AFESIP Laos Case study: Noy and Tuk*
Tessa Bunney
Agir pour les Femmes en Situation Précaire Acting for Women in Distressing Circumstances *Names have been changed to protect the survivors of human trafficking
Noy and Tuk are originally from a small farming village on the Mekong River, just outside of Vientiane. The girls had left school early to help their families on the land, but in April 2010 when they were just 16 years old, a middle-aged Lao woman approached them and offered them jobs as waitresses in a restaurant in Thailand. She told them they could earn high salaries and that her own daughters were working there, assuring the girls that conditions were good. After some persuasion, the girls agreed. Another girl, Lot* aged 15, was used as ‘bait’ to lure the girls to go with her. Noy and Tuk discovered too late that they had been tricked. All three girls were taken by boat at dawn across the Mekong with no identity papers or money. In Thailand they were taken to the home of the trafficker’s sister, and from there to the home of a third woman who owned the karaoke bar where they were forced to work as sex workers. On arrival at the bar, the terrified girls were locked in a single room for two days. They were then given seductive clothing to wear and ordered to begin work. Altogether there were six Thai girls and four Lao girls – two of them indeed were the trafficker’s own daughters, however this was not the waitressing job Noy and Tuk had been promised. For a full year the girls were kept captive in the karaoke bar and had to take between eight and fifteen clients a day. They worked throughout the night, usually going to sleep around 4am. However, if a client arrived after they had gone to sleep, they were woken up and ordered to work. The girls were not paid other than occasional tips from clients. The salaries they were promised were rarely sent to their families back home. Then one day a policeman came to the bar posing as a client. The bar was shut down and the girls were rescued, however the bar owner escaped, managing to avoid arrest. After investigation, the girls were kept at a safe house for ten months, until finally being returned to Laos. Authorities in Vientiane alerted AFESIP to the girls’ ordeal. Noy and Tuk agreed to report the woman in their own village who had trafficked them. AFESIP lawyers took up their case against the woman. The girls meanwhile stayed at an AFESIP shelter, where they had access to health care, psychological support and vocational training. Throughout 2012, AFESIP’s legal team pursued the case together with the Anti-Trafficking Unit police. Finally at the very beginning of 2013, the woman trafficker in her fifties, was given a 15-year jail sentence and fined equivalent to US$12,820. Each of the three victims received US$1,670 in compensation.
Case Study: Pern* Growing up in an impoverished village in Vientiane’s Naysaythong district, Pern’s family could not afford to keep her in school. At the age of 10, prior to the end of her primary education, Pern left school to help her family pick rice and bamboo shoots on a local farm. With four siblings to support, including one with learning difficulties, when Pern saw an advertisement for a job as a waitress in Thailand, at the age of 16 it seemed too good an opportunity to miss. Offered 3,500 baht (US$110) per month to work in a karaoke bar in the southern province of Thrang, she would also receive an advance of 3,000 baht (US$95) to cover the journey. It was too late when Pern discovered, she had fallen victim to human traffickers and found herself working as a “masseuse” in a bar that employed underage prostitutes. All of her clients were male and her meager wage was not sufficient to cover her travel home to Vientiane. Only when police raided the bar and arrested Pern and 11 other Lao girls was she able to leave. The bar owner was arrested for employing underage prostitutes. Pern and other girls were sent to a governmental transit centre where she was processed as a victim of human trafficking by the Thai police. On her return to Vientiane Pern’s case was referred to AFESIP which offered her shelter and vocational training. Training to be a chef, Pern now holds an assistant chef position in Vientiane and earns a large enough salary to send money home to her family. Pern dreams of a day when she can own a small piece of land where she can have a house and her own restaurant. Her family are all very proud of her. Currently, Pern is being considered by AFESIP Laos as a suitable candidate for a managerial role at a new social enterprise at the organisations shelter in Savannakhet.