While we sit home in the comfort of our parents and four walls, we're completely oblivious to a whole other side of this world. Life was not this easy for Ba, an eighteen-year-old boy from Vietnam. Ba was an orphan, a street child who slept in the bend of a sewage pipe. He did minor jobs for money and was often beaten up by older men who would grab his takings. He recalls beings kidnapped on the streets of Ho Chi Minh City, by a group of Chinese men that trafficked him to the UK. In an interview with this brave boy, he spoke about how he was manipulated and captured.
"An older man told me that if I came with him, he could help me earn a lot of money. But when I said no, he put a bag over my head. I couldn't believe what was happening,"
He was then thrown into a van, abducted and forced to work on a cannabis farm. There are more Bas in this world. There are more little boys and girls forced into a lifestyle unfit for a child, or for that matter, any human being. Every single year around 10 million children are sold into child and human trafficking rings worldwide, these innocent children are either sexually exploited or forced to do hard manual jobs because they're seen as easily manipulated. Asia is seen as the most susceptible area due to its rapidly growing population, political structure and poverty. Due to poverty, kids are often sold or forced to work at young ages to raise money for sustenance. India, China, Thailand and Bangladesh are in the top ten countries with the largest number of victims around the world. India is at the top of the list with 14 million victims.
We could never imagine a life like this, but barely 4,000 km away from you there just may be another Ba or another child victim to this unfortunate doing.
by Viara Moray (10B)
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