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Category: Human trafficking

Midnight

Midnight

Published by Michael Brosowski on May 8, 2018

I’m a terrible dinner guest. Invite me to your house, sit with me around a table, and ask me how my day was. I will tell stories that turn you off your meal. I will talk about the young mother who was tricked into following a trafficker into China, then tortured and raped until she complied with their demand that she “marry” a stranger. I will tell the story of the 2 boys who were living with Blue Dragon but then enticed away to join a criminal gang, which lends…

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A whole world to fix

A whole world to fix

Published by Michael Brosowski on April 16, 2018

Trang had a good, steady job. She earned enough in the local fish processing plant to look after herself and her 2 sons; while she wasn’t rich by any measure, she was able to get by and she was proud of her small family. When an environmental catastrophe hit north-central Vietnam in 2016, caused by a major steel mill discharging poison into the ocean, Trang’s job was among the first to go. With 200 km (125 miles) of coastline contaminated, all sealife in the region was devastated. There were simply…

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All in this…

Published by Michael Brosowski on April 12, 2018

I’ve posted an article on LinkedIn, discussing the pitfalls to current approaches that governments are taking to fight human trafficking. www.linkedin.com/pulse/all-together-michael-brosowski To end trafficking, we have to use our resources as best we can. There’s some evidence that countries may be taking a ‘siloed’ approach, trying to deal only with forms of trafficking which directly affect them, and I fear that there’s no way to succeed if we work like that. This issue is too important for us to mess up.   Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation rescues kids in crisis.

The long story

The long story

Published by Michael Brosowski on April 10, 2018

This first shot at getting back to the blog finds me quite far from home. I am in Zurich today, and heading to Ireland tomorrow where I will be speaking about human trafficking and what my organization in Vietnam has learned about it over the years. The story of Blue Dragon is one of unlikely success. We started back in 2002 as a group of friends in Hanoi wanting to help street kids; I was an English teacher in a university and most of those working alongside me were economists.…

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Trust Me

Trust Me

Published by Michael Brosowski on October 22, 2017

Every rescue operation is different to every other, but Trang’s was somehow even more different. In her late teens, Trang was trafficked from Vietnam and sold into a brothel in China. As is very common in these cases, she was deceived by someone posing as a close friend. A young man built a relationship with her, gained her trust, and then betrayed her. After many months in the brothel, where each moment was a brutal fight for survival, she found herself in possession of a mobile telephone, and in the early hours…

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What if?

What if?

Published by Michael Brosowski on October 8, 2017

During the week I visited British International School in Hanoi, and was talking to their Grade 8 class about charity, charities, and the idea that we all have a role to play in caring for our world. It’s always the Question Time that I most enjoy, because there’s nothing so insightful as the question of a child. And this class didn’t let me down. One of the girls asked me something quite profound: What if I hadn’t started Blue Dragon? Where would I be? And what about all the kids we’ve…

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A long walk

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 boys…

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Freedom calls

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

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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