An arrest and a rescue

"Bin" and "Thay" are teen girls, not quite 15 years old; and yet already have been through a hell most of us will never know.

Each was taken separately. Although they are both from Ha Giang province in northern Vietnam, they didn't know each other before they met in the most horrible of circumstances: a brothel in China.

Their trafficker was a woman (pictured), a member of a gang that routinely traffics underage Vietnamese girls to China and sells them for sex. The trafficker used the same tricks to get both Bin and Thay across the border.

The trafficker writes out her confession in a police station. 

The girls are from outlying districts of the province, and so were heading in to the main township to prepare for the new school year. The trafficker met them at the bus station, showered them with kindness and took them for a meal. Finally, she called on a "relative" - another trafficker - to go and buy them some new clothes... and instead of heading toward town, they crossed into China and were handed over to more gang members.

What happened to them next is deeply troubling.

Bin's "virginity" was sold several times; she was stitched back up and re-sold after each rape. She was then sold to the brothel. Altogether, Bin was in the hands of the traffickers for 12 days.

Thay was taken first to a distant district in China where she was handed over to a brothel; but Chinese police came close to finding her and so she was moved back closer to Vietnam, where she ended up in the same place as Bin. Thay lived through 25 days of this hell.

Both girls were rescued by Chinese police on Sunday night, acting on information sent by the Vietnamese police. They are now back at home safely with their families.

"Bin" and "Thay" back in Vietnam, on their way to make statements to police. 

This trafficking ring is one that Blue Dragon has encountered before. Earlier this year, we were involved in the repatriation of 2 teen girls who jumped out of a window to escape a brothel. While the girls made it home OK, their traffickers have been evading police - until now.

Over the weekend, we had a call from the Ha Giang police informing us that the ring was back and was about to traffic some new victims. Our team headed straight up to the remote province to join in the search for the traffickers; it was a long trip but we found the woman in the early hours of Sunday morning. Once in the police station, she confessed everything and gave up details of where Bin and Thay were, enabling the Chinese police to bring them home and arrest the brothel owners.

Since then, 2 other ring members were caught and 2 more are on the run. They don't have much time left: they'll be caught for sure.

Later this year we will represent Thay and Bin in court, when their traffickers finally face trial. Seeing justice done is an important part of the healing process, and both Bin and Thay will need an awful lot of healing in the weeks and months ahead.

 

The ghost and the gang

In the past month, Blue Dragon's Legal Advocacy team has represented two children in court. Although they were both cases of sexual abuse, they were completely separate matters.

The first case went to court in July. A 44 year old man, Lan, was sentenced to 4 years in prison for abusing underage boys. He was caught back in March, when my team had information about Lan being in a hotel with a 13 year old boy, "Nam." We called the police, who raided the hotel and caught the man and his pimp, who will go to court in a separate trial soon.

Blue Dragon had known of Lan for over a year; he was a con artist, posing as a fortune teller while traveling around Vietnam with at least 3 boys by his side at all times. Although he kept a steady group of boys, he also picked up new boys along the way - homeless kids or children living in extreme poverty - to abuse them for a night and then throw them out.

Lan moved from hotel to hotel continuously, using fake ID cards to avoid capture, and the March raid on his hotel room was the first time we had ever laid eyes on him. Despite knowing 7 of his victims, Lan had made himself almost impossible to find. Among our staff, we nicknamed him "The Ghost," because every time we came close to locating him, he seemed to vanish. But not this time.

The second case went to court today. The accused were a gang of youths who had entrapped and raped a 13 year old girl, "Hien," after finding her homeless and penniless at one of Hanoi's lakes.

Blue Dragon met Hien on the street the day after she had been attacked and took her straight to the police. The gang was known to us and they were easy to identify and catch. The shock, though, was that 2 of the offenders were children themselves; and one of them, arguably the ringleader, was a 13 year old girl. These 2 kids are too young to even be charged, and yet both are notorious in the area for theft, dealing drugs, and a range of petty crimes.

The convictions for the gang members varied considerably. While the 2 children will be sent to reform school for 2 years (as they are now both aged over 14), one of the young men was sentenced to 18 years in prison. That's how serious the crime was.

 The gang in court: Wednesday August 20, 2014

Protecting, sheltering, and defending Vietnam's children is a part of Blue Dragon's work that has grown over time. Not only do we deal with many more cases now than just a few years ago, but the cases are far more serious in nature. Often they are very dark.

Nam and Hien have both been through incredibly traumatic experiences, and the court cases were stressful times for them both. But for what it's worth, they have had justice: their abusers have been detained and sentenced.

As I wrote last week, there's no doubt that Vietnamese society is under pressure and that children are feeling it the most. We have no choice but to hope that things can, and will, get better.

Something has to change

Vinh* is 14 years old. He is homeless, sleeping in one of Hanoi's many supposedly-outlawed 24 hour internet cafes. He plays computer games all day, and when he runs out of money he contacts a pimp who calls himself "Aunty" and makes money from trafficking underage boys.

Most of the "buyers" are Vietnamese men, although several foreigners are involved and don't appear to fear getting caught.

Vietnam prides itself on its concern for children and yet seems unable to offer protection to boys like Vinh. Earlier this year he was detained and sent to a Protection Centre, which kept him from danger for some months; but when he was released at the end of July, he was simply shown to the front gate, given a few dollars, and left to find his own way from there. Vinh returned to Hanoi and walked  straight back in the arms of the pimps and traffickers.

While international aid agencies turn away from Vietnam, declaring it a Middle Income country no longer in need of assistance, social problems like this are only just beginning. Vietnam is at a stage of development at which its economic growth has been massively impressive, but the consequences of rapid change are starting to be felt. Blue Dragon staff see the effects on young people daily: and often, what we see is frightening.

Teenage girls have formed gangs that live in hotels, funding elaborate lifestyles by selling methamphethamines. Fifteen and 16 year old boys go out at night breaking into houses, stealing iphones and motorbikes, then celebrate by spending big on prostitutes, online games, and drugs.

And Vinh is not alone in his life of selling sex; he is just one of a network of over 20 boys known to Blue Dragon, all aged under 17, who meet men on Facebook or at one of several known locations to earn $5 - $15 a night.

This isn't acceptable in any society; but the pace of development in Vietnam has been so fast, and often the benefits have been so unequally distributed, that social decay has been unavoidable.

Repairing the damage is going to be incredibly difficult - but not impossible. Vietnam's economic miracle now needs to be matched with a social miracle. Society cannot fail Vinh by leaving him to the predators; something has to change, and it must change soon.


 * Name changed to protect his identity. 

Graduating

When Blue Dragon was just beginning, our focus was on getting street kids and homeless children into safe homes and schools. And while that's still a large part of what we do, along the way something else has happened: those kids have grown up and many have set their sights on tertiary studies and careers.

This month, 12 Blue Dragon kids are graduating from university and college. Every other day, one of them turns up at Dragon House, an envelope of results in hand, to proudly tell us that they've finished.

To help the kids through their studies, Blue Dragon offers scholarships, which are part loans and part grants. The loans are interest free and repayable over several years; we've tried to find the delicate balance of making the scholarship program sustainable without adding an unbearable burden on the students.

We've only been operating the loan scheme for a couple of years, but already the kids' commitment to repaying their loans is remarkable. Just a few weeks ago, Chinh (pictured below) graduated from her law degree and came to repay her loan immediately, from savings at her part time job. What makes this even more remarkable is that Chinh is blind.

Another recent graduate is Minh, pictured in the black shirt. This photo was taken in 2005 at a Blue Dragon United soccer game; at the time, Minh was one of our youngest (and smallest!) players.

(Click here to learn about Blue Dragon United).

Minh's huge smile belied a very difficult life, but after coming into contact with Blue Dragon through the weekly soccer games, things started to turn around. We gave him and his mother all the help they needed to get Minh through school; and now, 9 years later, Minh has just graduated with a degree in Tourism. He's worked hard to get this far, and with the right support along the way he's achieved some great results. Now he can't wait to find his first job and start leading tours through Vietnam!

In many ways, Chinh and Minh are just regular kids: they're university graduates who have done their best and set their hopes high. Their personal hardships, however, have been much greater than most have to bear, making their success even more inspiring.

Vietnam, and our world, needs more people like them.

And NOW look what he's made!

Back in 2009, I posted a photo of a boy named Than with his beautiful artwork at a Children's Home in central Vietnam:

(... and the original link is here).

Than is 21 years old now, and he's graduated from decorating the walls of the Home to studying at Art College. Even though he's still a student (one more year to go!), he already has people lining up to buy his work.

It's been a long hard road, and Than has had a lot of help along the way; but he's worked hard and made the very best of every opportunity. Truly an inspiring young man!