Kidnapped, aged 7

7 year old "Thi" has had a terrifying 2 weeks.

Thi is a H'mong girl from Dien Bien province; her home is a tiny village, nearby the one pictured below, way off the beaten track in the mountains close to China.

A village in the commune from which Thi was taken

Two weeks ago, Thi was playing in the fields when a friendly neighbour approached her with sweets. Thi knew the woman well; she lived just a few houses away and was well known in the village.

But the neighbour had been offered money to kidnap a girl and take her into China, where a H'mong Chinese family was waiting. Many details are yet to be revealed: we don't yet know how much money she was sold for, or what the family intended to do with this girl.

News of the kidnap only reached us on Monday afternoon; the family lives far from police and, with no formal education, didn't know what to do. But by Tuesday morning we had a plan in place, and late on Tuesday the girl was back in Vietnam with us.

Working with police, we set a trap in which we pretended to buy back the child. There are some details we can't yet disclose, as more arrests will be made, but the trafficker from the village is already in custody.

And most importantly: Thi is home.

She arrived back in her family home in the early hours of this morning, for an extremely emotional reunion.

Thi walking home with her father

This case may be our most important yet: so much was at stake, and the delay of 2 weeks before any action was taken reduced our chances of bring little Thi home.

We're all glad to have brought Thi back; but we are nowhere near as pleased as her family is. As for Thi herself, she's exhausted and frightened, and still doesn't understand much of what has happened. Hopefully she doesn't realise how badly this story could have ended.

www.bluedragon.org

The note

Usually when we talk about Vietnamese kids being trafficked to China, we're talking about girls and young women who have been taken by deception and sold to brothels or into forced marriages.

But today we dealt with a totally new situation that we have never seen before: a Vietnamese boy who appears to have been trafficked into China for sex.

Some details are still unclear, but what we know is this:

Sixteen year old Sung is an ethnic minority boy from northern Vietnam. Until last week, he had never been more than 20km from his village in the mountains; he had never seen a city or the sea. But some people came to visit his village and talked about the great job opportunities that lay just over the mountain. Dreaming of adventure, Sung and 6 other males from his village went along.

Sung is a bright boy studying in Grade 10; he can speak a little English and gets good results at school. But he had no idea that he was being taken to China, and once he got there he was shocked to realise how far he was from home.

He and another boy were taken to work in the city, while the older males were told that they would go to work in a forest.

Sung and his friend were - apparently - taken to a male massage parlour. I say 'apparently' because Sung is so innocent to the world that he doesn't even know the Vietnamese word for 'massage'. He hasn't yet told us the full story, but he says that what he saw there terrified him, and within a day he had found a way to escape.

Not knowing where he was, Sung walked for 2 days through China. With no money or food, he was increasingly fearful and desperate. Nobody could understand him, so he found a notepad and pen and wrote out his message in Vietnamese and English:

I am Vietnamese
I [want to] go to Vietnam
My name is Sung
I am 17* year old

Sung then approached a friendly-looking Chinese woman on the street and handed her the note. She took him to the police, who called their superiors, who in turn called Blue Dragon Children's Foundation in Vietnam.

Today we travelled in to China to meet Sung and bring him home. The team has just crossed back in to Vietnam, and we hope to have Sung back with his family by Saturday night.

Sung is furiously hungry, and thrilled to be safe. He needs some time to think about what he has been through, and we are confident he will tell us in his own time, but it does seem that he is physically unharmed.

While we are not certain that Sung was being trafficked for sex, there is no other likely explanation for what has happened. This is a disturbing development, if true, and will add another layer of complexity to the fight against human trafficking. It also means that we need to find his friends as soon as possible; for that we will work with the Chinese police.

Sung has been through a terrible ordeal, and may take some time to recover from this experience.
The one saving grace is knowing how far, far worse this could have turned out for this boy.

* While Sung says he is 17, he is still only 16. Vietnamese people often calculate their age with an extra year.

Home and safe

Lots of great news from Blue Dragon this week. 

 

Followers on Facebook will know that we had 2 separate breakthroughs in the fight against human trafficking. A tip-off from a community member in Dien Bien province - a remote area in north-west Vietnam - alerted us to a major trafficking ring planning to take 100 people to China.

 

The plan was to take them in smaller groups, and the first of those groups set out on Thursday with 27 people. They were all ethnic minority citizens, as young as 15 and up to about 30 years old; both males and females. and all believed they were going to well paying jobs. In fact they were to be sold as slave labour to illegal factories and brothels, where they would be held indefinitely. The traffickers were to be paid $10,000 for this shipment of human cargo.

 

Blue Dragon passed info on to the police and then coordinated with them to stop the bus long before it got to the border. The traffickers are now in custody and their 27 victims are safely home, still shocked by what happened.

 

But the ring was not deterred. Their second contingent still thought it could get away with taking more people on Sunday. This time they were much more prepared: they spread misinformation about their route, they took the mobile phones off all the people once they were on board the private bus, and they changed vehicles along the way. What they didn't know was that one of their victims was in contact with Blue Dragon the whole time - someone who knew exactly what was going on.

 

 

 

The mini-van used to traffic 16 ethnic minority people to China on Sunday

 

 

This time, we followed the bus with 16 victims to the border and waited for the traffickers to try to cross. By working this way, the police will be able to lay much heavier charges against the trafficking ring. And so we followed the bus all the way to the border with China, at which time Vietnamese police were able to stop them and arrest the traffickers. They could not believe their bad luck - they were so confident that they had done everything to stay undetected.

 

Their arrest revealed critical new information: 2 more buses were also heading to the border, with a total of 17 more victims from another province. These traffickers were in the process of taking not 16, but 33 people who would be sold as slave labourers and sex workers in China.

 

The 33 victims are tonight with police, and will start heading back to their homes tomorrow. We clearly have a lot of work to do in these communities educating people about taking up 'unbelievably good' job offers far from home. The people in these remote regions often have very low levels of education and can be desperate for chances to earn money; they are easy to deceive. Believing that they were going as a group gave them a false confidence; and of course they all had their mobile phones with them, so thought they could call for help if needed.

 

All 56 people are now safe, and we hope they will share the lesson they have learnt with their communities. Surely the trafficking ring has been brought to its knees now.

 

 

Meantime in Hanoi, Blue Dragon's Street Outreach team has also been busy meeting homeless children. We find that they come to the city for many different reasons, including poverty at home or violence within the family. One young guy, "Tung", turned up in Hanoi about a week ago. Tung is 15 years old, and we could see straight away that he's a really good kid. He had come to Hanoi to earn money to help his mother, but found himself sleeping rough and being approached by the gangs and pimps who target the city's homeless boys.

 

Tung stayed out of trouble, though, and we met him early in the week. He was too shy at first to tell us about himself; he feared he would get in trouble at home, as he had left without telling anyone what he was doing. By the weekend, Tung agreed for us to contact his parents, and his mother came in to the city on Sunday to meet us and bring her son home. Mum was worried sick, and so deeply relieved to have her son back. Tung is happy, too, and will be back at school on Monday. (Turns out he is in a class for gifted students).

 

Tung (not his real name) and his mother at Dragon House in Hanoi

Despite the many difficult situations we encounter, it's great to see that we can still help kids to turn things around. Street kids and victims of human trafficking alike face terrible dangers. But for all the bad that happens, there's always hope for a happy ending.

Shining

Following a fairly quiet week at Blue Dragon, we've had an eventful weekend.

Since Friday evening, we've been inundated with problems: a gang of pimps twice attacking kids from our shelters, an Asian sex tourist ring targeting underage boys we know, and on and on. So much so that I'm looking forward to Monday morning to put the weekend's headaches behind us!

But through this series of incidents, we've also seen some of the Blue Dragon kids show incredible courage and empathy.

Close to midnight on Friday, one of the boys in our care - "Son" - received a message from a girl he knows. She was terrified: some men had apparently abducted her and a friend, and they were locked into a room somewhere in Hanoi. As far as we know, the building was a brothel and the girls were being trafficked. They had no idea where they were or what was going to happen, but were able to use a smartphone to send messages through Facebook.

Son alerted our staff, who started communicating with the girls, but they suddenly went silent - we suspect the abductors had come back. We had pretty much no information at all that would enable us to find the girls, so our next step was to contact their families... but we didn't know who they were.

At this point, Son, who is only 17 years old, offered to help. He got on his bicycle and rode around the city to find other friends of the girls who knew where they lived, and then went to their homes to let them know what was happening. The families were in a panic, but they had an idea of who might have been behind the abduction. We don't know yet what they did, but by Saturday morning the two girls were safely home. Hopefully by the end of Monday we will have the full story.

If Son had not responded to his friends' message, or gone to find their families, we don't know what would have become of the two girls - but we can certainly imagine. It was close to 2am before Son finished and returned home, and because of his intervention the girls are now safe.

Later in the weekend, another of the Blue Dragon kids stood up for a friend in need. A former street kid named "Tu" has been living at home in the countryside but had some trouble with his family, and not knowing what to do he returned to Hanoi. Tu didn't want to tell us because he's a shy kid and fiercely independent - he wanted to work this out on his own.

But one of the Blue Dragon boys, "Nam," found out what was happening and went straight to the Long Bien Bridge, where Tu was hanging out in an internet café, to make sure he was safe. Nam encouraged Tu to come back to Blue Dragon's Outreach House; and although he was reluctant initially, Nam convinced him and they went back together to stay there for the night. Our Social Workers are involved now, and we hope to help Tu sort out the problem with his family in coming days.

If not for Nam's concern for his friend, Tu would have spent the night on the streets; and we know that homeless kids are extremely vulnerable to predators at the moment. Nam's intervention may have saved his friend from a pretty awful fate.

The Blue Dragon kids aren't always angels, but we see some outstanding leadership and compassion from many of them, both boys and girls. My team and I share a belief that caring for others is always worthwhile, and seeing the kids we help follow in our footsteps is a heart warming experience.

Most of the kids we meet have had terrible life experiences - that's why they come to Blue Dragon. For them to have an opportunity to do something good, and to really shine, is both a major step in their recovery and a wonderful opportunity for them to show that they are much more than just victims of circumstance.

News Roundup: February 2015

An occasional roundup of news stories about the issues impacting kids in Vietnam and around the world.

- The UK continues to struggle with the issue of Vietnamese children being trafficked in to the country to work in cannabis factories.

- Moving on from 'awareness raising', Thai citizens take anti-trafficking into their own hands.

- China rescued 43,000 victims of trafficking last year...

- ... but bride trafficking to China won't be stopping any time soon.

- An academic study has been released on the health impact of trafficking for forced labour (and here's a newspaper article about it).

- Child abuse caught on camera at a Vietnamese orphanage.

- Could there be links between climate change and child slavery?

The year of (not) winning

The Year of the Goat has begun; and I for one am glad that the Year of the Horse is behind us.

At the start of 2014, I quietly decided that it was to be the Year of Winning. Readers of this blog will know that in the past couple of years Blue Dragon has been increasingly struggling with the issue of pedophiles in Hanoi exploiting street boys.

Pretty much every single boy who turns up in the city, escaping fractured families or poverty in the countryside, is met by a pedophile or one of their pimps within hours of arriving. Some of these men have deliberately targeted children who are at Blue Dragon and other charities, while most just hang around in the parks and internet cafes where homeless children tend to gather. Increasingly they are using social media to trawl for vulnerable children, meaning that their reach is close to limitless.

A year ago I determined that 2014 was to be the year that we got on top of the issue here in Hanoi and brought it back under control. I really believed that we could.

But we didn't. We didn't win.

At times we felt that we were incredibly close. At times we were sure we couldn't fail. But the year has passed, and the problem remains.

Kids who are caught up in this horrible trade are deeply confused and tormented; they want to escape the cycle of abuse but are steeped in shame at what is happening to them. They want to accept our help, but don't believe in themselves and don't think they are worthy of our kindness. Many act in self-destructive ways and take to using methamphetamines; the underlying problem is that they hate themselves and believe they deserve nothing good.

Even now, there are boys in Blue Dragon who only recently left the streets and are still being approached - in person and through Facebook - by the pimps and pedophiles who want to exploit them. It's unbelievably hard for the kids to be trying to move on with their lives, while their exploiters live just hundreds of metres away, in some cases.

And then there are the kids who gave in, who went with the abusers thinking they would make some quick money and then be done with it or were duped into going back to someone's house to sleep and ended up being raped. Ashamed and humiliated, they disappeared into Hanoi's seedy underbelly and gave up their hopes and dreams for the future. These are kids as young as 13 years old.

I wanted us to defeat these abusers so that we could protect the children, but at times it feels like everything is lost. Even now, there is a terrible frustration in knowing who these abusers are and not being able to stop them.

And yet, we have had some beautiful victories along the way. Many kids who were ensnared in the pedophile rings broke free and have settled into our shelters and homes, or returned to their own families. Some took months to calm down and start leading a stable life; some are yet to fully make the transition. Each has been through a tremendous inner struggle, so watching them transform into happy, smiling teens has been an amazing experience.

We've had great success, too, in starting to win support from local officials and police. Until now, this problem has been completely unknown in Hanoi. Indeed, many people appear shocked when we raise with them the issue of boys being sexually abused. But every single official we have approached and spoken to has expressed support and agreed that things have to change.

The great challenge is that Vietnamese law currently does not recognise that boys can be the victims of sexual abuse. In March, when our work resulted in the arrest of one of Hanoi's serial pedophiles, the man was charged with indecency, rather than sexual abuse, and so received a relatively light sentence (4 years) compared to his horrific crimes.

We've embarked on a plan to have that law revised, possibly within the first half of this year. We are working with police, the National Assembly, and the media to enable them to see the issue up close, as we do. And most importantly, we have put every last drop of our energy into caring for the kids who have been impacted by this abuse. At times it has been massively draining and seemingly futile, but it is with the individual kids that we have had both the greatest joys of success and the greatest sorrows of failure.

So we did not win, as I had hoped, but neither have we lost. We've made progress, and are even more determined - and knowledgeable - than a year ago. The men who exploit street kids might think they can get away with this forever, but they're wrong.

One of my greatest fictional heroes is Mulder from the X-Files, who failed repeatedly but persisted because he believed in his cause. One episode finished with him laying in a hospital bed barely alive, after a long journey in his attempt to save the world. When he awoke, his partner Scully asked: "Did you find what you were looking for?"

His answer: "No, but I found something else. The faith to keep looking."

2014 was not the Year of Winning. But as the Year of the Goat kicks off, I will not give up hope that Vietnamese kids can be protected and safe, as all kids deserve to be.

The announcement

It's time for a change.

For over 12 years now, I have been running Blue Dragon in Vietnam. I've never been alone in this: the struggles, joys and challenges have always been shared among a team. That team has grown over the years, as has the scope and impact of our work.

In the earliest days our work was with street boys in Hanoi who were mostly economic migrants to the city.

Today we rescue girls trafficked into China for sale to brothels or as brides; we bring them home and make sure their traffickers are caught. We find kids trafficked to sweatshops, and we believe we are close to extinguishing the use of child labour in garment factories. We send about 1500 children to school, and another 70 to university.

And we continue to work with Hanoi's street kids, although these days they face very different problems. In addition to homelessness and lack of opportunity, they are targets for sexual predators on a scale that continues to shock us. Vietnamese law does not include males in its definition of victims of sexual abuse, so the abusers have so far been difficult to catch and prosecute. We're working on changing that law, and momentum is building.

We've done much, and much remains to be done. 

However, my role in all this is changing. If you're on the mailing list, you will know by now the news: I am stepping aside as CEO. Once lunar new year rolls around, late this week, I will no longer be the boss. I can see that Blue Dragon needs somebody new, somebody better able to manage and administer the day to day running of what is now a significant organisation.

Blue Dragon is not only my job. It's my family and my life. There are people whose lives I have changed; and many more who have changed mine. There are people I gave hope to when all seemed lost, and people who stood by me when I thought I had lost my own hope. There are so many special - profound - connections that I can't imagine that I will ever be able to leave.

So I am not walking away from Blue Dragon, and not looking for a new job. I'm simply hanging up the CEO hat and continuing on in the role of Founder, with a capital "F". Rather than running the organisation and calling all the shots, I will be working on special projects alongside the team. My work in anti-trafficking and crisis management will be increasing. I'll be mentoring staff and developing leadership among the kids. I'll be finding ways for Blue Dragon to grow without compromising our philosophy of caring for the kids as individuals. With a bit of luck, I might even have more time to write my blog.

While I can write about this objectively now, getting to this point has taken many months and has sometimes been an emotional affair. It certainly hasn't been easy to take this step. What has enabled it, though, is the amazing team at Blue Dragon, who have supported my decision completely.

Our incoming CEO, Julienne Carey, has risen through the ranks of the organisation. She started as a volunteer; took on the role of  Communications and Fundraising Manager; and then became Deputy CEO. The Blue Dragon staff know and respect her, and see this move as a natural next step. Nobody has expressed surprise that Julienne is taking on the leadership role. For both Julienne and I, it is enormously reassuring to know that we have the full support of the staff, some of whom have been with Blue Dragon since before we were even officially an organisation.

When I first moved to Vietnam, I joked that I was coming here to retire. Aged 28, I had left my job in Australia, sold or given away everything I owned, and was in search of the simple life. I utterly failed at that - creating and running Blue Dragon has been anything but simple - and now I am again at the point of making a major change.

This new move also won't be retirement. I suspect things aren't going to get much simpler, either. But I do hope that now I can be more focused, have more time to think and to breathe, and achieve even more for the people I care most about: the kids and staff of Blue Dragon Children's Foundation.

Ten

The Blue Dragon kids celebrated a terrific milestone last week: the 10th annual Tet Awards.

Every year, for the last 10 years, we've held a ceremony to mark the end of the lunar calendar, and welcome the coming year. The original idea was to give each child a chance to stand in the spotlight and shine, and 10 years later that's still what we do. These days there are about 500 kids joining in, so it's a bit bigger than when we started and even more fun!

So here are 10 things I loved about the 10th annual Tet Awards.

1. The kids had a chance to shine - and that's what they did. They organised their own performances. They sang and danced. They MCed the night. Everybody left the event feeling proud.

2. Children who have been with us just a few weeks were there, along with kids we met more than 10 years ago. It was like a massive family reunion, and everybody had a smile or hug to share.

3. Local businesses pitched in. Accor Hotels made sure we had cookies for everyone. Ecopark donated money for the food. Don's Bistro sent along a staff team to help with food preparation for the entire day! People were really generous to make sure the kids had a great night.

4. Looking at the joy in the kids' faces, nobody could imagine the hardships they have endured. There were kids who got up and sang, or received awards on the stage, who just a year ago were living through the most horrific experiences. Seeing how they have bounced back and embraced their second chance at life is profoundly inspiring.

5. There were teens performing hip hop to rap songs, kids acting out comedies, and little children dressed as fairies singing "happy birthday"... and the whole crowd loved all of it.

6. 500 kids packed into the hall. All are from disadvantaged and troubled backgrounds, but there was not a single moment of bad behaviour as the stereotypes would have you believe.

7. Everyone wanted to take a photo! A few days after the event, the kids' Facebook pages are still buzzing with their memories and pictures of the night.

8. Kids who are blind, or deaf, or have any type of physical or intellectual disability joined right in along side kids without any disability. There was not an ounce of discrimination.

9. Volunteers pitched in to make everything perfect. Friends from around Hanoi came to take the photos, serve food, set up the hall, and paint the kids' faces. Nobody expected to be thanked; they just wanted to make it a great night for the kids.

10. And the Blue Dragon staff came out in force once again. They spent weeks getting ready - in fact preparation started in December. Not a murmur of complaint from anyone... and not a single person failed to lend a hand. Everyone, from the social workers to the cleaners to the driver, worked together to make this a special event.

A ten-year anniversary is an important occasion. The kids had a great night, but in truth so did all of us. I say this every year, but I think this may have been our best Tet Awards yet!

Wedding season

It's wedding season in Vietnam; the moon and custom dictates that this is a good time of year to marry, and so throughout the land couples are getting hitched everywhere you turn.

Blue Dragon has not been immune to the buzz. Two of our 'old boys' have married in recent weeks; both young men who once needed help to get out of poverty but who now are doing tremendously well for themselves. One runs a mobile phone shop, and one works at Blue Dragon helping street kids.

I love going to Vietnamese weddings, and yet would dread to have my own. As a guest, the wedding is a simple party: you turn up and eat, then leave. No fuss about buying wedding gifts, either; you just put some money in an envelope and drop it in the box on the way in.

For the couple getting married, it's another story. Months of hard work to meet cultural and social obligations, and in the end many of the decisions about how the day goes fall into the hands of elderly relatives and fortune tellers. There's an endearingly perverse sense of controlled randomness about how everything is going to work.

As a foreigner, attending a Vietnamese wedding can vary between bewildering and hilarious. At one of the recent weddings, Blue Dragon's DJ boy Bao Bao played electronic music for a hugely energetic crowd of young adults - all under the watchful eyes of Joseph and Mary and their baby Jesus. Rather a contrasting set of images, which absolutely nobody cared about.

At another wedding, the singer was a local guy who performed a song which was meant to be sung by a male and female duet. But not to worry: he simply switched to a high-pitch to sing the female lines! It was so bizarre and unexpected that we couldn't help roaring with laughter. I couldn't shake the memory of the puppets from Sifl and Olly - watch at your own peril.

Despite all the wacky "what on earth!?" moments, there has also been something deeply moving about these weddings. Every time one of the older boys or girls from Blue Dragon gets married, the event turns into a massive reunion at which kids and staff, both current and former, all get together to celebrate.

Young men and women who once worked on the streets of the city or were trafficked against their will but are now leading independent lives turn up, and it's as though no time at all has passed since we last met. Even those who got themselves into trouble, or left Blue Dragon to return to the streets, join in and there's no judgement or awkwardness: we're all united in celebration.

In the case of our staff member recently marrying, so many kids attended that we needed 2 buses to get them all there!

As an organisation, we often talk about ourselves as a family; and these occasions confirm that yes, we are more than just a legal entity with staff and policies. Blue Dragon really is something special.

As abruptly as it started, wedding season will soon end. I can't wait for the next round of marriages, and for all the get-togethers with kids new and old.

News roundup: January 2015

The first in an occasional roundup of news stories about the issues impacting kids in Vietnam and around the world

- Central Vietnam is being targeted by human traffickers

- Vietnamese police arrest two men for selling child abuse images online (Vietnamese only)

- The Australian government considers allowing adoptions from Vietnam; not everyone thinks it's a good idea

- The Guardian explores child labour in global supply chains

- A Chinese court gives the death sentence to the leader of a Vietnam-China child trafficking ring

- Ten lessons from a discussion on ending child labour

- And a discussion from the US in HuffPo on why 'child prostitution' is a misnomer

Journeys

My stories on this blog and on the Blue Dragon Facebook are often about the journeys taken by Vietnamese youth, particularly trafficked children returning home and runaway boys being reunited with families.

Indeed, last week saw the Blue Dragon team bringing 7 teenage girls back from China, where they had been sold into the sex industry, and accompanying a 14 year old boy home to his family in the countryside after he had run away and spent several nights on the streets of Hanoi.

Since we began back in 2003, we've walked with Vietnamese kids on thousands of journeys. Some have been simple: re-enrolling in school or a trip to a doctor. Others have been long and complex journeys: escaping from systemic abuse or facing terrifying ordeals. And not all journeys end well.

During these last 2 years, many of our journeys have been dark and painful. We are receiving ever more calls for help from Vietnamese girls who have been deceived by apparent friends, employers, and lovers, only to be sold into brothels or forced marriages in China. The psychological damage is inevitably deep and lasting; and too often the girls suffer serious physical harm as well.

And in Hanoi, where Blue Dragon's HQ and children's centre is based, too much of our work is in healing boys who have been entrapped in pedophile rings which prey upon homeless children.

All of these journeys have been filled with sorrow and despair.

We continue this work, however, believing that we can have an impact. When we rescue a girl from a Chinese brothel, we are changing her life forever and also shutting down an entire trafficking ring which could otherwise traffic another 5, 10, 50 girls.

Our work with boys in Hanoi is also aiming toward lasting change. Vietnamese law currently does not acknowledge that males can be victims of sexual abuse, and so the pedophiles feel that they are safe in their exploitation. We plan to turn that around: there are loopholes under which they can be arrested, and we are looking at how this law can be revised to outlaw the abuse of boys.

In the coming Year of the Goat, I know that many difficult journeys lay ahead. As Vietnam develops, its youth face increasingly complex social issues, and the vulnerability of the poor seems to be spiraling out of control. The exploitation that we see is growing worse every year, both in nature and in incidence.

But we will continue, because giving up is not an option. Every setback is only a lesson to prepare us for the next step of the journey.

Whatever happened to the Blue Dragon blog..?

It's been a month since I have been active on my blog. Time to admit that I have been very slack!

There's been a lot happening here in Vietnam over Christmas and new year, with rescues and police operations as well as the less visible but equally important growth among the Blue Dragon kids day by day. Much of our work in recent months has been focused on intervening in crises of all kinds: from kids being attacked on the streets to pedophiles luring children away from us over Facebook to girls being sold into brothels in China.

My lack of writing doesn't reflect a lack of action - quite the reverse! But I need to start getting literate again. No excuses!

This year my blog will take on a new shape, but I am still planning things out. For now: I will get back to writing each Monday, and continuing to shares stories from the streets of Vietnam. Sign up to get new posts delivered straight to your email!

A mother's love

Nga was glad to start life over. Her husband had been a violent alcoholic, and she knew that leaving him behind and taking their young children away to live with her mother was the only way to keep them safe.

Being a single mother in rural Vietnam is never easy: there are always suspicious eyes and gossiping tongues, but Nga was determined to ignore them all. With help from her mother, she set up a tea stall and began to make some money - not very much, but the work kept her busy and she made just enough to keep the children in school. Nga started to feel that maybe things were going to be OK.

And then something wonderful happened: she made a friend! Another woman in the town, Giang, started frequenting her tea stall, showing simple kindness from day to day and making Nga confident in herself. Giang would even look after her children when Nga was busy.

Some months later, when Giang invited Nga to travel with her to the border of China on business, Nga had no reason to be concerned. Giang's sister offered to look after Nga's children for the day, and Giang was able to pay a little in return for Nga helping carrying some goods home. It was all very straightforward and natural.

What happened, though, was anything but what Nga expected. The 2 women traveled into the hills bordering China, where 2 men met them - evidently they were friends of Giang. Still everything seemed fine, but when Nga began to feel uncomfortable and request that they start heading back to the Vietnamese side of the border, her worst nightmare came true. Giang had sold her for $2000 to these men, and there was no chance now that she could go home. Giang turned back to Vietnam, and Nga was alone with these strangers in a terrifying situation.

Nga put up a fight: she had children to get back to. She could not be taken so easily! Even in this sudden surge of fear, her first thought was for her sons.

The men dragged her to a stream and told her that she had three choices. They could drown her, here and now, and leave her body in the stream. Or she could go to work in a brothel to pay off the debt. Or she could be sold as a wife to a Chinese man.

Nga continued to fight: she chose none. She only wanted to get home to her children.

Realising they were in for a battle, the men took Nga deeper into China and locked her into a home. For two weeks, they tortured and terrified her. So far Nga has still not disclosed all that happened in that house during this time; but for all the men put her through, she continued to resist.

Finally the men realised how to make this incredibly strong woman bend to her will: they threatened her children.

Nga's youngest child was still in the care of Giang, back in Vietnam. Giang had kept the little boy, telling Nga's mother that Nga was off on business and would be back soon.

After 2 weeks of torture, the men called Giang and put Nga's son on the phone.They told her plainly: make your choice, or your son dies.

Nga agreed to be sold as a bride.

The men took Nga in a car, traveling over 2000km, until they reached their destination and sold Nga for $12,000 to a Chinese man who believed he was paying a dowry to a Vietnamese woman who wanted to move to China. For a few weeks, Nga complied with everything expected of her - but secretly planned and plotted her escape.

Her chance came when she met a Chinese woman who spoke some Vietnamese. Nga befriended the woman, and finally borrowed her phone to make a call home.

Once Nga had made that call, word reached us at Blue Dragon and within 2 weeks we put in place a rescue operation. Nga is home now, and the 5 key people involved in this trafficking ring are all in custody.

Most of the people we rescue are children and teens; we have rarely been involved in the rescue of a parent. However, Nga's traffickers were also trading in young people; and regardless of her age, Nga was in a desperate situation and needed help.

I am convinced that these rescues are worthwhile: they are difficult and dangerous, but the impact is enormous. First, a single life is changed beyond any words can express. If not for the Blue Dragon rescue team, Nga would still be a servant bride in China, and her children and her mother would have no idea where she was or why she failed to come home.

And second, it is not only Nga who has been rescued. With the entire trafficking ring disabled, nobody can estimate how many women and girls are now safe who otherwise would have fallen victim to their tricks.

What worries, me, though, is that these traffickers are well financed and highly motivated. Nga was sold for $2,000 and then, following 2 weeks of torture, the ring that bought her made a 500% profit.

Putting these guys out of business will never be easy. In this case, it was a mother's love that saved the day. Nga's determination to get home and protect her children was more powerful than the violence used against her; and no amount of money was going to stand in her way.

Because of that love, Nga's story can have a happy ending. I think her kids must be the luckiest children in the world, to have a mother who loves them so fiercely.

Enslaved in a gold mine

The Blue Dragon Rescue team has had an extraordinary day.

For 2 months, we have been hearing rumours of ethnic minority children being trafficked to an illegal gold mine in a mountainous part of Vietnam. The police have been investigating, but information has been slow to come: the stories we heard were of a camp remote and inaccessible, and with young people being held as slaves in the most horrendous conditions, but nobody knew the exact location.

On Friday afternoon, Vietnamese police and the Blue Dragon team found the site after a day of trekking through untouched wilderness. The camp was well hidden, at first appearing to be very small:

But from closer, it was clearly a large base and a well organised operation:

    

The raid on the mine has resulted in 7 young people being set free after 8 months of enslavement: 3 young women and 4 young men, all aged from about 20 years. Those 7 are now safely back in a nearby town, recovering from their ordeal and giving statements to police. In coming days they will start their long journeys home, and all will need extensive medical tests and health support to get them back in shape.

We believe we've found just the tip of the iceberg, and because of that we can't say much on the blog just now. There are many more young people yet to be found in other illegal gold mines, and we hope that some digging of our own will soon find result in more people being set free from similar camps.

At the other end of the week

Monday was a day of great hope coupled with great uncertainty. I wrote on Monday evening about the challenges being faced by 3 kids here at Blue Dragon:

- a 13 year old girl, "Huong," who has been rescued from a forced marriage in China but whose mother might have been involved in her trafficking;

- a 14 year old boy, "Hai," struggling to break free from the psychological chains keeping him involved in selling sex on the streets of Hanoi;

- and a 16 year old boy, "Tong," who has made a huge effort in recent months to leave the street life behind, and now faces the new challenge of starting in a work experience placement.

So how has the week unfolded?

None of these stories have finished. None will be finished for a long time yet. But the week is finishing with more reason for hope than we started with.

- Huong and her mother have been reunited; a beautifully emotional meeting, free from fear and guilt. It does seem that Huong's mother had some knowledge of her daughter's trafficking, but her lack of education (she's illiterate) and evidence of duress indicate that she was a victim of deception; it now looks like she had no idea what was actually happening with her daughter other than that she was going to work for someone. Today, there is hope that mother and daughter really can be together again.

- Hai spent the week going back and forth; he is a tormented and confused boy, who wants to escape but doesn't know how. At times throughout the week, it seemed that there was nothing we could do to help him. His decision was made. He stopped communicating. Finally, when I feared there was no possibility of turning this situation around, Hai turned up at a Blue Dragon safe house... and had the first proper meal and sleep he's had in months. Maybe, maybe, he'll be back for a second night.

- Tong's work placement has had a rocky start, but through no fault of his own. He fell ill early in the week, and did make a start in the restaurant but had to take some time off. The good news is that he's eager to get back as soon as possible.

No conclusions here. No neat endings. Tomorrow will be another day for success and for failure. But today the sun sets with renewed hope for these 3 kids, whose struggle for life might never be noticed on a world stage, but who deserve a world of love and support.

Tomorrow, the story continues.

Close of business

It's the end of a long day at Blue Dragon in Hanoi.

Meeting homeless kids every day, hearing stories of exploitation and abuse, we leave ourselves open to some pretty raw emotions. When we walk out the front gate at day's end, we carry with us all that we've seen: the tears of a mother desperate to find her missing daughter; the confusion of a teenage boy struggling to find his place in the world. We're just ordinary people, not automatons who can switch off at the close of business. 

And some days, as the U2 song reminds us, are better than others.

Today has been a tough one. Of all the hundreds of kids in our care at the moment, the day is marked by 3 particular stories that are yet to reach their conclusions.

"Huong" is just 13 years old, but already has been sold as a bride to a Chinese man. Blue Dragon has been working on this case for a couple of months; both the Chinese and Vietnamese police have been very active in finding her, and finally late last week Huong was delivered safely back to Vietnamese authorities, accompanied across the border by Blue Dragon's own Child Rights Advocate, Mr Van.

Huong is buzzing with excitement. What could be more joyous than being set free from a forced marriage, and being taken by the hand to begin the journey home? We've been present at hundreds of beautiful family reunions, but I fear that this one might not be so beautiful.

There's something that Huong doesn't yet know: her own mother is suspected as the trafficker.

People commonly assume that trafficked children in Vietnam are all sold by their parents. That's simply untrue. We've rescued over 350 trafficked kids, and there's only been one other occasion in which the parent was complicit - but that was a case of labour trafficking, and the parent recanted within the same day.

If this is true, that the mother sold her daughter to a 'marriage broker,' then it will be the first time we've seen it. And it will be unspeakably devastating for this 13 year old girl.

Back in Hanoi, the sex trafficking of underage boys continues to spiral out of control. Boys as young as 13, who end up on the streets because of family breakdown or even small conflicts at home or at school, are routinely targeted by pimps and taken to pedophiles offering care to hungry children, but delivering only abuse.

One of the boys caught up on this trap, "Hai," turned 14 just a week ago. He's been going with these men every night for the past few months; the only break he had was the month that he was detained in a Social Protection Centre. He certainly needs protection, but at the end of his time there they simply took him to the front door, gave him $5, and sent him on his way.

Hai is torn. He hates going with the men. He hates the men. He hates the way he feels about himself. And yet: he believes that he has nothing to lose by going with them. He meets them in parks, or through online chat rooms, makes the money he needs for a day of playing computer games, and the cycle repeats.

But today he says he wants to change. Hai tells me that he wants a future, and knows he needs to escape this life on the streets. He even opens up with information about the men he's recently been with.

At the end of a painful, painful conversation Hai says that he will have a final decision soon. He asks for money to eat and play games, so that tonight he doesn't have to go 'to work.' I give him the money, not knowing if anything he says is sincere. Is it all just a ploy? Is he playing me, the way he plays the men in the parks? I have no idea, but I have to take the risk that maybe he's telling the truth, and maybe tomorrow he really will turn his back on that life.

Another of the Blue Dragon boys, “Tong,” has already walked the path that Hai is on, and has made the decision to leave behind the life of ‘sex work’ on the streets. Not yet 16 years old, he has seen it all: he’s been passed around from family to family; adopted and then returned; he’s lived in a barn when his relatives exiled him from the house after his mother’s death; and he’s survived the streets of Hanoi by selling his body by the hour. 

In recent months, Tong has undergone a transformation. He left the gang that he had been following and moved into a Blue Dragon safe house. He studied a basic hospitality course and started playing musical instruments, which he apparently learned at some time in his very complex past. His progress hasn’t always been steady, but he’s still with us and doing his best. 

And now the latest step: Tong has been offered a work experience placement in a well regarded local restaurant. It’s only part time, and there’s no salary, but for Tong this is something incredible. 

Staff have taken him out to buy a bicycle, which he’ll need to get to work. He’s been fitted out with some new clothes, and even bought his first pair of shoes. To top it off, I bought him a cheap mobile phone so he can stay in touch with us and the restaurant manager. 

“Over the moon” is a complete cliché, but totally appropriate to Tong’s mood. He’s bouncing through Dragon House, bubbling with a happiness we’ve never seen in him before. It would be easy to think that this is because of the shiny new ‘things’ he now owns: clothes, a cool bicycle, a mobile phone. 

But at the heart of it, that’s not why he is so excited. The happiness stems from being someone: someone who can own a bicycle, ride it to work in his new clothes, and ring his friends to meet up when he’s finished. Those aren’t things that ‘street kids’ do. Those are things that ‘real people’ do. Tong is ‘somebody’ now. 

Of course, he hasn’t had his first day at work yet. He’s yet to experience the drag of going to work when all your friends are going out to play. Or the shock of having a customer grumble and complain when you get the order wrong. Or the disappointment of having a workmate who wants to slack off and get the new guy to do all the work.

For the moment, all Tong can think about is how great everything is going to be. 

The days ahead hold great uncertainty for Huong, Hai and Tong.

Was Huong's mother really involved in the trafficking of her own daughter? Does Huong already suspect this, or is she innocent to this dreadful possibility? If it's true: what will become of her?

Will Hai leave behind the streets, and the cycle of abuse that has ensnared him? Or is he just playing me along, trying to make some easy money to tide him over until his next encounter at the park? 

And how will Tong cope  with the pressure of living this new, 'ordinary' life? Before coming to Blue Dragon, he'd never been close to anyone who held down a steady, salaried job. Can he cope? If he fails, will that failure devastate his newfound confidence?

I wish I had all the answers to the problems I see every day; but sometimes I just don't. All I know is that, as today draws to a close, there is still hope for Huong, Hai and Tong. Whatever joys and terrors tomorrow may bring, those are still in the tomorrow. 

Right now, we have to believe that things can still work out ok.

A rapidly growing mess

I was riding a bicycle across Hanoi's famous Long Bien bridge when the boy, "Hieu," appeared from underneath the railway lines.

Long Bien is a city icon, and serves as the rail bridge across the Red River. It's also home to countless homeless children - and adults, too - who find hiding spots in the most dangerous places to keep away from unwanted guests.

I had known Hieu for some time; he'd been at Blue Dragon previously, but then been sent to Reform School and had only recently returned to the city. He was now 14 years old and, reformed or not, he was homeless.

We joined a group of kids who were playing games on the island in the middle of the river. For a couple of hours Hieu played and laughed like any normal boy; he looked tired, but enjoyed the chance to be with friends.

During a break, I quizzed him on how he was doing and how he had survived the past few weeks. Hieu looked a little uncomfortable and said that someone had been helping him. I could see that something was wrong, so I asked the simple question: "Who has been helping you?"

His answer chilled me: "Olivier."

Olivier is the name of a French doctor who is now back in France awaiting trial for sex crimes against children in Vietnam. At the time I spoke with Hieu, he was living and working in Hanoi, and his name had come up in countless disclosures from street children.

Knowing that Hieu was in contact with this man left me feeling physically ill. I quietly vowed to myself that I would do whatever I could to ensure Hieu was safe.

It's now more than a year since Olivier was arrested, and since then just one other man has been arrested for the same crime: a Vietnamese con artist who traveled the northern provinces with a group of underage boys.

Since 2012, Blue Dragon has worked directly with over 60 boys aged under 16 who have been sexually abused. Almost all are boys who came to the city due to problems at home, and found themselves either tricked or coerced into going back to a stranger's house, or to a hotel, for sex. While several of these men are foreigners, by far the majority are Vietnamese.

Over 60 boys have disclosed this information to us; and only 2 men have been arrested.

The city now has a network of pimps, and established meeting places where men target boys who are clearly homeless. Facebook is a much-used tool for men to communicate with their victims, or to send instructions to the pimps. Some of the men involved are powerful people, flaunting their wealth and connections to the children; while others work on the streets themselves.

Hanoi is a dangerous place to be a homeless child. The city has to face up to this insidious problem, or else face a future of being known as a sleazy child-sex destination.

Hieu is safe now; he's been off the streets ever since that day on the bridge. He goes to school, lives in a stable home, and has big plans for a career in hospitality. And yet, not a week goes by that Blue Dragon does not meet at least one more boy caught up in the vicious cycle of sexual abuse.

While we've done all we can so far to keep Hieu and children like him safe, there will be more children tomorrow who are in danger unless someone intervenes in this rapidly growing mess.

Hold my hand

This photo was taken in China on Friday by a member of the Blue Dragon Rescue team. 

The girls are Vietnamese teens who were trafficked at different times and by different gangs for sale to the Chinese sex trade. One girl, aged 16, was sold to a brothel. The other, aged 15, was sold as a bride.

Last week, Blue Dragon worked with Chinese police to first rescue the younger girl, get her to safety near the Vietnamese border, then return inland to rescue the girl in the brothel. On Friday, we were back at the border with both girls, helping them to make their formal statements and prepare to cross back into Vietnam and begin the journey home. 

They met on Friday for the first time.

This brings to 352 the number of kids we have rescued from trafficking. Boys and girls, as young as 11, trafficked and sold to work on the street, to slave away in garment factories, to be repeatedly raped daily in Chinese brothels, or to be forced into marriages with complete strangers.

352 is a decent number. But data can easily hide us from the reality of trafficking, which is deeply personal.

It's personal because the impact on a victim's life is something only they can know, and which will live with them forever. No matter how much they say, nobody else can know what it was like to be deceived and sold like a farm animal for another person's profit or pleasure. Most traffickers are known to their victims; they are friends or relatives or associates. They use trust as a weapon, and in so doing destroy their victims' belief in other people. Data deflects us from the intensely personal nature of this crime. Human trafficking, for whatever purpose, is a crime against humanity.

But for all of the agony that these teen girls have suffered, this photo gives us a reason to smile.

Having barely met each other, but being connected by a shared pain and also a shared story of being rescued and set free, the girls are on their way to make a formal police statement. And what are they doing? Hold hands and smiling.

What they have experienced has been horrific beyond imagination, but they are not alone. They have each other, and they have a hope that they will soon go home to see their family and friends, and all the people who love them.

Over recent months, human contact has been brutal and forced. By lightly and naturally reaching out for each other, and holding hands like kids do, these girls have won a victory over their traffickers and all who would do them harm. They may have been beaten, but they are not defeated.

Good on you, girls.Your pain may be deeply personal, but you are not alone, and great hope lies ahead.

The vomit number

When Blue Dragon's rescue team receives a call for help, we start an investigation immediately.

Investigations sometimes take just a matter of hours or days. And sometimes, they take months.

On Thursday, one of our longest running investigations came to an end, when we located 14 children enslaved in 2 garment factories in Ho Chi Minh City.

Among them, there were 8 girls and 6 boys, the youngest just 12. All were from ethnic minority communities in Dien Bien province, a remote area in the country's north-west.

They had been locked away for between 8 months and 2 years. During this time, they had no contact with their families, who thought their children were going somewhere not too far from home for vocational training.

In both factories, conditions were severe: the children were working for up to 18 hours per day under threat of violence. In one factory, a system of surveillance cameras throughout the building added to the children's fear. 

Children from Dien Bien province are being targeted by human traffickers because they are an impoverished and vulnerable population. Their parents, who commonly speak very little Vietnamese, are easy to deceive with promises of a better life for their families. They don't know that their children will be taken 1,200km away and put to work through the day and night as slave labour.

Blue Dragon has been working with the Vietnamese police to find these kids, and the joint raid on the factories was a brilliant example of what can be done to fight this insidious crime.

The problem of child trafficking sometimes seems overwhelming: but hard work and dedication really can result in children being rescued and traffickers being caught.

Since we started this work in 2005, we've rescued 350 girls, boys, and young women, from factories and brothels. All of our rescues are in response to specific calls for help. And every rescue has played out very differently.

Despite working on this case for over 2 months, we feared that we would not find all of the children. On Thursday morning, we had located one of the 2 factories, and so were ready to free half of the children we were searching for. But we couldn't find the second factory; and as soon as we raided one, we knew that the word would get out and other traffickers would scramble to hide their children. We had to find and raid both factories at pretty much the same time, or risk never finding the other kids.

While the police conducted their own search, one of the Blue Dragon team (I'll call him "Lim") took to the streets to look around himself. As the afternoon wore on, he was becoming increasingly agitated:

What if we couldn't find all of the children? How could we take only half home? What would we say to the parents of the missing children? 

Finally, overcome with stress, Lim found himself vomiting by the side of the road. It was all just too much.

But as he picked himself up, something strange caught his eye: a phone number scrawled onto a wall.

In Vietnam, it's common to see phone numbers on walls - contractors advertise their services this way - but this phone number was not like those. It was handwritten; and its prefix was for Dien Bien province.

Still feeling sick, Lim took out his phone and rang the number. Somebody at the other end picked up the phone and said: "Hello, this is Dien Bien police..."

We still have no idea who wrote that number, or why. We can only presume that an escapee from a factory in the area at some time needed to remember the number, or maybe put it there for others to find. We simply don't know. But finding that number told Lim that we were close. He was in the right area. He called the police to come immediately; within half an hour they had located the second factory.

All 14 children could now be rescued.

Today, the factory owners are in custody and the traffickers are being sought. And most importantly: the 14 children have just had the best night's sleep of their lives, and are thinking only of their desire to get home to their families.

Once they have made their statements to the police, the children will commence their long journey home with Blue Dragon staff by their side. We'll meet their families and find out how we can help to ensure their villages are no longer targets for the traffickers.

I'm sure that much work lies ahead - and that it will all be worth it, to give these 14 children their new chance at childhood.

Bao and the DJ

A few months ago, I had never heard the name 'Hardwell.'

I had no idea that he was the world's Number 1 DJ, and I hadn't even heard of electro house music.

And yet, on Sunday last week, I joined a crowd of 13,000 - mostly young Vietnamese - to pack out a stadium in Saigon and 'make some noise' under the spell of Hardwell.

It was an amazing show; absolutely full on with lights and video stunning the crowd. But to be honest, I wasn't there for either the music or the show.

I was there with a 16 year old Blue Dragon boy, Bao, who sees Hardwell as his idol.

Bao has had a tough life. He doesn't talk about it much at all, but life has not been easy. He's moved from home to home, he's quit school, he's faced a lot of struggles.

And yet Bao has kept right away from trouble. Most teens in Hanoi in his position would have quickly fallen in with the wrong crowd, joined a gang, and taken to motorbike racing at night. But not Bao. He made a personal commitment to me about 3 years ago that he would stay out of trouble, and he has.

Instead, he's taken to music as his way of expressing himself. A brilliant DJ named Luke spent time with Bao, teaching him all the basics and letting him find his own 'musical voice.' Despite being only 16, Bao is now an accomplished DJ with a mastery of all the technical skills that any DJ has.

When Hardwell was announced as coming to Vietnam to play a huge gig, Bao straight away knew that he wanted to go... but being at the other end of the country, that seemed unlikely. However, Luke knew the organisers of the concert, and they invited Bao to not only attend, but to meet Hardwell in person!

So Bao and I spent the weekend in Saigon. We even had the unexpected treat of being invited to stay at the Caravelle Hotel, one of the best hotels in the city! Unbelievable!

The big moment came when Bao and I were accompanied backstage to Hardwell's room. Bao's heart was just about beating out of his chest - this was his dream come true!

And Hardwell didn't disappoint. He was incredibly kind, taking time to chat with Bao and find out about his life. It all went by too quickly, though, and soon we were back out in the crowd.

But those moments will live with Bao for a very long time. He has a new confidence and inner strength now: he has looked his idol in the eye, shaken hands, and exchanged smiles. Nothing's impossible now.

Electro house DJ parties may not be quite my thing, but I was more than happy to spend a night being overwhelmed by noise and flashing lights for the joy of seeing Bao at the top of the world.

Often my blog is a place for me to share the stories of hardships and sorrow. But today, Bao's story is one of great happiness and hope. Through the tough teenage years he's kept on track and worked toward a goal; now he's inspired to dream big and maybe, just maybe, become a famous DJ himself.

And it makes me think: If Bao, with all his troubles, can reach for the stars, then what excuse do I have?