SOURCE: The Star Online
Sunday November 4, 2012
By HARIATI AZIZAN
sunday@thestar.com.my
Freedom matters: The photo exhibition at the ‘Bringing Human Trafficking To Light’ event organised by LexisNexis at Actors Studio@Lot 10.
As the anniversary of the Convention on the Rights of the Child nears, some young Malaysians tackle the issue of modern day slavery.
ALL Angie, 15, wanted was to have some fun when she ran away from home with her two friends. And she thought she was about to get some when a sweet-talking young man, who looked like the boy next door, stopped his car to give them a ride.
Before they knew it, Angie and her friends found themselves under the control of a pimp who threatened to kill them if they didn't return with enough money plied through sex with clients at a truckstop in the outskirts of Oklahoma City.
“I just wished I was dead or something. I just kept remembering, I'm gonna be caged for the rest of my life,” said Angie.
Fortunately, Angie was rescued along with 12 other teenage girls in an FBI sting operation on the underage prostitution ring.
The truckstop on Interstate 40 in Oklahoma and Texas, notoriously known as the “Party Row”, was one of the human trafficking hotspots exposed in Not My Life, a documentary by Oscar-nominated director Robert Bilheimer.
It is no wonder that the raw and gritty documentary left many disturbed during its screening in Malaysia recently.
After all, if it can happen in the developed United States, what about Malaysia?
Justine: Enlightened after watching 'Not My Life'.
The documentary was screened as part of an awareness-raising event “Bringing Human Trafficking To Light” organised by global professional information solutions provider LexisNexis, with ticket sales and proceeds going to two NGOs working with human trafficking victims in Malaysia the Coalition to Abolish Modern-day Slavery in Asia (Camsa) and the Good Shepherd Sisters in Malaysia.
As driven home by the film, the harsh reality is human trafficking is prevalent in virtually every country on earth, and children make up the highest number of victims (estimated at more than half of the 27 million total trafficking victims).
In Eastern Europe, young girls are hung from the ceiling and beaten with an iron bar to make them behave, or shot in the face as a lesson to the other trafficked victims.
On the banks of the Mekong River in Cambodia, a poor fishing family is told by “good Samaritans” that their eight-year-old girl will have a better life in Phnom Penh under their care. Instead, she has to service foreign tourists daily in the brothels. To keep her “attractive” for her adult customers, the young girl, like the others, will be sewn back up over and over so that she will always be a “virgin”.
And it is not only sex trafficking that youths from poor families are vulnerable to. In their plight for survival, many get drawn into forced labour, child armies and debt bondage.
The film goes on to show that it is the same fate for children in Senegal where religious scholars bearing promises of a better future knock on poor homes to “rescue” the children, but only to consign them to a life of begging on the streets. In India, where begging is unlawful, children are “hired” to sort the waste and rubbish in the toxic landfill sites.
The documentary could not have summed it better: human trafficking is a multi-billion dollar global industry that earns its profits “on the backs and in the beds of our planet's youths”.
It is fitting then that in Malaysia, it is a group of youths taking a stand against human trafficking.
Youthful beacon
Derek: ‘Sometimes, we are not observant enough.’
Collaborating with the LexisNexis student ambassador programme, the group who call themselves Project Liber8 is going from college to college to champion the cause.
“We are an independent organisation and we are going around to colleges and setting up booths to raise awareness among young people that this (human trafficking) is something that they should care about,” says Justine Tan Mei-Ern, a Project Liber8 member who is also currently a student ambassador with LexisNexis.
Originally set up by a group of students from Help University, Project Liber8 has since recruited members from various universities and colleges across Kuala Lumpur.
Justine, for one, is a first-year law student from the Brickfields Asia College. Describing her fellow Project Liber8 members as “semangat-ed about the issue” (passionate about the issue), she says the activities they have been organising such as road shows, talks and peer-to-peer interactions have been effective in getting fellow students interested in the issue.
“Peer-to-peer campaigning is the best way to raise awareness on the issue and to get people involved. Project Liber8 really managed to pull in the crowd college students in urban cities don't really care about things, but they managed to find a way to make people care. It is more effective and impactful,” she says.
There is a core group of about 20 to 25 people in Project Liber8, with a growing number of “friends” and “followers”. Currently, they are also busy preparing for their official launch this Saturday at Zouk Club in Kuala Lumpur.
Justine feels that one barrier for people in getting on board the fight is the complexity of the issue.
'Not My Life', a documentary on human trafficking directed by Bilheimer.
“Human trafficking is a really big word and many young people we meet have no idea about it whatsoever. But when we talked to them about it, they realise that it is happening near them, in their neighbourhood and that there is something that they can do about it.”
Surprisingly, Twitter has helped in breaking down human trafficking into digestible nuggets of information for their peers and classmates.
As Justine puts it, it is not easy to summarise human trafficking from her research into 140 characters, but it has been a good exercise which has also helped her understand the issue better.
“Of course, we hope it will spark people to do their own research and their own reading on the issue.”
Justine concedes that she initially found human trafficking a “distant” issue too.
“At first, I felt very disconnected to the issue because I thought it was very far away from us and there was nothing much that we can do about it. But LexisNexis exposed us to the whole crux of the issue and how close it is to us, and how we can actually do something about it,” says Justine, who was enlightened after watching Not My Life too.
The documentary encouraged her to read up on the issue, including the anti-trafficking law.
It's about relevance, her fellow student ambassador and law student Derek Kok opines.
“The complexity of the issue makes it difficult for people to see how relevant it is to their lives. And most of the time, it triggers images of people being smuggled in lorries and sex trafficking. And because sex sells, there is the moral outrage and shock factor.
“But actually, if you look at it, those little kids from children's homes selling tissues and raisins can also be considered victims of human trafficking. So it is really happening every day all around us,” says Derek.
Before he became involved in this project, he too thought it was a very abstract subject.
Out of bondage: Bilheimer with a human trafficking survivor.
“I felt that it's out there, it's not happening where I live. The more I learn about this issue though, the more I realise that it is real and affects many people, people who you may know or be related to you.
“Sometimes when you look at facts and figures, they are just that. You forget that behind the facts and numbers are the people someone's sister, brother, daughter or son. There are lives involved.”
First, he says, Malaysians need to get informed.
“Sometimes you see the victims and you think they are just another tissue seller or migrant worker or maid, because you don't have the information that they might be trafficked victims. Sometimes we are not observant enough.”
Global fight
Awareness is crucial, LexisNexis Asia CEO Shawn Clark concurs.
What the company hopes to do, he adds, is to raise people's awareness so that they are compelled to actually do something to stop human trafficking.
“We want people to call the authorities (when they suspect anything) and alert groups working on human trafficking to stop it.”
In fact, the documentary screening, which was followed by a panel discussion on the issue, is part of the company's long-term campaign to shed light on the heinous crime plaguing today's world.
Clark shares that they are also hoping to work with the Malaysian Government to strengthen the country's policies and anti-trafficking law.
Girls, beware: One of the exhibits at the S.O.S. Human Trafficking Exhibition organised by project Liber8 at HELP University.
At the very least, he hopes people will be encouraged to share online the documentary, which LexisNexis is sponsoring to distribute worldwide, or organise their own screenings at their homes, offices, institutions and others to spread the word.
Justine believes that all it takes is a few hours of people's time to contribute to the fight against human trafficking.
“You can link with the different people who are working on the issue or can contribute your time and skills at the shelters or organisations like Camsa, which deals with human trafficking cases they really need help. For example, they need your clerical and organisational skills to help out at the office. They also need some volunteers who just need to talk to the victims at the Shelter.”
Those in the legal profession can work pro bono on the cases, urges Justine. “You can contribute in any way you can, all you need is time.”
The more people get on board the fight against human trafficking, adds Clark, the weaker the human trafficking network becomes, and its power over the vulnerable can be reduced.
According to various groups and agencies working on human trafficking, two children are trafficked in the world every minute and around 99% of victims of this billion dollar international racket are never rescued.
This is why it is crucial that more Malaysians start getting concerned about human trafficking, says Camsa country manager Daniel Lo.
“Why does human trafficking matter? It's because freedom matters my freedom, your freedom, and freedom of the victims,” he stresses, pointing out that human trafficking is the second most profitable criminal activity in the world, after the trade of drugs and arms.
Human trafficking at a glance
HUMAN trafficking is the act of recruiting, transporting, transferring, harbouring or receiving a person through a use of force, coercion or other means, for the purpose of exploiting them.
The 2012 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report describes Malaysia as a major destination point for trafficked people, and a transit point for men, women and children who are trapped in forced labour and sex trafficking.
According to the US Department of State report, there is a high number of trafficked victims primarily debt bondage and forced labour victims among the two million documented and 1.9 million undocumented foreign workers in Malaysia.
While efforts have been made to enforce the country's anti-trafficking law, TIP reported that the government has not shown evidence of any increase in efforts of addressing this problem, among others. The Malaysian Goverment statistics show that on average, two victims are rescued every day.
Malaysia remains on the Tier 2 Watch List for the third consecutive year in June for not fully complying with the international minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking as recommended by the Palermo Protocol.
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