Fresh ordeal for trafficking victims who return home

BANGKOK - The Thai woman had just been rescued after being exploited in Europe for sex work. But going home was the last thing on her mind. She had no money, and no ready answer for neighbours curious about her absence.

"I didn't know what to tell them because I came back empty-handed and I didn't want people to know what kind of work I did while I was away," she said. "I didn't want to be asked any questions."

She desperately needed a place to stay, but was not offered one.

Stories like hers were in the spotlight last week at the launch of a report about what happens to trafficking victims after they return home.

The rare study by the United Nations Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking, the Nexus Institute and other partners, based on in-depth interviews with 252 victims from the Greater Mekong Subregion - Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam - showed up glaring problems that prevented them from reintegrating into society after their ordeals.

For these victims, the nightmare did not end after escape or rescue. It continued back in their home villages, in the form of greater debt, family rejection, debilitating health problems, and even threats to their safety.

More than half of respondents did not get help in their destination countries, while about one-fifth were in the same situation in their home countries. They were falling through the cracks of after-care systems that were not only under-resourced, but also, many times, too inflexible to meet their particular needs, noted the report's author Rebecca Surtees at the launch of the report in Bangkok last Monday.

Diverse forms of trafficking exist in the region: Rural children are made to beg or sell flowers in large cities; men, women and children from Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia are forced into sex work, domestic work, or factory or farming work in more affluent Thailand; while women from Myanmar and Vietnam are trafficked deep into China for forced marriage.

Official numbers only hint at the scale of the problem. According to the United States government's Trafficking in Persons Report, released in June, Cambodian authorities identified and referred 958 trafficking victims over the past year. Royal Thai Police figures show that there were 594 trafficking victims in the last calendar year, out of which 270 were from Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos and other countries.

Over the years, while resources have been poured into law enforcement and justice systems to identify victims of human trafficking, little has gone towards helping them get back on their feet once they reach home, say veterans in the field.

Dr David Feingold, who until last year was the international coordinator for the Trafficking and HIV/Aids Project at the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, tells The Sunday Times: "Everybody wants to train the police. It's kind of the sexy thing to do: We go and fight modern slavery and put bad people in jail.

"But few countries want to pay for the training of a social worker."

Yet social workers are the ones who help victims settle back into society and keep them from being exploited again.

If the victims are returned to the same communities under the same economic circumstances, "they will re-migrate in a similar fashion that they did previously, which would put them in a vulnerable position", notes Mr John Whan Yoon, World Vision's regional anti-trafficking programme manager.

For some victims, the return home takes place under the unwelcome glare of publicity when officials escort them to their home villages, where they are met by village chiefs, noted the report.

This puts them at risk of discrimination and also physical harm should their traffickers track them down.

One woman from Myanmar who managed to return home after a forced marriage in China lives in fear of retaliation from her trafficker's network. "I do not even dare to go out and work since I'm afraid that the trafficker will ask some bad people to harm me," she told researchers.

For others, the help system is unnecessarily rigid. Another Myanmar woman, who had escaped a forced marriage, desperately needed housing, but was unable to obtain any because the aid agency concerned helped only those who were HIV-positive, pregnant, or who had returned with children.

Money weighs heavily on the returnees' minds. Most need to support their families and pay off the debts they took on to start the journey.

Yet, vocational training given to returnees is not always well thought out. One Laotian woman was trained in baking for several weeks before she realised that her home village was too small to support a bakery.

Sometimes, their return is not entirely welcome. Two sisters from Vietnam were scolded by their parents because they had to spend 30 million dong (S$1,800) to rescue them from traffickers.

Another woman who returned home to her husband and three children in Vietnam had to grapple with divorce because her spouse could not take neighbourhood gossip.

Some, meanwhile, come back ill. One man from Myanmar who was forced to work on a Thai fishing boat acquired liver and stomach problems that left him unable to work back home. To cover his medical bills, he had to borrow 500,000 kyat (S$640) at an interest rate of 25 per cent, which meant he fell behind on his rent payment.

The study, say anti-trafficking experts, gives a comprehensive if uncomfortable picture of what happens to victims upon their return. More importantly, it highlights the need for government agencies or international aid agencies to listen to these victims, so they know better how to help.

"This," says World Vision's Mr Yoon, "might arguably be the most important part: to start living again."

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