Heinous tales

WAO’s Wong Su Zane says it takes time for a traumatised victim to even trust WAO.

Tuesday April 10, 2012
The Star Online (Malaysia)

Women Aid’s Organisation (WAO) social work manager Wong Su Zane says trafficked victims are often illiterate villagers who are duped into going to a foreign land for work opportunities that never materialise.

“The agents arranging for their entry here will prepare forged documents for these villagers to sign, and they don’t know what they are getting into.

“There was a case whereby an underaged girl from Cambodia realised her family book (the equivalent of our birth certificate) details had been altered to show an older age so she could work here as a maid. Her family refused initially to let her go but they were threatened.

“Then, there are migrant factory workers whose passports are kept and are not paid their salaries.

“In the early days, human trafficking was mainly to cater to the flesh trade, but it has evolved into different forms.

“Under the Anti-Trafficking Act, as long as there are elements of trafficking involved, the sacrificial scapegoats can be classified as trafficked victims,” says Wong, who has been working with trafficked victims for seven years.

She says with trafficking, a huge wave of fear is cast by the trafficker so that the victims believe they have no way out. Some even said the only way they could escape was to drink poison so that they could be admitted to the hospital, and then they could try to make a run from there.

“There are others however, who just accept the situation they are in,” says Wong.

She concedes, however, that there can be a fine line between smuggling and trafficking.

“The smuggler may be doing a deed helping the desperate to cross borders, but when he’s soliciting a huge payment afterwards or selling them off to traffickers to recoup the cost, it spirals into trafficking.”

The WAO, which has its own 24-hour protection shelter, can house up to 35 victims. It is staffed by six full-time social workers including herself.

“Only time can take away the trauma from the ingrained fear, and it takes a while for them to trust us as well,” Wong says.

One of the worst stories she has heard was of a group of girls forced into the sex trade.

They were being drugged during the day, while at night, they had to stay awake to service clients.

Among them was a girl who could not tolerate it anymore and tried to run from her pimps. She was unfortunately caught. The pimp then gathered the others around, started stripping her naked, and hung her upside down from the fan with her toes touching the centre as it spun.

“The pain experienced elicited loud screams from the girl, so loud that the rest of her mates could never forget it,” says Wong of the group who asked her for help.

“The tortured girl was never seen again.”