SLAVERY TODAY (A FEW EXAMPLES)

Nata was a young Vietnamese girl age 14 when she was found in a brothel in Siem Reap, Cambodia in November 2004. Her mother had sold her from Vietnam to pay for her grandmother’s surgery, and she was brought here to work off her debt. $1200 dollars was offered to the owner of the brothel but the woman refused to let Nata go. The 333 Club was put on the list of clubs to be raided by the police, but Nata was not found. Those who were retrieved from that raid were later abducted and resold into the market.

What happened to her family is that her older brother and older sister were killed in the attack by the Janjaweed. Her mother in 2000 was still enslaved in the north, and she was taken as a domestic servant and third wife. Abuk is clearly damaged from years of abuse she suffered in Darfur and says she was forcibly circumcised and converted to Islam. Her captors beat her and broke her body, but they could not break her spirit. Abuk was taken to a Dinka tribal chief and raised with a local family.

Larisa was trafficked from Moldova to Moscow to Cairo, and then to Israel where she was forced to have sex with men day and night. She had originally gone to Egypt on a tourist visa, but had her passport, money, and possessions seized by the Russian Mafia who turned the victims over to the Sema Dana Bedouins who transited them across the Sinai desert into Israel. Living in Netanya, Larisa lived a grim existence, until a phone tip lead to her being retrieved by the local police. Once her case went to trial, Larisa planned to return home to Moldova to take care of an ill family member and start her life over.

Young Mohammad’s mother was taken in a slave raid on southern Sudan by the marauding Janjaweed and Murahaleen. He was born of an Arab father, his master. But during the Darfur genocie, his mother was killed and he was forced to flee alone to the south where he was purchased by the Murahaleen. We found Mohammad on the border of Darfur in Northern Braghazal, Sudan and arranged for his redemption through the peace committees established through the local tribal leadership. We arranged for his transportation south to be united with Pastor Tito and the CSI team in Malwalkan. The last time we saw Mohammad, he was carrying his survival kit back to his hut, and waving goodbye as we boarded the airplane to begin the long journey home.