A long walk

Published by Michael Brosowski on August 14, 2017

On Sunday, I took part in a marathon walk. Forty two kilometers along the Merri Creek in Melbourne, Australia, to raise money for the work of Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation. About 30 people took part, and although many of us had never met before we were united by our concern for the fate of Vietnamese children. We all had sponsors, and so we set out in the morning to accomplish a goal that’s small on a global scale, but significant for our own lives. As we were walking, 4 teenage…

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Freedom calls

Published by Michael Brosowski on July 17, 2017

Lan was 25 years old when she was trafficked from Vietnam and sold into a forced marriage deep inside China. Blue Dragon receives calls for help several times a week, and sometimes every day. The young people we’re called to rescue are in all sorts of situations: sometimes caught up in pedophile rings, sometimes trapped in sweatshops, sometimes taken out of the country and sold to brothels or as brides. When the phone rings we just don’t know what the next case will be. For all we’ve seen and heard over the years,…

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Chains

Chains

Published by Michael Brosowski on July 2, 2017

(Apologies for the re-post; a WordPress glitch deleted this post from last week). Trinh is 14 years old and has been selling sex for 2 years. He has never told us how it started; I don’t know who first abused him or what the circumstances were. Maybe he was desperate for money and reluctantly went along with a pimp who convinced him it would be easy. Or maybe he was deceived by an older friend who promised him a fun night out and didn’t tell him what was going to happen.…

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Appealing

Published by Michael Brosowski on May 14, 2017

It’s that time of year again when Blue Dragon is in need of help. Anyone who follows my blog, or keeps up with the Blue Dragon Facebook page, knows of our work. We rescue kids in crisis. Since the start of 2017 alone, we’ve already rescued 64 victims of human trafficking from brothels, forced marriages, and sweatshops. That’s in addition to the homeless children we’ve reunited with their parents, the classes and shelters we run, and all the court cases we’ve been in to represent the victims of crimes. Altogether…

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The Rush

Published by Michael Brosowski on April 23, 2017

Early last week I found myself in a meeting at Blue Dragon where a 17 year old girl, Ha, was being reunited with her family. Ha had been trafficked from Vietnam into China 5 months ago and sold as a bride. She was a Grade 11 student and her family loves her deeply; her parents were overcome with emotion to be back together again. A H’mong family, Ha’s mother was wearing traditional dress and before leaving our centre Ha also changed back into her customary clothing for the first time since she…

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Home to say goodbye

Home to say goodbye

Published by Michael Brosowski on April 9, 2017

Diep was 17 years old when she was trafficked to China and sold to a brothel. Most of the people Blue Dragon rescues from trafficking have been enslaved for a matter of months. Diep was in China for 14 years. She was sold by someone posing as a friend who offered to help her get a job in Hanoi. Those were the days before mobile phones and the internet were ubiquitous throughout the country, and Diep had no way of contacting her family when she realised she had been deceived.…

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The cover story

The cover story

Published by Michael Brosowski on April 3, 2017

Huong was 19 when we brought her back. From a province in northern Vietnam, she had been trafficked and sold to a brothel in China before her 18th birthday. At the first moment possible, she made a call to her family in Vietnam and within weeks we had located her and helped her escape. When Blue Dragon first gets the survivors of human trafficking back across the border into Vietnam, we have psychologists and social workers to support them through their first days of freedom. Some are ready to give…

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A long time

A long time

Published by Michael Brosowski on March 27, 2017

Late last week, Blue Dragon brought home a woman, “Binh,” who was trafficked from Vietnam to China 26 years ago. The idea that someone could be enslaved for so long seems to defy understanding. We don’t yet know her full story, but we do know that when she was sold into a forced marriage at the start of the 1990s she already had a family here in Vietnam. Now in her 60s, Binh has spent almost half her life isolated from her own children, never knowing where they were or…

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Back

Published by Michael Brosowski on March 19, 2017

Thanh had a quiet life. Aged 27, she worked in a Hanoi clothes shop. She had good friends, a decent salary, and every reason to think she would soon be married and starting her own family. Until just over a month ago. One of her friends in the shop came to her secretly with a great idea. Why did they have to work for someone else? Why not put their minds together and open their own shop, using the contacts they had made and the business knowledge they had picked…

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Representation

Representation

Published by Michael Brosowski on March 5, 2017

Sometimes I find it hard to explain what Blue Dragon does. We started out, back in 2003, as a group of friends in Hanoi running English classes for street kids. Soon after we took the classes to a football field, where our long-running soccer team began. (Just last summer we played our 2000th game). Then we opened a shelter; then a drop-in centre. Then we found ourselves in a position to help a child who had been trafficked and sold, and so we started what would be the first of…

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Life is a long story

Category: Human trafficking

A long walk

Freedom calls

Chains

Appealing

The Rush

Home to say goodbye

The cover story

A long time

Back

Representation