A Shocking Story

By Ayesha Ahmad
September 14, 2008

The UK media has recently covered two instances of human trafficking.

Police Raids
The first story reported a series of raids involving over 50 polices forces across England and Wales. Some 500 people were arrested and almost 200 people including women and children were, as the newspaper reported, “released”.

The next day the story had disappeared from the media despite the enormous scale of the police operation. The operation was conducted to crack down on human trafficking, but the perspective is still that the way to do this is blaming the trafficked rather than the traffickers.

What happened to the men, women and children who were released? One can only assume that they were deported. And upon returning home, there may be no emotional reunion with their family; instead, these people who had already endured so much exploitation and abuse are sometimes and not uncommonly placed straight back into the hands of the traffickers linked to the gang masters in the UK that were imprisoned.

Imprisonment of trafficking victims or even traffickers does not erase the “debt” that will have issued to each trafficked victim. This is a debt that either has to be repaid in money or death. Returning a trafficked victim to their home country is only a continuation of their journey, the journey that they were enticed into with the prospect of providing a “better life” for their family.

Forced Labor
The second story in the media recently reported a shocking murder trial of four men who were part of a trafficking gang in Wales, UK. All four men were found guilty of manslaughter following the death of a Vietnamese man. The report describes how the 44 year old was dumped in a hospital with severe head injuries. A large police operation followed his subsequent death, tracing back to the perpetrators and revealing the following chain of events.

After entering the country illegally via the Ukraine and entering the UK in the back of a lorry, the trafficked man was provided work in an illegal cannabis factory. Two months later he was accused of using the produce and tortured before being left at the hospital entrance.

The focus of the police operation concentrated on prosecuting those responsible for the man’s death, yet no charges were made against them for trafficking. In fact, the issue of trafficking was entirely bypassed except for mentioning the illegality of the victim in the country.

Again, the traffickers are not viewed as responsible for trafficking people, which brings attention to an apparent societal lack of comprehension of the vulnerability rendered by poverty and war that allows traffickers to deceive or coerce their victims. The first step in changing the opinion of society, including that of the media and how the media portrays human trafficking, must stem from distinguishing between the traffickers and the trafficked in terms of vulnerability and violation.

In the above two examples, both parties were viewed as criminals. This approach has got to change.

Featured Organization: Transitions Cambodia, Inc.

The Mission
Focused on caring for victims of the sex slave trade and restoring their lives, Transitions Cambodia, Inc. (TCI) provides a safe environment where girls can heal and learn viable, sustainable 21st century job skills.

TCI empowers girls to become healthy and independent adults restoring dignity, health and, most importantly, hope in their lives.

Founded by James and Athena Pond, who have been actively working in Cambodia since 2004 TCI is an Oregon-based 501c3 Non-Profit Organization serving the needs of Cambodian and Vietnamese female survivors of sex trafficking.

The word transitions in Khmer “an-ta-rak-peap” means crossing over from one place to another. At TCI we believe that the imperative goal is not to remove a girl from one form of abuse, only to place her into a situation that will further her abuse or trauma.

While shelters provide necessary services to a small percentage of trafficking victims, they have a limited application. Research and experience has shown that young women coming from sexually exploitative situations greatly benefit from being involved in decision making regarding their futures. These women need to have a broader scope of expression in their living situations, community, and family environments. We work with our clients to help them discover themselves, explore their possibilities and begin the process of crossing from one place to a better place.

In the Beginning


The roots of TCI began to develop back in 1987. Founder James Pond was in the U.S. Marine Corps traveling around Asia as an intelligence specialist. On a particular operation, James and a friend were in an Asian country wanting to find a place to relax and have dinner. They found a local bar, where the owner welcomed them in from the street. After dinner, as they sat around talking, the bar owner approached them with a young girl under his arm. He asked if they wanted some company for the night. She could be theirs for the weekend – to do whatever we wanted.

James and his friend were taken aback at how young the girl appeared to be and asked her age. The bar owner told them that she was 15 – she looked frightened and intimidated by the owner. James and his friend asked how much it would cost to have her all weekend. The price? $7.00. They paid the bar fine and received a green, circular token. After they went outside they gave the girl $10.00 and told her to enjoy her weekend, sending her away to her family that lived in the next village. The look in this young girl’s eye haunts James to this day – as does, the green token he received in exchange for her freedom.

Making a Difference


In 2005 the Pond family along with another couple moved to Cambodia and co-founded and co-directed the Agape Restoration Center (ARC), which is a high-security, long-term aftercare facility for victims of sex trafficking. After the ARC facility was established, it was clear that a trend was emerging. Clients were no longer 8 years old and younger. In fact, the median age of girls, was 15 years old.

There was a critical issue at hand – girls were in need of more progressive services. They needed to acquire adult, independent living and job skills that would assist them in having healthy and productive lives outside of institutional care. They were not receiving this in the current programs. They realized that many organizations had initiated institutional care without any thought to the long-term implications. Athena’s greatest desire was to see girls developing outside of care and discovering their vocational and personal potential.



In October 2006, Athena and James piloted a transitional home model – called the Transitional Living Center (TLC) where older girls could live and do just that. The girls live in a family setting with a mentor and social worker. This allows them to transition into a low security environment and reintegrate into society with familiar oversight and social interaction. A model of care like this had not been used before and came with lots of challenges, but within a short time, they had an experienced staff, solid programs, and a center filled with wonderful clients.

The girls ranged in age from 16-22 years old and came from other centers and direct referrals from human rights organizations. The primary objective of TCI is to provide quality transitional housing for female survivors of commercial sexual exploitation of children.



Clients participate in high quality 21st century vocational training, education and/or establish themselves in a job in Phnom Penh or the surrounding area. Providing a stable and semi-independent transitional home will encourage and facilitate these young women in becoming self-sufficient and prevent re-trafficking and re-entering the commercial sex industry as adults. TCI is a passion and life’s work for the Pond family and each client and staff member is a part of their own family.



Interview with TCI Founder James Pond


What advice would you give to someone who wants to get involved in the fight against trafficking?
Understand the issue first before you jump in. The primary fields to be involved with are - Prevention (education, awareness, advocacy), Intervention (investigation, rescue planning, coordination of victim services - this one comes with a warning - don't go rescuing people unless you are a field professional who works with the legal system, law enforcement, or others! You do more damage by playing Rambo than you think), Rehabilitation (working directly with victims - medical, dental, therapy, life skills, love, etc.) and the hardest area Reintegration (this is getting girls back into society with their futures ahead of them). But, learn more first - intern, study, and get some experience.

What do you find to be the most challenging part of your job?
All of it...this is not glamorous work. It is heartbreaking work. But, the most challenging is really reintegrative strategies...finding girls the opportunities that they need and deserve can be the most frustrating.

How do you see TCI growing in the future?
Transitions is going to expand in Cambodia, providing transitional aftercare to survivors in three Cambodian cities (Siem Reap, Sihanoukville (or Koh Kong) and Svy Reing. We are also establishing the first human trafficking shelter in Portland Oregon, and we are also expanding our work by assisting other organizations in replicating our model of aftercare in Greece, Holland, Indonesia and beyond.

What is something that you have learned about trafficking since you got involved in the issue that completely surprised you?
The issues are not as cultural as I had once assumed. Children are trafficked around the world for the same reason - human greed. Money is universal. But, I think in terms of working with victims, it has been how complex this [issue] really is...even if a girl appears to be 'normal' in social settings, she is also sitting on a ticking time bomb of emotional trauma that needs to be addressed.

How can people help TCI?
Support a girl. I know it sounds simplistic and typical, but running an organization like this requires money. Giving girls viable futures is a fairly expensive venture. So, people can donate - anything - $5, $10, $50, $100 a month and make a tremendous impact. But, they can also tell people about the work being done - with family, friends, work, etc. and spread the word. Join the Facebook Cause for TCI. Hold a fund raiser - be creative! Intern - if you have skills and can give your time, we can find a place for you. For more ideas, give us a ring and tell us what you are thinking!

Visit the Transitions Cambodia, Inc. website

Join the TCI Facebook Cause

When rescue is not the end, but a beginning

Excerpts from an article on Ghanian child victims of trafficking in the July 2008 IOM Migration Magazine:

“The money I get from my parents to buy food at school is not enough and I am hungry,” pipes up an older boy.

Of all the refrains, this is the most often repeated.

The gathering on the beach is a weekly mentoring session for a group of former child victims of trafficking in Cape Coast in Ghana’s Central Region and an opportunity for the children to unburden their woes, get some advice, and some tutoring help with their schoolwork. Organized by Ghana’s Education Service, the mentoring is part of a package of services being provided by IOM, various government ministries and nongovernmental organisations (NGOs) to help Ghanaian child trafficking victims recover from their trauma and reintegrate into families and communities.

Since 2003, with funding from the US State Department’s Bureau of Population, Migration and Refugees (PRM), IOM has rescued nearly 650 children in Ghana knowingly or unknowingly trafficked by parents to work in fishing communities on Lake Volta in the belief they would be fed, educated and taught a useful trade.

The reality is often different. Forced to work painfully long hours doing heavy and dangerous work because owners or ‘masters’ can’t afford to pay adults to do their jobs, the children are also severely underfed and often abused physically and verbally.

Food- the Main Issue

Food, Mavis Narh says, is the issue in the counselling sessions with trafficked children. “If we could feed these children properly, we would see significant results in just a few short months.”

Faustina Amegashie-Aheto, head of a clinical unit in a district in the Volta region where 90 per cent of the children rescued by IOM live, would agree. A health assessment of 178 children a year after their rescue revealed that 38 per cent of the children were still suffering from stunted growth while 62 per cent were underweight. Although de-worming and improved food intake meant that these figures were a vast improvement on those just gleaned after the children’s rescue, they highlight the enormous work ahead to improve the children’s health.

Challenge of Finishing School

Julia Damalie of the Ghana Education Service and in charge of girl and child education in his district recognises the difficulties older trafficked children face when going back to school. “We may need to consider allowing the children to jump years if they have the ability. We know that some children would much rather not go to school any more because of this age difference issue and instead learn a trade but there is no such facility to provide this at the moment,” she explains.

“At the moment, the retention rate is over 90 per cent but that is because of our sponsorship. The reality is that if 50 per cent of these children actually go on and finish their schooling, the programme would be successful. But we won’t know this for several years,” says Jo Rispoli of IOM in Ghana.

There are also other emerging long-term issues that will bear on the outcome...

“We’ve made a great deal of progress but many challenges remain. The key is to secure enough funding to ensure that the future holds a promise for all the children,” adds Rispoli.

To contribute or to sponsor a child through IOM’s rescue and reintegration programme, please click here.

Ukraine takes steps to curb trafficking

From the Kyiv Post:

With no money, no husband, a sick mother and two children, Natalia became an ideal target for a human trafficking network that has claimed an estimated 100,000 victims in independent Ukraine.

Natalia’s journey took the 38yearold woman from her hometown in western Ukraine, to a brothel in Western Europe for six months and back again to her native country, where she is now working at a printing house.
While Ukraine continues to be a haven for traffickers, the situation is not entirely bleak and there is progress to report.

According to a recent U.S. State Department Trafficking in Persons Report, the Ukrainian government is doing a better job of punishing convicted traffickers, both through convictions and longer prison sentences. The government is also improving its prosecution of labor traffickers, training the judiciary and carrying out prevention strategies.

However, the State Department criticized the Ukrainian government for not doing enough to help victims. A weak witness protection program and a bias against sex trafficking victims which discourages many from testifying in courts, according to the report.

For example, Natalia, which is not her real name, is afraid to press charges against the woman who deceived her and then recruited her into the network where she was sexually exploited...

From 2000 to 2008, IOM assisted 5,214 Ukrainians who were trafficked for sexual and labor exploitation.

Jeffrey Labovitz, chief of mission in Ukraine for IOM, says trafficking in Ukraine remains an “acute problem” and says the government needs to take more responsibility to decrease the number of trafficked victims.

“They need to go after the big fish,” says Labovitz, speaking about the lack of prosecution against the traffickers, who adds that weak prosecution of traffickers prevents Ukraine from getting a top ranking for combating the problem.

The organization helps victims reintegrate into society and provides them with shelter, medical, psychological, legal and job placement assistance. It also runs five centers for migrant advice throughout the country where Ukrainians can get information on workers’ rights, contract terms, visas and fraudulent schemes used to lure workers abroad.

Labovitz believes that Ukraine has, over the last few years, improved its efforts to deal with trafficking by setting up a countertrafficking department within the Interior Ministry that employs over 300 employees. He also points to the statistics and says 90 percent of Ukrainians understand what trafficking is, a significant increase over the last five years, when only 60 percent of Ukrainians knew what trafficking was, he says.

Labovitz says partnerships to reduce human trafficking are crucial. “You need the government, civic society, corporate Ukraine and international organizations working together to get the maximum effect,” he said. Joint efforts remain essential to tackling this problem and over the years more partnerships have been formed between the public and private sector.
Partnership programs between international organizations and the government have helped Ukraine rise from the Tier 2 watch list, a type of “red flag,” to Tier 2, a slight improvement...

New partnerships between the public and private sector are a recent phenomenon and more companies are climbing on board to raise awareness of trafficking. A new campaign was launched by Ukrainian oil company Galnaftogas in February 2008 that includes countertrafficking billboards at 12 OKKO gas stations in Lviv, Volyn and Zakarpattya oblasts warning travelers of human trafficking. In addition, three leading mobile companies Kyivstar, Life, MTS, have joined forces and set up a tollfree number “527” that provides information and assistance on trafficking to callers. Microsoft Ukraine has also donated software to seven nongovernmental organizations meant to train trafficked victims and help them with their job skills. MTV Ukraine has been involved by donating airtime for public service announcements informing viewers of the dangers of working abroad...

Natalia’s story

Despite a steadily improving economy that is reducing financial desperation, Natalia’s story is still all too common in Ukraine. Millions of people still remain mired in poverty or lowwage jobs in tiny villages scattered throughout the nation.

The IOM, which assisted Natalia, set up an interview between her and the Kyiv Post on the condition that her real name and other identifying information not be used. She is a woman with shortbrown hair, skyblue eyes and two gold teeth. Wearing an all-white crochet dress and a gold cross around her neck, her nails are not painted and her makeup is minimal.

Like many deceived victims, Natalia said she was destitute when a young woman approached her as she was working in a local market in her hometown. The woman asked if she was interested in working abroad.

“She promised good money,” says Natalia in a shaky voice, her mascara watering as tears begin to trickle down her face.

“This woman knew I had no money, no husband, a sick mother and two children and she knew I was desperate,” she says. Natalia was told she would work in the home of a family in a Western European nation.

It turned out to be a lie.

“When I arrived, I asked where the family was, where the washing machine was and all the other things I would need to help around the house. Suddenly a large man dressed in black threw cheap lingerie at me and said I had to work to pay off the cost of my travel, and that’s when I knew I had been trafficked. I knew I had been trafficked on the first day.”

Natalia worked with five other women from Ukraine and Moldova in a small apartment, where she was forced to service up to four men a day, she says. She worked in slavelike conditions for six months until she got pregnant and begged to be sent back to Ukraine by one of her customers, who refused to pay for an abortion. The abortion had to wait until she returned to Ukraine.

*Photo courtesy of IOM Mission in Ukraine

Why one girl refuses to remember

Part of an excellent story about how children cope with the horrors of tragedy, abuse, and exploitation:

From CNN:

Nway pretends that it never happened.

The storm didn't come. The wind didn't tear her home to pieces. The cyclone didn't sweep her mother and father away.

In those brief moments, when she tunes out the questions, the 7-year-girl from Myanmar can step back in time -- before May's Cyclone Nargis took everything away.

That's the girl aid workers from World Vision International, a Christian humanitarian group, found when they met Nway in her demolished village a month after the cyclone.

"When she was asked about the cyclone, she turned away and said she didn't remember anything about it, and left," says Ashley Clements, a World Vision worker who met Nway.

International relief groups know how to rebuild devastated countries like Myanmar. But how do they rebuild the lives of children like Nway? That's the challenge faced by groups trying to help child survivors of natural and manmade disasters.

Aid workers who deal with these children say the experience can drain their souls. They try to comfort children in Darfur, Sudan, who have seen their mothers raped; children in China who have seen their parents buried under rubble; children in Louisiana who watched their homes destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.

No matter where they encounter these children, these aid workers face the same question: How can a child remain a child after experiencing a tragedy?

Rose Kimeu, a disaster response specialist for World Vision in African and Latin America, says many children don't know how.

"They don't laugh. They don't smile," Kimeu says. "They have this look in their eyes that's very sad... It's something that breaks my heart over and over."

What Nway wants for her future

But some of the memories aid workers carry around with them are more painful to recall.

Dean Hirsch, president of World Vision International, just returned from visiting some of the child-friendly spaces. He was struck by the children's body language.

"A lot of the children were holding onto to each other," he says. "If their mother was there, they would hold onto her, or if she wasn't, they'd hold onto the workers."

The children spent a lot of time drawing pictures of their homes, toys and pets.

"They were trying to restore through their memories what they had," Hirsch says.
A child who loses a parent faces plenty of dangers, Hirsch says. They could suffer brain damage or stunted growth if they don't eat enough.

"If they lost their father, the income source is gone," he says. 'If it's the mother, it's that person who did the food and supplied the love."

The children face other risks as well. They become easy targets for human traffickers. Some girls are exploited sexually by men.

When World Vision established child-friendly spaces in Darfur, Kimeu, the group's disaster response specialist, says her staffers noticed something odd. No girls would visit.

They later found out why. Many of them had been raped or seen their mothers raped. World Vision had male workers in the child-friendly spaces.

"They will not go near a man," says. "They will simply not show up."

The healing process varies with each child, Kimeu says. She says there was one girl who was raped in Darfur who took a year to play with other children.

Some never heal. In Uganda, some former child soldiers introduced to the child-friendly spaces never learned to be children again.

"Former child soldiers are very difficult," Kimeu says. "Some of them have killed not one but several people."

Today, Nway is being helped toward her own recovery. She lives in a village with her aunt. She plays with her friends during the day in child-friendly spaces and looks after her little cousin.

At times, Nway returns to her old village with the adults. She walks over the ruins of her old school. She proudly wears a yellow silk blouse that was donated to her. But she and the other villagers have a difficult time ahead. The cyclone blew away rice, utensils, farming tools -- even the village's cows and buffalos were swept away.

Nway may no longer talk about her past but she will talk about her future. Clements, the World Vision staffer who visited her, once asked Nway what she wanted to be when she grew up.

She talked that time. Her answer revealed that though she might not be ready to talk about her own wounds, she's already becoming more sensitive to the pain of others.

"I want," she answered after hesitating, "to be a doctor."

Filipino Human Trafficking Victims Rescued in Florida

From Naples News:

Twenty-five of 50 Filipino human trafficking victims rescued last month in an east coast raid are settling in Collier County. Men and women, ranging from 21 to 29 years old, are being relocated to an undisclosed location, said Julie Rocco, program director with the Florida Coalition Against Human Trafficking.

The coalition wouldn’t say where they would be placed because the case remains under investigation. “We want to make sure this case moves to a prosecution,” Rocco said. The rest of the rescued Filipino victims are being relocated to Central Florida, Rocco said.

Victims of human trafficking were rescued in February from the hotel industry in Miami-Dade County, involving two employment agencies and a country club. Neither the office of Florida Attorney General Bill McCollum, nor Fort Myers-based U.S. Attorney Doug Molloy, could confirm or provide further information Wednesday on the case.

Donations can be made at the coalition’s office at 3333 Renaissance Blvd., suite 200, Bonita Springs, by calling 390-3350 or by calling Villarosa at 658-2555.

For more information, visit www.stophumantrafficking.org.

ILO Video: Human Trafficking in Moldova

Human Trafficking in Moldova: the trade of human misery

In Moldova, desperation, poverty, and high unemployment make young girls and women easy prey for traffickers, who promise them well paid jobs abroad. In a co-production with Rockhopper TV, ILO TV tells the story of Maria, forced to work illegally in Russia.

Fantastic documentary done with the help of the ILO and a trafficking victim willing to speak out and tell her story. While her situation sounds like many of the victims of trafficking, the story reveals a side of trafficking not as often exposed- trafficking in labor, especially for women. The information given by the ILO on the difficulty of reintegrating victims is particularly hard to hear. These organizations do their best to help victims and prevent future cases, but unless the overall economic situation of Moldova is improved, their tasks will be forever daunting. This video shows the many levels of cooperation between IOs, domestic organizations and government agencies.

The good piece of news from this story is that her trafficker was arrested, and the film takes you through the story of Maria confronting her traffickers. It's not easy for victims to come to this point. Fantastic documentary. 

Follow-up to a comment

A comment was posted by anonymous to my story on the Greek sex trafficking ring that was busted with the following article:

"Sex Trafficking Worker May Be Back With Traffickers"

The article discusses a trafficking victim from China who was brought to the UK under the guise of paying off a debt she owed on a loan to cover her parent's medical expenses. Essentially, she was forced to work without pay, as the debt and interest rate became insurmountable. After being rescued by the police, and the story made headlines in the local area, the victim became fearful for her family's life in China and fled. The police are unsure where she is.

Following the interviews the investigators placed her into safe accommodation. She would inevitably have had to go through a number of immigration checks and more lengthy interviews before eventually being flown home.

Det Con Jones believes the possible delay made Shirley take drastic action.

She said: "She knew she still had the debt to pay off. She knew the raid had been disclosed in the local papers and feared the man who collected the money would read it. She was fearful word would get back to Hong Kong and feared what would happen to her parents."To her, that threat was very real. She was desperate."

"While the victim wasn't shackled or kept in chains she told us her passport was taken from her and she was threatened not to leave. She was made fully aware that they knew exactly where her elderly parents lived. She told us: 'you cannot trust the Chinese police to help. They are not like you'."

"Her number one priority was her parents. There was no other family to care for them, only her. She would rather go back to Hong Kong and face the guy there, face that punishment than it be imposed on her parents."

It is thought Shirley fled the safe accommodation just hours later and disappeared.

Investigators are unable to say where she is now, or whether she made it back to her parents.There is even a concern she may have been recaptured by the traffickers. Reports have found trafficked women who escape the clutches of their pimps are often tracked down, often at ports or airports, and threatened back into the trade.

I thought the headline was pretty misleading. When I saw it at first, I thought the article was accusatory that after the help she received, she turned around and went right back to the trade. This story, to me, highlights two important points.

1.) The treatment of victims is a complicated process and just because a victim is out of the immediate situation does not mean they feel safe nor are they completely out of the grasps of their traffickers. Just because the trafficker was caught in the country of destination does not mean those in the country of origin will not try to silence their victims or their families.

2.) The responsibility of the media to be careful about how they report trafficking cases. Due to the multiple layers of running a trafficking ring, breaking up one part of it does not ensure the rest of the organization will not threaten the victim. In Ukraine, some of the organizations I work with even do training for the media on how to provide victim-sensitive reporting on human trafficking. There were many problems with reports that blamed the victim, gave specific names, etc. All of which either re-traumatized the victim or put him/her back in harms way.

Now with all that said, there are cases where victims end up returning to their traffickers and pimps. Either they feel to threatened to continue to talk to the police, or their trafficker has made direct threats to his or her family, or the abuse they suffered puts them in a position that they feel compelled to return to their abuser. It could be they fear returning to their own country and community, either due to the humiliation they will suffer or knowing the economic situation hasn't changed. The situations all need to be considered when providing aid to a victim in order to build the most effective services possible. It also needs to be considered by the governments who want to stop this problem as far as creating effective criminal code and social services.