Human Trafficking Archives - Life is a long story

The option to stay

Mai and Peng were on the verge of leaving home to find work. Now they have a reason to stay… and a chance for a different future.

Mai and Peng are proud of their small family.

Raising two children, a girl and a boy, high up in the mountains of northern Vietnam, their lives have never been easy. Mai and Peng married young and, like many of their H’mong neighbours, grew maize for a living.

But as their children grew up, so did their costs. School fees. House repairs. Medical bills for Peng’s elderly mother, who lives with them. The future looked uncertain.

When Blue Dragon first came across this family, their mother Mai was deeply worried. She was having to choose daily between sending the kids to school or providing enough food for them all to eat. At times, they would go to bed hungry.

It looked like they would have to leave their mountain home to find work. And for families like theirs, that path often leads somewhere dangerous.

Out of school

In mountain villages like Mai and Peng’s, for young people to earn an income means one thing: migration. Leaving home to find a job that pays.

Mai and Peng didn’t want to take the kids out of school. Aged 11 and 14, they were still so young; but poverty robs you of choices, and it looked all but certain that their education had come to an end.

What Mai and her husband Peng didn’t fully comprehend was the risk involved in leaving home. By far, most Vietnamese people who are trafficked are those who have dropped out of school early and migrated for work.

This was a family at high risk.

Options

Once we knew of this family and their situation, the question for Blue Dragon was straightforward: What do they need to keep the kids in school and stay safe from the risk of human trafficking?

Mai and Peng didn’t want a handout. They needed an income. So we talked with them and their village leaders to develop an idea.

In the end, it was simple: if families could earn a living at home, they wouldn’t need to leave. A decision was made that ten of the poorest families would be given a grant to start small farms. The selected families received training and veterinary support, as well as the money to buy animals or crops.

Mai and Peng opted to buy three pigs. The total investment, including setting up the pigpens and getting a supply of food ready, was a little under $400. A small fortune for this family.

Where are they now

Fast forward a few years, and Mai and Peng have a completely different outlook.

Their kids are still in school: the son is in Grade 11 and the daughter Grade 8.

Their pigs are thriving. They now have a herd of 8, which they trade for food or raise piglets to sell.

And as a family, they have an income. Last year, they earned about $1,500. They are far from rich, but they have the one thing that keeps them and their children safe from trafficking: stability.

In the coming years, their children will finish school and then will head off for further studies or for decent jobs. Now that they are no longer desperate, they have choices.

A village transformed

It’s not only Mai and Peng’s family who have turned around their fortunes.

All of the other families in this pilot group have used the opportunity to create their own income streams. Some have earned enough money to repair their house, or build a toilet and install electricity. They have worked hard for their success, but just needed a helping hand to get going.

The impact has been so positive that now the community leaders are preparing to expand the idea around the region. What began as support for a few families is now something the community owns.

Recently, the local government raised funds to support 11 more families in the same village. The original group of 10 are now teachers and mentors to the new farmers.

And those who have benefited from these small grants have committed that as they succeed, they will each give an animal from their farm to another family who also needs help to get started.

Prevention

When people talk about preventing human trafficking, the focus is often on awareness – warning people about the risks.

For Mai and Peng, being aware of risk was never going to keep them safe. They needed practical assistance.

They were vulnerable to being trafficked because of their family circumstances. To end their vulnerability, their circumstances needed to change.

And now they have.

Beyond that, their whole community has learned a new way of looking out for each other. The program we put in place can easily be copied, replicated and scaled up.

Traffickers who may have preyed on them before really have no chance now. This is a community that is busy with their farming and no longer need to take risks just to get by.

When people have real options, traffickers have no power over them. Because the most effective protection for vulnerable people isn’t awareness; it’s opportunity.

Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation is working towards a world where we are all free from exploitation and slavery.

Come and see

At first, no one believed the children were being trafficked. What changed everything was not an argument, but an invitation.

Blue Dragon’s first days of rescuing kids from slavery were scary. Not just because of the dangers of confronting human trafficking, but because people couldn’t see that this really was trafficking.

We were seeing children taken from rural villages in central Vietnam and put to work in factories in Ho Chi Minh City. They were lured with promises of opportunity and training. Parents, most of whom lived in extreme poverty and had never been to school themselves, dreamt of their children having a better future. So the children left home with parental consent – by deception, of course – to work in sweatshops.

At that time, Vietnamese law was clear on human trafficking when it involved crossing international borders. But when it came to trafficking within the country, the law was very grey.

Blue Dragon didn’t want that to stop us. There were kids as young as 10, working up to 18 hours a day on factory floors while their parents thought they were in vocational training. We began working with families, village by village, to help them understand the reality and offer to bring their children home.

That’s how our earliest rescue operations began.

Doubt

However, not everyone was convinced. Around the villages, there were parents, community leaders and government officials who thought we were making it all up. I believe the phrase “trouble makers” may have been mentioned more than once.

As our work grew, so too did the pushback. In places, we were not welcome. I remember one day going to visit a family whose child we had recently found in a factory and brought home. Now we were helping them enrol in school again and assisting the father to buy fishing nets so he could earn a better income.

Out of nowhere, a local official appeared, apparently doing his own home visits. I found myself hiding behind a house until he had left, fearing that I’d be detained and asked to leave.

That was more than 15 years ago. Fast forward to today, and Blue Dragon works in seven provinces around the country, engaging communities and government agencies on this same issue of human trafficking. We regularly rescue people from slavery and represent them in court cases against their traffickers.

So what turned the tide, to take our work from being on the margins to being embraced and supported?

An invitation

It was a discussion one day with a local official, Mr “Thi”. He was a good man and cared for his community, but he was certain that no child trafficking was taking place in his area. He argued with us that going to work or training away from home was a better option for the kids than being at home, out of school, with no prospects locally for earning money.

And he simply didn’t believe our stories of kids being exploited to work long hours in hazardous conditions without pay or adequate food.

Our breakthrough came with a simple offer: Come with us. We’ll take you to these factories so you can see for yourself.

By this time, Mr Thi knew us well enough to see that our intentions were good, even if we might be wrong about the issue of child exploitation. The trust we had built by assisting members of his community opened a door that argument alone never could.

And so, Mr Thi accepted the offer. We arranged his travel to the city and accompanied him from factory to factory. He could see with his own eyes the children from his community working on ancient industrial machines and sleeping on factory floors.

Until he saw it, he couldn’t believe it. But once he knew what was happening, Mr Thi became a powerful advocate for protecting children from human trafficking. What began as skepticism had shifted into understanding and trust.

From seeing to action

Blue Dragon didn’t need to lobby for change. A local official took the lead, sharing what he had seen so that stronger protections could be put in place. This quickly spread from the village level to the province leaders – and then to the central government.

Blue Dragon no longer had to hide our work. We received formal acceptance to operate in the communities affected by this form of human trafficking – and we still work there to this day.

When the law was revised just a couple of years later, it included clear reference to “domestic human trafficking”, allowing police to take strong action when children are lured away to work like that.

With the whole community on board, we were able to put an end to child exploitation in those areas. The sweatshops that once thrived on child labour are shuttered. Children from those villages who once were easy targets for the traffickers are now in school, or have grown up to join training and get good jobs. Luong is one outstanding example.

And our success there has opened the door for Blue Dragon to take our anti-trafficking work to other regions of Vietnam that also need it.

What we learned

We started by rolling up our sleeves and doing the work ourselves. This showed others both the problem and the solution.

From there we turned our critics into allies, who went on to “own” this for themselves. Mr Thi and other community leaders didn’t simply start to support Blue Dragon; they took ownership of the issue and took the lead.

And that led to a change of mindset which in turn made possible the revision of the national law on trafficking.

The struggle to end human trafficking is far from over. But those early days taught us something we’ve carried ever since: systems don’t change just because they are instructed to. And they don’t change because well-meaning people promote a great idea.

Systems change when people can see clearly what is happening; and people only see when trust makes it possible.

Sometimes, the work of creating change begins with something as simple as an invitation:

Come and see.

Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation is working towards a world where we are all free from exploitation and slavery.

No silver bullet

Two thousand rescues is a milestone we never set out to reach. The real goal is simpler – and much harder – than rescue.

Blue Dragon is soon to mark a significant milestone: our 2,000th rescue of a person from slavery.

We never imagined that our first rescue operations, about 20 years ago, would be the start of something bigger. At the time, Blue Dragon was a very small organisation and all we wanted to do was help kids get out of trouble and onto a better path. There was never an intention to rescue hundreds or thousands of people.

While it’s significant, this is a milestone that we’re not celebrating.

Because we wish that there was nobody in need of this type of help. That human trafficking was a relic of the past. That when people were in such dangerous situations, systems would kick into place to protect them.

So our rescues are a response to a situation that we wish didn’t exist.

Not helpless

And yet, that doesn’t mean we’re helpless. On the contrary, over the years a vision has taken shape that gives us hope that there may yet be a day when our services are no longer needed.

Because every rescue operation gives us insight into how human trafficking works. Every time we reunite a trafficked person with their family and community, we understand more clearly what’s needed to keep people safe.

Over time, we’ve adapted that knowledge into systems that prevent human trafficking from happening. Slowly but surely, we’re building our knowledge and scaling up in areas of Vietnam where people are most vulnerable.

Loan

One young woman we have rescued is Loan. She was 20 when she was trafficked.

A single mother with a toddler, Loan just wanted to work. She didn’t want to be a burden on others; she wanted a job of her own so she could earn money to raise her daughter.

She came across a job ad online and applied for a position in a company. It would take her away from her village in the north-central region of Vietnam, but she could safely leave her child with her mother for a few months while she got started.

Loan was aware of the risks of human trafficking. She’d heard the stories and followed the news. But this job was in Ho Chi Minh City, far from the enslavement compounds of Cambodia and Myanmar. So she set off, hoping that this job might mean a better future for her baby.

What transpired was very different to what Loan dreamt. She was met by traffickers posing as business people who took her by car to Cambodia without her knowledge. Within a day of leaving home, she was sold to a criminal gang who forced her to work as an online scammer.

To refuse meant certain torture. If she was to survive, Loan had no choice but to follow orders.

She was in captivity for 6 months before she found a way to call for help. Blue Dragon was able to locate her and get her to safety within a few days, and soon she was home with her family.

Recovery

Once home, Loan was free but not OK.

The reasons that she had to travel away for work – her extreme poverty and need to care for her child – were now even more pressing. On top of that, while in slavery she had received no treatment for an autoimmune condition so her health was incredibly fragile.

And every person who experiences exploitation comes away with trauma. Loan had spent 6 months living in fear of her life, watching those around her be beaten violently.

Her effort to improve her life had made everything so much worse.

Tao

Tao is a young man who Blue Dragon also rescued from slavery.

Aged 19, we rescued him along with nine others from a scam compound in Myanmar.

Having grown up together in the same village, the group thought they had safety in numbers. They went online and found jobs advertised as sales positions in Laos. The ‘company’ even covered the cost of traveling from their home to get there. With little understanding of the world beyond their mountain home and minimal formal education, they had no idea what might lie ahead.

Once they reached Laos, their recruiters split them up and took them into Myanmar, where scam compounds operate on an industrial scale. Civil war keeps them safe from the eyes of the world but the chaos of the region makes it possible for Blue Dragon to rescue Vietnamese people who have been trafficked there.

Just like Loan, once Tao and his friends were home, their problems were far from over.

Tao was driven to find work to ease his family’s debt. While he had been in slavery, he had not been able to send money home – so the debt was now even worse.

Beyond rescue

The stories of Loan and Tao show us that people are vulnerable to being trafficked for very practical reasons, and often there’s more than one single factor.

Loan was a single mother in poor health with no hope of finding a job near home.

Tao had no formal education; no job; no knowledge of how to safely migrate for work; and debt to pay.

Conventional wisdom says that anti-trafficking organisations need to raise awareness to keep people safe. But we can see from these real-life situations that people need education, jobs, training and support services. Sometimes they need cash in their hands – direct financial aid – to get them through a rough period. And all of this has to be delivered by well-trained social workers, psychologists and law enforcement staff.

These are all very practical needs and they demand a practical response.

Working around Vietnam in both rural and urban areas, Blue Dragon has developed protective systems that are owned and implemented by local communities.

These systems include setting up volunteer boards who take the lead to keep their community members safe from human trafficking. When a family is struggling to earn an income, or a child stops going to school, or a person is planning to travel away for work, the boards have a role in offering assistance and advice.

The result is profound and simple. When kids are going to school and when people have decent living conditions, human traffickers don’t stand a chance.

And because all of these initiatives are led by community members, the system can be rolled out wherever it’s needed.

That’s what Blue Dragon is working on now. Refining the system we’ve developed and scaling it up.

While we do this, we continue to rescue people who have been trafficked.

Our reason to celebrate isn’t that we’ve rescued 2,000 people and it won’t be the day we reach 5,000 or 10,000.

The real reason to celebrate will be the day we don’t need to rescue anyone ever again.

Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation is working towards a world where we are all free from exploitation and slavery.

Starting over

It’s been a long hiatus. Time to return to the Life Is A Long Story blog.

I’ll be posting on the first Monday of each month (and sometimes more), starting February 2.

As always, I will share moments and insights from behind the scenes at Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation. My purpose is to inspire hope that our world can be a better place, but I’ll never gloss over the ugly truths of injustice and hardship.

Sometimes I will share important news and articles, and I’ll start that today with this link to a story we’ve just published: Fortresses of Fraud. In late 2025, some of our team went on an undercover visit to Cambodia to witness the development of online scamming compounds. What we saw was eye-opening and disturbing.

Keep an eye on your inboxes for coming posts!

Baby. Bathwater.

Burning the house down is great theatre, but it doesn’t make anything better.

Two things can be true at once.

It can be true to say that US government foreign aid has sometimes been poorly managed and funded things it shouldn’t.

It can also be true to say that US government foreign aid has done remarkable good for the whole world, including for America, and has saved millions of lives.

With a wave of change sweeping through the United States, the daily news cycle is overwhelming. All of us are finding it difficult to keep up. Some of my friends are talking nonstop about the issue of US foreign aid being cut and USAID being closed. Others haven’t even heard that this is happening.

I feel that there’s nuance missing from the discussion. So after a couple of months break from writing, I’d like to wade in on this highly controversial topic and say some things that perhaps nobody will fully agree with. And that’s OK.

Where we stand

My organisation, Blue Dragon, has benefited enormously from US funding. In addition to the people of America donating generously, about 10% of our budget has come from the US government. Not from USAID, but from the State Department.

Within the Department there’s an office called JTIP, which deals with human trafficking around the world. It releases an annual report evaluating the efforts of every country on the planet in their efforts to deal with human trafficking. And in identifying areas for improvement, it offers funding to make that happen.

Unlike some foreign aid programs, JTIP funding has been particularly flexible, covering direct action, research, and training, according to local needs. Above all, this program has been funding activities in countries that have little other funding available.

Because the US understands that human trafficking anywhere affects all of us.

Funding for Blue Dragon in the past few years has enabled us to work on the issue of human trafficking into forced scamming compounds. These are criminal enterprises in Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar, where people are lured with false promises of work and then forced to operate online as scammers. They set up fraudulent websites and apps; they create fake social media profiles and send out millions of emails; and they scam billions of dollars from people.

Who are their victims? You are. I am. I’ve lost a few hundred dollars of my own to scammers. If you haven’t had the experience yet, I can guarantee that you know someone (other than me) who has been scammed.

Frozen

US government funding for Blue Dragon’s work on this is now frozen—just like every other anti-trafficking organization that was receiving these funds.

We don’t know if it’s permanent. It might be unfrozen. We’ve been told that there’s a 90 day suspension during which all foreign aid is being reviewed. So I’m not giving up hope. We have an extremely difficult 90 days of budget shortfall and I’m grateful that many of our friends around the world are pitching in to help with this.

But after 90 days, nobody has any idea of what will come next.

And for those organisations who were receiving anti-trafficking funds from USAID? That source appears to be gone forever.

So… the US political movement that was so vocal about protecting children and stopping trafficking? Well, they’re the ones who just cut off the largest source of global funding for anti-trafficking work.

The flip side

At the same time, I know as well as anyone else that US Government funding has sometimes not been managed well. I’ve seen grants for human trafficking prevention go to agencies that have never been involved in this field of work, while agencies with expertise and experience have been overlooked.

That’s been incredibly frustrating and I know that money hasn’t been used as well as it could have been.

Do I think that closing it all down and freezing everything is the answer? No. That’s not even attempting to solve the problem.

Burning the house down in this way is great theatre, but it doesn’t make anything better.

We all know the old saying about throwing out the baby with the bathwater. Right now, it feels to me that that’s what we’re seeing.

It’s not too late and I can only hope that the funding reviews lead the administration to see that there is lots of good in the programs that the government funds. Cutting these out will be harmful to us all – including the American people.

Cutting efforts to combat online scamming will only lead to more Americans falling victim. As I’m quoted saying in this Wired article, these cuts may save millions, but will cost billions.

Similar arguments could well be made about funding to other forms of anti-trafficking work and to other causes. We live in such an interrelated world that the domino effects of development aid really do reach all of us, even if we never realize it.

If somebody doesn’t figure this out soon, we’ll all be realizing how much we’ve lost.

Lots of great charities are in need of support in this time of uncertainty. If you can support Blue Dragon, your gift will go toward protecting people from human trafficking and keeping families safe from exploitation.

The Road Home

A rescue operation to set free 21 people from slavery. Late-night street outreach in the city’s dark corners. These are powerful moments: but what comes next?

Blue Dragon’s work can get the adrenalin racing.

This week alone we rescued 21 people.

All were enslaved in one of Myanmar’s notorious “scam centers” where people are forced by armed criminals to work online under the constant threat of torture. Getting them to safety involved a swift escape from the traffickers, followed by a journey over land through a war zone.

Much of our work is less dramatic, but similarly complex. Working on the streets of Vietnam’s two biggest cities, our task is to meet children who are sleeping rough and offer them help.

When we first meet them, we never know what situation we are walking into. Are pimps controlling these kids? Are human traffickers watching from the shadows?

Unfortunately, there’s only one way to find out.

Reunion

But as exciting as all of this can be, what comes next is just as important: the journey home. True impact happens in the quieter, unseen moments that come next—moments like reuniting a child with their family or helping a community rebuild.

Whether we’ve met them on the city streets or rescued them from slavery, Blue Dragon takes great care when it comes to reuniting children with their families.

And that typically involves accompanying the child back to their home, however remote that may be.

Doing this allows us to understand how to help the family – and sometimes the whole community.

This week our staff traveled for 3 days to reunite a boy named Hung who we met on the streets of Hanoi. He’s just 14 years old and hadn’t eaten for days when we found him.

He came to the city looking for a way to earn money for his family. The journey home showed us very clearly why he needed to do that.

Following a very long bus ride into the mountains, the road became impassable by anything with more than 2 wheels. Hung and our staff took to motorbikes to travel from the main road to his home.

Here’s some video taken on the way:

The start of the motorbike ride to Hung’s home.

After some hours, the road was finished. The rest was by foot.

After the journey

Of course, the whole point of taking Hung home is so that we can find out what caused a child to make such a long and dangerous journey to the city – and then deal with that problem.

All of which means that getting Hung home doesn’t mark the end of the story. Just the end of a chapter.

Now he’s safely with his family and they know who Blue Dragon is. We’ve started discussions about helping them start some farming and improve their home. If we can make Hung’s living conditions better, he has no need of leaving at least until he’s old enough and has a plan.

Family reunions might not be the most exciting aspect of Blue Dragon’s work, but they are vital to our success.

Going beyond rescue means helping children and families to heal.

With Christmas and the new year coming, Blue Dragon is inviting our friends to donate for children like Hung. Just $1 is enough to provide a meal.

The Day of the Walk

It’s been another big one.

The annual Blue Dragon Walk has taken place around the world.

I’m writing this week from Melbourne, where I joined the Walk along the Bay.

The day started sunny and bright, but for a while our Walkers were drenched with a classic Melbourne downpour. Yet they continued – and continued to smile!

Around the world, Walkers appeared everywhere.

*Toronto, Canada: The staff of Intrepid Travel organised a walk through the city.*

*Ho Chi Minh City: Blue Dragon’s newly formed staff team in the city did their bit!*

*Bangkok, Thailand: Yaana Ventures organised a great day for staff and guests.*

*Hoi An, Vietnam: The team of Chops, a much loved burger chain, arranged a Walk in the ancient city.*

*Lausanne, Switzerland: A marathon walk through mountains and villages.*

*Sydney, Australia: That background says it all!*

*Chiang Mai, Thailand: To escape the heat, this team walked at night.*

*Phu Quoc Island, Vietnam: These Walkers from Accor Hotels were just one part of the hospitality chain’s broader participation in the day.*

And many, many more. Too many for me to share in a single blog!

It’s a powerful statement to have so many people in so many places showing their support for the work of Blue Dragon.

A HUGE thank you to everyone who took part, including…

… quite a few furry friends.

But there was one place where not many people walked.

Typhoon Yagi hit northern Vietnam hard over the weekend. The Blue Dragon Walk in Hanoi has been postponed until next weekend while the city cleans up.

A few brave people did get out and walk in Hanoi, but there’s a lot of work to do before the city is back to normal.

Which means the Blue Dragon Walk is not over yet, but a lot of good has already been done.

As with everything Blue Dragon does, it’s only possible because of the incredible friends we have around the world.

The Walk is the result of a partnership with Intrepid Travel, who do all the behind-the-scenes work that’s needed for a global event like this.

Huge support from groups like APT Travel, who offered matching donations and set up the Melbourne location, make a massive difference.

And then there’s Roll’d, who delivered platters of food for lunch at the Melbourne Walk… Accor, who had 22 hotels take part… and so many more.

I don’t want to sound like an advertorial, but many people deserve acknowledgement for their help.

Because this kind of community event is critical to Blue Dragon’s work.

And importantly, it gives people from all walks of life a chance to do their part to end human trafficking.

So to all who have taken part, donated, organised and helped:

Thank you.

It’s not too late to get involved! You’re welcome to sponsor my Walk here on the website. Every dollar you donate goes to Blue Dragon’s work in Vietnam.

The strongest man in town

Stories of torture and violence are common. Just what is life like for people trafficked into forced online scamming?

Vinh saw himself as the breadwinner.

His duty was to provide for his elderly parents.

And once he had saved enough money, he wanted to marry.

Vinh had grown up and lived in the same town his whole life, an ethnic minority village in south-central Vietnam.

So when he fell on hard times, he didn’t want to travel away for work, but it seemed to be the only option.

Vinh heard of work in northern regions and headed off hoping his fortunes had changed.

As happens so often, Vinh’s quest to find a job resulted in him being trafficked and sold. He was taken to Myanmar, where forced online scamming operations proliferate in the centre of a deadly war zone.

This week, Blue Dragon brought Vinh and two other young men home after a lengthy and complicated rescue operation.

After less than a year in captivity, Vinh returned in a wheelchair.

*Vinh and two other men rescued from Myanmar.*

Torture

All three were tortured and beaten in the compound that enslaved them. Conditions were brutal for all of the ‘workers’, whose job was to scam money online from other Vietnamese-speaking people around the world.

Taking Vinh to his family home in the countryside, his family and community are devastated.

“He was the strongest man in the village,” they told us. Now he cannot stand without assistance and his recovery is far from certain.

*Reunited with his mother, Vinh’s family and community are devastated to learn what happened.*

Shortly after, we rescued a teen girl named Ly from another compound in the same area.

She is 17, but looks so much younger. In one photograph we have of her, taken shortly after she reached safety, Ly is clutching a teddy bear and a doll.

She looks no older than 12.

Ly is physically unharmed but in deep trauma.

Despite now being safe, she’s still in a state of terror. She is yet to disclose what really happened while she was in captivity, but the fear in her eyes tells us all we need to know.

Degrees of trafficking

At times I’ve been criticised for rescuing anyone other than women and girls in sex trafficking.

But the truth is, all human trafficking is horrifying and must be stopped.

There’s an estimated 300,000 people in slavery in scamming operations across Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar. Every one of those people faces the risk of torture, violence, rape and murder on a daily basis.

Refuse to obey the traffickers? That’s a beating.

Failure to meet impossible targets, such as the number of people scammed? That can result in sleep and food deprivation.

Attempt to escape? The consequences can be torture, removal of organs, or even death.

Another young man named Cong, who recently contacted us for help, had part of a finger removed as his punishment for poor ‘performance’.

*Punished by the gangster who run online scamming.*

His crime? He didn’t scam enough people.

Collectively, the world is still trying to grasp this idea of forced online scamming. Are the people locked inside really victims? How bad could it be, working online in a room all day?

Vinh, Ly and Cong give us an answer to this question.

This is why Blue Dragon works so hard to rescue people who call for help. It’s only August and we’ve already rescued more than 170 people this year.

And as we do this, we continue seeking interventions that will stop human trafficking from happening in the first place.

There’s real promise in the solutions we’re developing.

But until human trafficking is a relic of history, there’s so much more to do. The rescue operations must continue.

Blue Dragon Child r en’s Foundation is on a mission to end human trafficking. You can help by joining the Blue Dragon Walk on September 8, no matter where you are.

It’s not what you think

In an age of disinformation, the truth about human trafficking is easily distorted.

When Blue Dragon rescues someone from slavery, we have a practice of announcing the operation on social media as soon as it is safe to do so.

It’s a way of sharing information with our supporters. The people who donate to make our work possible deserve to know what impact their giving has.

Sometimes, however, the response to our posts is different to what we expect.

A recent post announced that we had rescued a young woman from a forced marriage. We went on to say that she would soon be reunited with her family.

That brief comment attracted a curious response, with a significant number of readers demanding to know why we would reunite this woman with the very people who had trafficked her.

The problem is: Her family had nothing to do with it.

In fact, her family has spent years searching for their daughter. They’re ecstatic to have her back.

So why would people blame the parents for what happened to the daughter, when there is no evidence of this?

*Three people rescued from slavery cross back into Vietnam.*

The short answer is that people made an assumption, with no basis in fact.

The longer answer is that, in reality, we do this all the time. We may have once heard a shocking anecdote… Or seen something on TV… Or just had a ‘feeling’…

Armed with this sense that we know about the topic, we give ourselves license to judge others. And then we share that in the public domain of social media.

It’s true that there are stories of parents selling their child, or one sibling selling another.

It does happen. But it is very, very rare.

Statistically, in Vietnam about 3% of trafficking cases involve a close family member, like a parent or sibling.

Another 3% involve a more distant family member, like an aunt or uncle.

That’s it. 94% of known cases do not involve a family member at all. Yet it’s the 6% that shapes public opinion the most.

Misinformation and misconceptions shape what we think of street kids: “They don’t have parents” / “They’re not interested in changing their lives”.

And homeless people: “They get so many handouts by staying on the street”.

And so many other groups of minority and vulnerable people.

There’s a real cruelty in blaming the victims, yet those who do so often start out with good intentions.

Perhaps they’re outraged by a crime and want to see the guilty punished. I understand that.

But we can stand up for justice without jumping to conclusions.

We can be honest with ourselves and realise that the reality is often different to what we think.

Most social problems are far more complex than we wish.

There’s a lot of grey in our world, lying between our simple black-and-white visions of good versus evil.

The best response is to challenge ourselves to see beyond the surface, questioning our assumptions.

Only then can we truly stand with those who need our support the most.

Blue Dragon Child r en’s Foundation is on a mission to end human trafficking.

Relentless hope

In the face of endless suffering, how can we keep helping those in need?

People often ask me how I manage to keep going.

Blue Dragon’s work is intense. It’s rare for a day to go by without us receiving a desperate call for help from someone in slavery or meeting a homeless child in a terrible situation.

The numbers tell a slice of the story.

Since the start of this year, we’ve rescued 118 people from slavery: brothels, forced marriages, and forced labor.

In the same time, we’ve helped double that number of street kids – about 240 so far.

It’s only human for the constant exposure to traumatised, terrified people to affect us deeply.

*Meeting children in desperate situations is both traumatising, and what keeps us going.*

And it does. Among the staff of Blue Dragon – the social workers, psychologists, lawyers, counselors – there’s often someone experiencing their own stress or even burnout. On occasion, people need to take time off work or seek professional help to deal with their own emotions and psychological responses.

Both as individuals and as an organisation, we try our best but we have our limits.

Finding the way forward

Taking care of ourselves in the face of constant stress is the only way we can keep going. Being there for each other as a supportive team makes a world of difference. From an organisational point of view, there’s much we can do to provide for staff wellbeing and support people when they need it.

But in the end, the most important thing of all is hope.

We keep going because we believe it makes a difference. It’s worthwhile.

Even when we fail; even when we encounter cases that we’re unable to help; we know there’s still someone else waiting for us who we can help.

Should there come a day that I no longer think my contribution matters, I know I wouldn’t be able to continue.

What drives me – what drives all of us at Blue Dragon, from our frontline staff to our donors and partners around the world – is our relentless hope that our world can be better.

And so, no matter how hard things get, we continue.

Thank you to all who make Blue Dragon’s efforts possible. While our work continues, I’m taking a break from writing the weekly blog during July. I’ll be back with more stories of hope on August 4.