I’ve had my share of job interviews in my working years: at a radio station, a movie theater, college newspaper office, two daily newspaper companies, a bus magazine, a curriculum company, a non-profit. Never in all of those interviews did I have to worry about becoming a slave.
Overworked? Yes.
Underpaid? Yes.
Unappreciated? Yes.
Fired? Yes.
Enslaved? No.
That’s Anna’s story. 
Investigators working with The Exodus Road met Anna and Sophia, two European women, working the streets in Southeast Asia in the fall of this year. Anna was promised a job in Southeast Asia–maybe it was cleaning houses or being a nanny–and an income that would support her and her family. She arrived to a much different scenario.
A sex trafficker took her passport and said she owed him $5,000 (US) for the ticket and her housing. To “work off” her debt, Anna and Sophia now work a red-light district in Southeast Asia making about $50 a night. Even if Anna could work off her debt, the scars–physical and mental–of the abuse she has suffered will follow her.
She just wanted a job. To help her family. To escape poverty.
Now she is trapped, forced to sell herself night after night to pay a debt to her captors.
Anna and Sophia’s stories have been documented by The Exodus Road investigators but pursuing a case against the traffickers is in the hands of local non-governmental organizations. The Exodus Road can provide funding and personnel in pursuing this case to conviction. In the meantime, two girls wait on a street corner, cigarettes in their hands, wearing tall heels or trendy high-tops, mini-skirts and make-up, trying to catch the eye of a Western tourist or a local passing by, looking for drinks or fun, parties or sex.
Click here to find out how you can help The Exodus Road help girls like Anna and Sophia.
Leave a Reply