STORIES
From China
Li was trafficked from the market near her village in south west China. Li faced the daily desperation of harsh poverty and the threat to her own survival. One day, a man told her he knew her sister, and knew how to take her to her for a visit. She was promised transport to an otherwise inaccessible destination. With innocent trust the deal was done – and a life of promise was trafficked into a life promising only abuse. Bought as a wife by a wealthy bachelor, Li was forced into a marriage built on a transaction, not on the exchange of committed promises.
She was stolen away from her husband and one year old daughter by this trafficker. A vulnerable woman. A promising profit for a trafficker.
For three years Li was locked in a room when she returned home each day from the fields with the people that guarded her. She was used as a slave for the farm and for sex, taunted by the family of her new owner, beaten, considered nothing. Li promised herself she would escape, she would return to her family.
Uneducated, unable to even speak the local language, that dream of escape seemed beyond her. But one day her chance to escape came true. She ran until she reached a town. She got a job in a factory. She met a woman who spoke her language, a woman who promised to help her, a woman who kept her promises.
Li now lives at home. She is rebuilding her life in a village where there are very few women left. She is once again a real wife, a mother, and she promises herself she will never let her daughter fall into the same trap. As part of a Salvation Army education, awareness and rehabilitation project, Li is now helping to ‘stop the traffik’ by sharing her story with other villages and communities to make sure they don’t fall victim to the same injustice.
From the UK
Kay was first trafficked at the age of 13. Her family lived in dire poverty and struggled to afford basic living costs like food and heating each day. Traffickers targeted the family and it was Kay’s sister that sold her to traffickers.
She experienced brutal beatings and rape and was forced to work as a prostitute. Then she was sold again, this time to some men in Italy. However, the police found her and she was returned to her home country in Eastern Europe.
She was home for only four days before her father sold her again, this time to another group of traffickers. They prostituted her in Italy and France before bringing her to the United Kingdom. She was moved around several brothels and forced to see dozens of men every day. Through local intervention and community suspicion she has now been rescued by a project in the UK. To this day, her traffickers have never been caught. For Kay, there is hope.
From Malawi
Dumisani lived with his family in southern Malawi. Desperately poor, his parents struggled to survive, whilst supporting him and his brothers and sisters. So when a trafficker offered his parents a job for Dumisani, they thought his life would improve. At 13 years old, Dumisani was promised work as a herd boy herding cattle. The arrangement was that the trafficker would pay a deposit and then Dumiani and his family would get paid at the end of the contracted year. Dumisani doesn’t know how much they were paid, but an average price is around 15 pence as deposit for a child.
A few hours away in another part of the country, Dumisani was sent into the fields each day with the cattle and goats to watch them as they grazed. Along with other trafficked herd boys, Dumisani lived in constant fear not only of their traffickers but also of thieves who ambush herd boys to steal cattle. At night, they would return to their ‘owner’s’ home along with the animals. They were given a small amount of food and then sent to sleep outside with the animals. If an animal went missing, food was sometimes withheld until the animal was found.
Dumisani was rescued by a social worker who met him in the fields. He is now being cared for by The Salvation Army and is receiving psychological and social support, health care and good food. He looks forward to returning to his family and finishing his his education. Dumisani’s life once again has promise. But who will help the thousands of other children who are trafficked in Malawi every year?
