Test Case

The sex trafficking and sexual assault of boys in Vietnam are issues that have been snowballing over the past 2 years. Blue Dragon has been coming across new cases every week; some weeks, we meet 3 or 4 boys who have been abused. Their stories are painful and heartbreaking, without exception.

This week, a story in the local media has garnered significant attention: a 14 year old deaf and intellectually impaired boy in Nghe An province (north-central Vietnam) was tortured and brutally raped by a neighbour. Identified only as "T," the boy is in a state of shock and pain; doctors and police alike have been unable to understand what has happened and their own limited experience of such cases means they don't know where to start.

The accused rapist is on the run, and T is in hospital being treated.  His parents are desperately poor and aren't even sure how they will pay the hospital bill. The Vietnamese media, not being very sensitive to privacy concerns, have published multiple stories featuring photos of the boy and his bloody injuries. (In case you want to know more about the story, the article with the least-intrusive image is here. It's in Vietnamese, but online translations can give you the general idea).

In short: T is in a desperate situation and his family is deeply distraught.  Their world has come crashing down around them.

Seeing how difficult this case is, and having experience of working with abused boys, Blue Dragon's Chief Lawyer, Mr Van, has today traveled to Nghe An to meet the family and talk with the police and doctors about the case. This afternoon, we have agreed to represent T in court, once the rapist is caught, and we are working with the police to lay a charge of sexual assault, even though the law is unclear on this point. (Vietnamese law doesn't clearly recognise that males can be the victims of sexual assault; so in this case the offender can be charged with assault, but not rape).

While our hope is to have the rapist charged as such - and not only for the violent physical assault he committed - we also need to get this family some material support. Their situation is dire.

By getting involved like this, we're taking a step into the unknown. We can't even be sure the accused offender will be caught, but we have to give it our best. T and his family need, and deserve, a helping hand.

It's equally important that the police in this case can see the bigger picture here: any person who rapes a child cannot be allowed to get away with it, whether the victim is a boy or a girl. 

In some ways, this is a test case to make sure an abused boy can be afforded full legal protection. But it's also a real case about a kid who has had his life messed up and is in desperate need.

And so I'm taking the unusual step in my blog of asking for help. We're estimating that about $3000US will be needed for immediate medical help, for the costs of legal representation, and for some decent medium-term support for T once he gets through this ordeal.

If this is something you can help with, head over to the Blue Dragon website and make a donation - any amount will make a difference.

www.bluedragon.org/donate/

If you're using PayPal, choose "Justice for 'T' Campaign" in the drop down list. If you're donating by bank transfer or through AFAP (for Australians who would like tax deductibility), please send an email to chi@bdcf.org so that our staff member, Ms Chi, knows your donation is for T.


I'll post updates in coming days and weeks about how T is faring, and how the legal case progresses. There are just too many injustices in our world. This is one that I hope we can do something about.

Fairytale ending

Could it be true?

Could we really have such a fairytale ending?

In late 2005, Blue Dragon met a 13 year old boy selling flowers on the streets of Ho Chi Minh City. That boy, Ngoc, had been trafficked by gang of women who forced him to work through the night, taking everything he earned and beating him if he failed to sell enough.

Ngoc was the first victim of trafficking we had ever met, and so became the first trafficking victim we rescued.

As we investigated how Ngoc had been trafficked, we discovered an extensive problem of child trafficking for labour throughout the province of Hue in central Vietnam. Several months later, we set out on our first "rescue mission" to bring home a group of children trafficked by that same gang.

Among the group was one young girl named Bich Ngoc - the first girl we rescued from trafficking.

Yesterday, with a day of noisy parties in a village in central Vietnam, Ngoc and Bich Ngoc became husband and wife. The first boy we ever rescued from trafficking and the first girl we ever rescued from trafficking are now a family.

Both Ngoc and Bich Ngoc work in a restaurant in Hanoi; they are a fine young couple, supporting their families back home in the countryside, as is the culture, while also saving for their future lives together.

If ever we need evidence that rescuing trafficked children has a long term impact, surely this is it. Even I would never have dreamt of such a happy ending.

The danger in staying safe

In recent months I have been writing about the incredible dangers that Hanoi's street kids face: in particular, the danger of being trafficked and sexually exploited.

So far this week, Blue Dragon's Street Outreach team has met 3 new homeless boys. Two have already been sexually abused, and are now in our care.

The third has managed to avoid the traffickers and pedophiles by living on a bridge, in a hiding spot so dangerous that even our Outreach staff were afraid when they went to see... And given the dangers that our Outreach staff routinely face, that really says something.

Below are some pictures to tell the story better than words can.

This first photo is a view over the side of the bridge, looking down at the entrance to the hiding spot, about 8 metres above the river. 

And this is a shot taken inside the 'living quarters' where 3 or 4 homeless kids have been living.

To escape the dangers on the streets, the kids are hiding in places that put their lives at very great risk. This is a terrible situation, and one that we cannot sit back and accept.

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!

This ain't no Vocational Training program...

This morning, Blue Dragon has rescued 4 children from garment factories in Ho Chi Minh City: 3 boys and 1 girl. All are aged 13 and 14, and all are from rural villages in central Vietnam.

Before the day is out, we hope to find at least one more child whose family has asked us to bring her home.

The pictures below have been caught on a phone-camera; not high quality, but they give you the idea of where these kids have been living and working.

 

I'm commonly asked how and why parents let their kids go with these traffickers. Are the families profiting from this? Are they lousy parents, selling their children?

In short: No. They're very rarely bad parents. Instead, they're desperate parents with very few resources and low education who are deceived by the false promises the traffickers make. When they realise they've been tricked, they want nothing other than to have their children safely back at home.

The most common lie that the traffickers tell is that they have Vocational Training programs; the kids can go to the big city in the south, learn to be tailors, and make a great income in just a few years! The photos tell a very different story. This is slavery, pure and simple.

A 13 year old girl leaving a factory today 

with Blue Dragon's Chief Lawyer

Blue Dragon has been getting kids out of these factories since 2006. They're small, home-based factories scattered all around the industrial suburbs of Ho Chi Minh City. Once the kids are safe, we report to the police and let them decide how to deal with the factories. But we don't want to be doing this work forever; we hope that our constant raids and the attention of Vietnamese media will be enough to get the factory owners to change their minds about using child slaves, and there's already some evidence that the tide is turning. We sure hope so.

One for the boys

Ninh and Tan* say they are 12 and 13 years old respectively. They look much younger than that, and in reality they probably don't know when they were born.

The boys are neighbours from a Hmong community in northern Vietnam. Five months ago, a trafficker came to their village offering help to impoverished families, and took the boys along with 3 young men with the promise of short term work.

None of the group had been away from their village before, so they had no idea they were being taken to China. Within a week they were enslaved in a shoe-making factory far from home, working impossibly long hours and being fed starvation rations. Their boss was cruel and savage; the workers lived in terrible fear.

Earlier this week, Ninh and Tan had a reprieve from the factory. The boss, a Chinese businessman, took them to the market to help him carry home some supplies. While walking through the streets, the older of the 2 boys spotted a policeman. Taking an incredible risk, they ran away from their boss and clung to the Chinese policeman, who couldn't understand a word they said but recognised the terror in their eyes.

The boys were lucky; their risk paid off. The Chinese police found a translator and learned that the boys had been trafficked. Unfortunately, Ninh and Tan could not recall the location of the factory, so while have now been repatriated to Vietnam, their friends remain enslaved in China.

On Saturday morning the boys reached and Hanoi and spent time at Blue Dragon before our anti-trafficking team started the journey back to their home town. It will be at least 20 hours before they get there; the distance is not so great, but there are few roads between here and there. Ninh and Tan have spoken to their families over the phone and are excited to finally being back with their mums and dads.

Talking to them over lunch, I asked the older boy Tan about the experience of running to the Chinese police. "Weren't you afraid to take such a risk?" I asked.

Tan's answer was bold and forthright. "We were afraid, but we had to do it," he said. "We had to escape no matter what."

Aged just 13, and already deserving of a medal for heroism. His escape could have gone horribly wrong, and he could well have ended up being re-sold to another trafficker, or beaten severely by his boss, or... well, the possibilities are endless.

When we think of human trafficking, we tend to think singularly of girls. The evidence definitely suggests that girls and women are more at risk of being trafficked than males; but the anti-trafficking services for boys and men are a mere fraction of the services for girls and women. The imbalance is too great.

I've been looked in the eye by people who work in anti-trafficking telling me that Blue Dragon simply should not rescue or work with boys who have been trafficked. We should focus exclusively on girls, I have been told.

This issue of boys' needs being overlooked and ignored is not just a pity. It's not just an imbalance. It's a violation of human rights and, in some instances, it borders on criminal negligence.

Boys are being trafficked into violent, dangerous, life-threatening slavery. They are also being trafficked into sexual servitude, although the scale is barely understood or acknowledged.

Here in Hanoi, the Blue Dragon team meets homeless boys every week who have encountered traffickers offering them money in exchange for sex - sometimes here in Hanoi, and sometimes in locations outside the city. We know of a pagoda and a pho shop which are bases for the trafficking of boys. We see the traffickers using Facebook on a routine basis to approach boys, befriend them, and then ensnare them. I'll be writing more about this in coming weeks.

So why are the boys less deserving of services and assistance than girls? Clearly they are not; the need is equal, whether the child is a girl or a boy. But we see girls as 'victims' and so are moved by their plight, while we continue to think that boys should be able to look after themselves. This is why there are people unafraid to elicit the view that boys should not receive help so long as there are girls in need.

To put it bluntly: The anti-trafficking industry needs to re-align its values to get help to those who need it most, and not only those who more easily attract public sympathy and, therefore, funding.

Ninh and Tan are on their way home as I write; by late Sunday they'll be back with their families. They have been through a frightening ordeal but now have a chance to return to a normal life. My hope is that the police now have enough information to round up the traffickers who took these boys, and also to find the other young men who were taken to slavery in China.

Girl or boy, man or woman. Any person trafficked in to slavery deserves a chance to escape and start over.

* Not their real names

The little red book

We all know what's most important in life: good health, an education, a place to live, and people to care for us.

But there's one thing we often take for granted... Something so basic that we rarely stop to consider it.

A legal identity.

Having an identity is among the most basic rights we have. When we're born, we are registered and receive a birth certificate. That's not a certificate to congratulate us on being born... it's an official acknowledgement of existence.

In the west, we complain about bureaucracy and procedures every time we need a new passport or we change our name and need a new driver's licence. Fair enough. But imagine the hassle of having no legal identity at all.

Not having a legal identity means that all the basics are out of reach: you can't enroll in school, you can't go to hospital, you can't get a job, you can't rent a house, you can't get a driver's licence, you can't apply for state welfare. You can't do any of this because you don't officially exist.

Throughout Vietnam, there are countless families who have never had a legal identity. They tend to live in remote rural areas, although plenty of city dwellers also have no paperwork to their names.

Blue Dragon has an amazing Legal Advocacy Team who travel the country assisting people in all sorts of difficult situations, including children and families who have no legal identity.

One of our strategies is to work in particular regions where the incidence of poverty is extremely high, and register local citizens en masse. This means that not only do the people end up with their legal identities, but the local government has an opportunity to learn to do this work themselves.

Early in June, Blue Dragon's Legal Advocates registered over 400 people in Muong Ang district of Dien Bien province - this is right off the beaten track in north-west Vietnam. All of the people we registered belonged to ethnic minority groups; almost none spoke Vietnamese.

We traveled with local government officials out into the villages, set up in community spaces, and then went about inviting people to come and register.

This may sound like a simple and mundane paperwork exercise, but the personal impact of this is enormous.

Prior to the registration campaign beginning, our lawyer Hong spoke to a group of almost 60 families, to help them understand the importance of registering. One of the mothers approached her and said:

None of the members of my family has personal papers yet, but we don't really care. It's not important, because none of us goes to school or to work, and we never leave our village.

Later in the day, after the meeting and the registration work were all finished, the same mother found her way back to Hong to say:

Thank you so much for organising this. Now I understand why these documents are important to my family. It will make life much easier when my children grow up and go to school or go to work. Now that we have this paper, my elderly mother can receive a monthly allowance from the government. The commune leader even promised to start supporting her from next month!

Those few pieces of paper - the "little red book" with all registration details and personal documents - make a huge difference. Now that we have completed registering citizens in this commune, we are already planning the next campaign, and hope to register at least 400 more people soon.

My Hero

The truth that I have known for many years is now official.

Van Ta, Blue Dragon's own Chief Lawyer, is a Hero - with a capital "H."

On Friday morning in Washington DC, Secretary of State John Kerry awarded Van the prestigious Trafficking In Persons Hero Award from the United States government.

Many people know of Van's work, but few know of Van himself. He spearheads Blue Dragon's anti-trafficking work; he finds and rescues children and young women taken for exploitative labour and sex work against their will; and he defends victims in court, ensuring justice according to the law.

Among all his other work defending victims of  crime and registering citizens who have never been officially registered with the government, Van has rescued 331 children and young women from trafficking. That's 331 people who have been taken from home and held captive; and Van has located them and found a way to set them free. His rescue work sometimes involves raiding the places of slavery, and sometimes involves assisting victims to escape and, without exaggeration, make a run for their lives.

But Van is not a household name, both out of a genuine humility and out of a need for safety. To be blunt, Van's work is dangerous, yet he has never hesitated or put himself first. Nor has he ever sought the spotlight.

I first met him at a party for blind children in September 2003. Van was a bright eyed law student intent on changing the world, and I was in the early days of creating Blue Dragon Children's Foundation. Immediately on meeting me, Van declared that he wanted to volunteer for Blue Dragon, and that he would like to work for us for a couple of years after graduating from law school. It was as though he could foresee both the challenges and the victories that lay ahead.

In the early years, Van's work was largely with homeless children and unregistered citizens. One of his first great successes was reuniting a runaway teenage boy with his mother in the countryside. Van was welcomed as a hero by the entire village; they had feared that the missing teen was dead and would never be heard of again.

That teenage boy went on to complete school, go through tertiary studies, and is now the IT Coordinator at Blue Dragon HQ.

Van's first encounter with human trafficking was a couple of years later, in 2005, when I met a trafficked boy on the streets of Saigon. Van and I worked out a plan to rescue the boy, and in getting him home to central Vietnam we were shocked to learn of the extent of trafficking in the region. So we embarked on a process of finding and rescuing trafficked children, bringing them home from the streets and sweatshops of Saigon, and reuniting them with their families.

As of today, we have rescued a total of 260 girls and boys who have been trafficked for forced labour within Vietnam.

Two years later, Van conducted his first rescue of girls trafficked to China. A teen girl we knew from Hanoi had gone missing, and she made a call for help in July 2007. All we knew was that she was in China; she didn't know which town she was in, or how close it was to Vietnam. But she was desperate for help. Not knowing what else to do, Van headed to China, found her, and rescued her - along with 6 other girls being held in the same brothel. All had been deceived and entrapped; all lived in fear for their lives. Today, thanks to Van, all are free.

But that first rescue trip was exceptionally dangerous. Van was lucky to make it back alive, and for a few hours I had no idea where he was or what had happened. When he finally did re-emerge, we agreed that this China rescue was to be a one-off. No more rescue missions in China!

Well... except that by now he has rescued a total of 71 girls and young women from brothels and forced marriages in China.

This award from the US government is richly deserved. Van and his family have given themselves totally to the service of others; there is not a day that Van does not help another person. The only other person who is anything like Van is his wife, who is also an exceptional legal advocate.

The formality of the ceremony, and the associated visits to the White House and other government institutions, is quite a contrast to the normal pace of Van's life.  Van's rescues and legal work are fast-paced, intense, and relentless. It's unusual for Van to have a few hours of peace; around Blue Dragon HQ we joke about how hard it is to get 5 minutes with him. Secretary Kerry doesn't realise how privileged he is to have Van in one place for a 30 minute ceremony!

I am incredibly proud of Van. This blog isn't a place for formalities, but it must be said: Van, on behalf of all the children, families, and young adults you have rescued from slavery and whose lives you have changed... Congratulations. Stand tall and proud, for you are truly a hero to many.

And most of all, Van, you are a hero to me.

Hero of the streets

Meet Vi, hero to many of Hanoi's homeless and neglected kids. In a world where the bad guys always seem to make the news, this is one story that deserves to be told.

Second home

For the past month I have been on the road, catching up with friends and supporters in both Australia and New Zealand. As usual, it's been a whirlwind trip with not enough time, but along the way I have found great encouragement and inspiration.

I'm in New Zealand at the moment, where Blue Dragon has some very special connections. We have some great NZ friends, particularly people who have spent time in Vietnam and come to know or even volunteer at the Blue Dragon centre. And even more than that, New Zealand has become the second home to several Blue Dragon kids, who have been incredibly fortunate to earn scholarships to study here.

The NTEC College in Auckland has trained up 3 of our young people in the past, and now a fourth is studying there: a young man named Can, who is in his first year of a business course. One of NTEC's past students, Chinh, now lives and works in Taupo, where he joined forces with friends and supporters of Blue Dragon to organise a fantastic fundraising dinner. Chinh is so much a part of the community that, during the evening, the president of the local soccer club in which he plays asked me if we could send 10 more "Chinh's" to Taupo!

 Singers and dancers at the Blue Dragon Taupo dinner!

The community spirit in Taupo was extraordinary. Dozens of local businesses and companies supported the event, and the director of a language school, the Taupo Language & Outdoor Education Centre, announced that they would offer a scholarship to one Blue Dragon student to study English. What an incredible opportunity - and that will be the second time the school has offered us such a scholarship.

Meanwhile the financial community from around New Zealand came together for a boxing match in Auckland; some participants even flew in from Australia to take part. It was all great fun, and the boxers were mostly bankers, slogging it out for the kids of Blue Dragon. I'd never been to a boxing match before that, and it definitely ranks up there with 'unusual fundraising events' - but it was a terrific event!

Fighting for the kids of Blue Dragon

And finally I traveled south to Wellington, where the Blue Dragon Children's Trust (New Zealand) has been supporting our work in Vietnam for about 4 years now. The Trust organises an annual book fair in Ngaio, as well as a film evening; they're a great bunch of friends who really care about Blue Dragon and Vietnam.

 Annual book fair in Ngaio - every April!

While here, I attended a ball organised by the students of St Oran's College, and visited both Wellington College and Hutt International Boys' School. All around, it's been incredibly encouraging to receive such support and interest. I'll be heading back to Vietnam tomorrow with a renewed energy - and it's just as well, because so much is going on at Blue Dragon.

During this time away, we've been involved in rescuing kids from garment factories and young women trafficked into China; and now we are preparing to represent a former victim of trafficking in court on Tuesday. These have all been very significant cases; not only for the people involved, but because of the implications of our work. Every child who is rescued, and every trafficker who is detained, signals to the world that trafficking is not, and never will be, acceptable. All the money that Blue Dragon's friends have raised here in New Zealand will be going to the Blue Dragon Rescue! appeal to ensure that even more kids can be brought home and kept safe.

And so, I am excited to be heading home to Vietnam, and ready to get back into the swing of things. The support of our NZ friends has been amazing - and I hope to be back soon!

P.S.: Listen out on Monday  June 16 for an interview with Bryan Crump - Radio New Zealand from 7pm.

The rescue plan

With Blue Dragon's rescue appeal well underway, lots of people are asking: How do you actually do it? How does a rescue of a trafficking victim work? 

So we've created this chart to show the steps involved. It's up on the website, too, if you want to have a look there.

 

It's possible

This has been a great month at Blue Dragon.

We've rescued 4 children from sweatshops - 2 girls and 2 boys, all 13 years old.

We've assisted 2 girls aged 16 who had been trafficked from Vietnam to China, held against their will for 10 days, and were to be sold to a brothel. They escaped by jumping out of a 3rd story window.

We've reunited 5 homeless teens with their families. These are all boys who had run away from home for a variety of reasons, and were sleeping rough in Hanoi.

And the month isn't yet over: we're still looking for more kids who have been trafficked, and have met more homeless teens who are in need of help.

For the Blue Dragon team in Vietnam, it can often seem like we just deal with one problem after another... and the problems keep coming.

But there is such tremendous hope that things can get better, lives can change. There will always be somebody else in need of help, but we will never be powerless to help them.

As long as we can see that change is possible, we'll keep on working. 

Terrified

Over the weekend, Blue Dragon's rescue team went in search of children trafficked from the central province of Hue to the garment factories of Ho Chi Minh City.

We're looking for more than 20 kids in total, and so far have found 4. We'll get them home today, and continue the investigation to find the others in coming weeks.

Of the 4 children, 2 were girls and 2 were boys. All aged 13. All trafficked on the false promise of training and education. All sold to home-based businesses which produce clothes and garments.

Last night, the team sent through a brief report about the kids and their conditions. Among the info was this statement:

Hard to explain what the kids are going through. When we were in the car, we asked one of the kids: 'What do you think about being here in Ho Chi Minh City?' The boy replied instantly: 'Terrified.' It sounds like he has endured that kind of feeling since he arrived here. 


That boy, and 3 other children from rural Vietnam, are heading home today. They have a 600km journey ahead of them, a beautiful reunion with family when they get there. But more children are out there somewhere, hoping that somebody will be along to find them and take them home too.

And a postscript: 

This month Blue Dragon launched an appeal for funds; we desperately need to raise money to expand this rescue work and find more kids like these 4. If you believe that this kind of work is important, please donate so that more kids can escape the terror of trafficking. Every dollar helps.

The end is not nigh, but that's OK

I received an email this morning, inviting me to end human trafficking by supporting a particular charity.

It's a wonderful thought, that we really can end human trafficking. As the founder of a charity that also fights trafficking, perhaps people expect that I, too, believe in "ending it."

But my view is that human trafficking is like an incurable, yet treatable, disease. We will always have it with us. There's no permanent end, no miracle cure to be had.

So then - is it hopeless? Absolutely not!

The fight against trafficking is a fight worth waging. Here's why.

1. The battles are just as important as the war.

While human trafficking may well be with us forever (and if not, I will gladly admit I am wrong!), specific aspects of it can be extinguished. Here in Vietnam, Blue Dragon is aiming to see the end of rural children being trafficked to sweat shops; that's a whole trade in human misery that can feasibly  be brought to an end.

2. Reduction is worthwhile, even if abolition is unattainable.

If we cannot end trafficking once and for all, it is still a worthy goal to reduce it and curtail its growth. Medical science shouldn't abandon the idea of treating sick people simply because they cannot always succeed and more people will get sick; and nor should we give up the fight against trafficking simply because some people will still get trafficked.

3. There's a 'conscience' element to this.

Human trafficking stirs emotions. Recent years have seen a surge in support for the anti-trafficking movement: everyone from school kids to celebrities are speaking up about it. Something about human trafficking touches on our conscience, no matter who we are; it's a despicable crime, and deep down we all know it. Unlike most other crimes committed in our world, this is one that stirs us to act. To do nothing would be akin to the crime itself.

4. Ask a trafficked person.

In the 'development sector' we prefer to use the term 'survivor' rather than 'victim' because the former is empowering, the latter disempowering; but a person who has been trafficked has experienced a degradation of the worst kind. They have been victims. Trafficking imprisons people and puts them to work against their will, usually for some form of menial or dangerous labour, or for sex. Nobody who has been trafficked would question the value of doing something about it. Even if we cannot end all trafficking, there are individual victims - survivors, if you will - who are right now hoping that someone will come and help them. We can end it for some, even if not for all.


I do fear that trafficking is a disease our world will always have to live with. But I don't fear that we can therefore do nothing, nor that we must accept trafficking as part of the human condition.

The end of human trafficking is not nigh, but that's OK. There's still plenty that we can do, and that's worth doing.

The hanger

Every week, Blue Dragon's Street Outreach team meets new kids who are in complicated and dangerous situations on the streets of Hanoi. Many are the target of traffickers, which is a relatively new phenomenon for the city; boys as well as girls face serious exploitation unless they get help quickly.

One boy, "Vu," was in such a situation when we met him almost 2 years ago, aged 13.

His family loved him very much, but several complexities lead him to leaving home and taking to the streets, where he immediately became a target for traffickers. Although Vu met Blue Dragon's Outreach workers, he was in such a state of despair that he didn't know who to trust. And then he vanished.

About a year later, he resurfaced. He was taller and seemed physically healthy, but his face belied the truth. Vu had been through a year of hell.

Even now, Vu says almost nothing about what happened during that year. But we know enough to understand the deep pain he lives with. One comfort is that, thanks to Blue Dragon's work with the Vietnamese police, 2 of the main people responsible for his 'year of hell' now live in prison cells.

Most of the trafficked boys who we work with act out their pain by getting in to all sorts of trouble. Not a week goes by that one of them doesn't get caught by the police for some minor violation... or come to tell us that their girlfriend is pregnant... or drops out of school for a few days. But not Vu. He quietly and smilingly goes about making friends with everyone at Blue Dragon. He tries to blend in, to be like everyone else, but when he thinks nobody is looking the pain returns to his eyes and the sorrow is etched into his face.

However, in the past week, Vu has achieved two major milestones: he has returned to school, and returned for a visit to his family home.

Going back to school was a way of declaring that he has healed. It took him all this time, but finally Vu told us that he was ready to get back to his studies. He didn't want to go to a 'special' school, either; he wanted to go back to a mainstream secondary school. With the school year nearly over, his timing wasn't great, but the school generously agreed for him to sit in on classes as a way of preparing for the new school year in September.

And then came Vu's next pronouncement: he wanted to visit his family.

Since leaving several years ago, Vu has not stepped foot back in his home. He's gotten progressively closer, though. Some months ago he agreed for Blue Dragon staff to accompany him home... but at the last minute couldn't bring himself to do it. So after a 200km drive, he hid in the car while the staff went and spoke with his father and grandfather.

Then at Lunar New Year he almost went home again... This time, he went to the nearest village to his home, called his father to come and have tea, and then returned to Hanoi. That was a 12 hour round-trip for a 30 minute drink.

But today Vu did it. He returned home, dressed in his school uniform so that everyone could see he's a 'normal' kid.

I was both fortunate and proud that Vu asked me to go along with him on this trip. These days I rarely get to go on such journeys myself: rightly so, it's my Vietnamese colleagues who accompany kids on their family business. But when Vu invited me to join him, I immediately agreed. I knew how important this journey was.

It was a long trip to get there, and Vu was nervous along the way; but once home, those worries melted away. Today was also the death anniversary of Vu's grandmother, so many relatives and neighbours had gathered at his family home. Having Vu return - with a foreigner in tow! - was a huge event for everybody.

A meal was prepared, and lots of typical 'family gathering' stuff going on, but there were also many touching moments, discretely held. Perhaps the most beautiful was when Vu's grandfather, 87 years old and hard of hearing, sat by Vu and tearfully encouraged him to work hard at school, always do his best, and remember his family when he (the grandfather) is gone.

Vu was shy about me taking photos at the house, but I took this one of a home-made clothes hanger in the yard. It struck me because I'd never seen one before. With so little money and resources, this family simply could not afford any luxuries, such as hangers for their clothes. So they made this one, out of a stick and some string.

Of itself, this hanger isn't particularly remarkable. But standing in Vu's home, seeing how little they have and how much they have all struggled, the hanger reminded me of just how unimportant 'things' are.

I have always seen hangers as basic household items. Yet for some families, they are a luxury; an unnecessary expense in the context of so many pressing needs.

For Vu's family, the list of needs is so long: hangers are surely last on that list. First and foremost is their need for family healing. Vu has been through such terrible times, but is now finding stability and thinking of the future. That's so much more important than having 'things.'

Life is starting to look good for Vu. He has a home with Blue Dragon; he's successfully returned to school; and he has re-established contact with his family. The reunion went so well that there's no doubt he can be confident to go back again any time.

Many struggles lay ahead, but I am optimistic of Vu's future. Maybe he doesn't have many 'things' to call his own, but as each day passes he has greater inner strength, and now he has started rebuilding a relationship with his family.

What could be more important?

Hope and healing

Border crossing: A 16 year old Vietnamese girl, rescued from 

a Chinese brothel by Blue Dragon, returns to Vietnam. 

Vietnamese girls are being trafficked to China as a matter of routine.

Traffickers – some hardened criminals, some opportunists who otherwise seem to be regular men and women – are constantly adapting, constantly shifting and blending and moving so that they can get away with their high-profit ‘business.’

And Blue Dragon keeps receiving calls for help.

Families desperate to find their daughters come to us with little more than hope. Their only information is a phone number: their daughter has stolen, swindled or begged for a mobile telephone and secretly called home, knowing that if caught she will be sold to another brothel, beaten, or maybe even killed. Some traffickers are so arrogant that they give phones to the girls they have enslaved once they have been in the brothels for several months; they want the girls to form 'relationships' with the 'regular clients.' All the girls want to do is escape, and so they ring home.

This phone number is all Blue Dragon has at the start of a rescue operation. And most of the time, the phones are turned off. The girls can’t risk their phone ringing or beeping at any moment; they can only turn them on for a few precious moments each day.

Some weeks ago, a family called Blue Dragon asking for help. Their 16 year old daughter, “Dinh,” missing for 18 months, had suddenly made contact. She knew the name of the Chinese city she was in, but nothing more.

Over several weeks, our team pieced together the clues to work out where Dinh  might be. Liaising with Vietnamese police, we narrowed down her likely location, and finally last week we travelled to China to find her.

We’ve done this 17 times now, but the trips don’t get less stressful or difficult. There are countless dangers and risks, but the greatest risk of all is leaving a girl in a brothel to be raped repeatedly, day after day, until she dies. That’s a risk that we can’t accept, and so we go.

We found Dinh very quickly. She was able to describe the street outside her brothel, and we knew it from a previous rescue. As we’ve done many times before, we arranged a car, made a plan, and swung into action. Dinh was back at the border of China and Vietnam early the next morning.

Reporting to the Chinese police at the Vietnam - China border.

But this time something different happened. When Dinh made her statement to the Chinese police, she explained that there were other girls in the brothel, even younger than her. And the Chinese police said: “So let’s go back and get them.”

Instead of leading this rescue, Blue Dragon was now in the much safer position of accompanying the Chinese police as they conducted their own operation. What a huge relief for us to not have to carry the risk and burden alone.

The result was fantastic. One more girl was rescued on the spot. Two more have been rescued since, and we are working with the Vietnamese police to identify and repatriate them. 

As for the traffickers and brothel owners: they are being rounded up. Most are caught already. And the information we have now means that we can likely conduct another rescue operation in coming weeks.

Back in Vietnam, the police here are also rounding up the ring that trafficked Dinh 18 months ago – and that has trafficked many girls since. That ring is finished now; they won’t be trafficking anybody ever again.

Dinh is back with her parents, reunited in tears. She has a long road to travel: in coming days and weeks she will see her entire family, her community, and her old friends. Every encounter will be traumatic.

Ultimately, Dinh’s most difficult reckoning will be with herself. Most girls come back from China thoroughly traumatised and blaming themselves, at least in part, for what has happened. The truth is that they have no responsibility at all for what has happened to them, and should instead be praised for finding a way to escape their captors.

Dinh will come to realize that. Until then, the healing process will be painful and slow.