dangers of trafficking and less prone to the false promises offered by traffickers. More recently we have also been working to improve the income of those living in these areas, so that they are not so reliant on migrating in search of work.
She can also now give her children pocket money, they eat better and their general standard of living has improved. Her hope is to increase the amount of land she uses for mulberries, to increase her production and income.
Now women would rather stay in their communities than move elsewhere. Alongside this, the Government has also been implementing stricter policies and harsher punishments for trafficking offenders. This new-found knowledge and income possessed by the Dulie has three children. She previously used her land to grow maize and walnuts. She has given a third of her villagers means that traffickers no longer even visit land over to planting mulberry trees to feed silkworms these villages, because they now know that there’s nothing for them there. that have been provided by The Salvation Army. After just the first harvest of silk cocoons she has earned A great example of freedom being proclaimed! enough money to build herself a new brick house.
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INDIA – JINA’S STORY Jina is 23 years old and lives in Mizoram in the north-east of India. As there were no jobs in the area, she decided to leave in search of work. She was approached by an agent from a spa company who told her that he could find her work. It sounded like a good opportunity and so she trusted him. He took her and three other girls who also accepted his offer across the country to Goa on the west coast. The trip took five days. The agent didn’t ask for any money but provided travel and food. Jina explains what happened once they completed their journey: On arrival in Goa we were given a short introduction to our work, given clothes and make-up, and told to rest. We started working with customers straight away, even though we had no knowledge of therapy – just a basic idea of how to massage backs. We saw about 20 customers per day, working for at least 20 hours per day. There were other treatments available at the spa but we were recruited for massages only. The customers would only wear paper underwear – I was shocked. There were only male customers and they wanted more than just massages from us. The second and third days of working were OK as we were able to refuse by saying we were only employed to provide massages. But after that the customers would say that they had already paid for us and so they could do whatever they wanted. I used to tolerate inappropriate touching from the customers and just continue with my work. But then one customer tried to force me to have sex with him. I ran out of the room to get help from other staff – the customer was very strong and I couldn’t fight back, and had to run and shout for help. The customer got
angry and went to the manager for a refund but the manager refused. The manager called all the girls to the rest room and told us that we must do all that the customer wants. He then took our clothes and photos and stopped us from contacting home. We were also beaten. We went to the madam to ask for forgiveness to make her happy and try and get our clothes back. We were planning to run away. We did not manage to get our clothes back, but we still ran away from the spa at around 10pm that night. The spa had blocked our sim cards, so we were not able to use mobile phones, but we managed to contact the Mizo Welfare Organisation via other Mizo people we found working in a local casino. We spent the night with a family from the casino. They contacted the editor of a Mizo newspaper who met with our families and then made a report to the Mizo police. Once the police in Goa received this report they started to investigate. They went to the spa and retrieved our clothing and accused the managers at the spa. The spa was closed down. While the police were taking action, we stayed at the Mizo family’s house for four days; they hid us.
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The police took us into a protective home in Goa and we were there for one week. Our parents were worried about us once they knew the kind of trouble we were in. My parents went to their local police and were told to speak to The Salvation Army.
from Mizoram to collect us from the protective home. We were really glad when someone from The Salvation Army finally arrived – we were crying with happiness. They helped us travel home and even gave us slippers to wear.
We asked the Government for help to be moved from the protective home in Goa, but only The Salvation Army was able to provide help for this. We were homesick and crying, and wanted to return to Mizoram. We were hopeful that people would arrive
Now we are helping The Salvation Army as much as we can, as we don’t want other girls to suffer like we did. I don’t know what happened to the perpetrators, only that the spa and agency have now been shut down.
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MALAWI – LONJEZO AND BANNET It’s not just women who are affected. Traffickers exploit whatever they can from whoever will do the job. In Malawi, we have seen a huge number of children trafficked to work as herd boys, household labourers or into prostitution. We support children who have been trafficked through our rehabilitation centre in Mchinji, but also by engaging communities in Mchinji and surrounding districts to understand the dangers of trafficking and to spot the signs. More importantly, members of the community themselves have been empowered to spot these signs and work to protect their communities and all those within it. This is leading to a significant decrease in trafficking in these areas. Lonjezo is 11 years old, one of a family of five children from Lilongwe in Malawi. When both of Lonjezo’s parents passed away he went to stay with his grandmother. However, due to her poverty he was unable to go to school and instead helped his elder brothers to carry out the duties of the home. They took small jobs wherever they could to try and earn enough money to buy food for the day. Lonjezo was sad as he was not able to spend time with his friends in the community as he was always busy working with his brothers. One day, one of his older brothers, Bannet, thought of moving out of Lilongwe to look for better work elsewhere. He asked some people to help him go and work in Zambia since he had no passport. One of the men he met was a trafficker. The trafficker agreed to take Bannet to Zambia. Bannet took his brother Lonjezo since he wanted to make sure that Lonjezo did not suffer if left behind. The trafficker made some arrangements to meet his agent in Mchinji, which is close to the Malawi/Zambia border, so
that the boys could be taken to Zambia to work on a farm. When they reached Mchinji, Bannet and Lonjeze were left at a restaurant to have supper while the trafficker went out to meet his agent. After two hours, the trafficker returned with the agent in a taxi to pick up the boys and continue their journey to Zambia. But their taxi driver happened to be the chairperson for the Mchinji taxi rank association. They have been playing their part in combating human trafficking by reporting any suspicious people to the police and members of the Mchinji child protection network. The driver then told the trafficker and the agent that he wanted to go and refuel his car before they headed off, and said that he would return in five minutes. Instead he went straight to the police. The driver met three child protection officers from the victim support unit who were on duty. The driver told them all that he had heard from the agent about the boys. The police wasted no time and rushed
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to the restaurant, where they immediately arrested the two men. They were then taken to the police station and the two boys referred to The Salvation Army’s anti-child trafficking rehabilitation centre in Mchinji. The following day it was discovered that their trafficker had previously been arrested for trafficking four children to Zambia, but he had been set free since at that time there was no law against human trafficking.
The trafficker was sentenced to three years in prison. The agent was sentenced to pay a fine or go to prison for one year for aiding the trafficking of the boys. Thanks to the preventative work carried out in Mchinji, these boys were able to be identified and rescued before they reached their destination and put to work. Instead they are now being cared for at The Salvation Army’s antichild trafficking centre.
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