Sold like a chicken

I was promised a job as a waitress in a club," bemoaned a distraught Filipina woman "but on my first night in Hong Kong I realised I had been sex-trafficked."

She explained that along with other women the manager said we would just have drinks with the customers. "The girls who worked there said you could get around $18 a night that way but it wasn't enough to pay our costs."

Sex trafficking doesn't always involve midnight journeys in covered trucks, but comes with smooth talking job-recruiters promising decent work, moderate wages, a chance to travel and the possibility to help the family.

"Nothing was like I thought," the attractive young woman said, "I had paid the recruiter about $5,273 to get here, but on arrival I found out I had to pay $878 for one month's board and food in advance. We were told we couldn't leave until we had paid it.  There wasn't even a pillow or a sheet - I had to go and buy them.

Another young Filipina woman said that she had been told that all she had to do was have drinks with the clients.  "I had worked overseas before and going out with the clients was strictly forbidden. In fact, if any of the girls did, their jobs were terminated."

Both women commented that they arrived on tourist visas and were promised the necessary visa "would be fixed up when they got there." They both said the only "fixing up" that happened was having to go to China after 14 days "doing a U-turn and coming back again with a new 14-day visa."

The women each lived in a small apartment with 12 residents and a manager. The manager was Filipino and in partnership with a recruiter back home in the Philippines; the other explained that her manager was the wife of the recruiter.

In debt, one of the women said that in desperation she decided to go out with customers. "I had to do something to get out of this mess," she said.  "But some do not pay anything and others so little it is not worth it.  I was scared," she added, "There is no protection, you are totally at the mercy of whatever happens. So I gave it up." The other said, "I just couldn't do it."

Outsiders wonder how young women from the Philippines are continually sucked in by these promises.  But in a country where truth and trickery are difficult to distinguish, it can be hard to smell a rat when business people offer a good job in a foreign country. "We've all heard stories of people making money overseas," one woman explained, "but women caught in our situation never talk about it at home."

Both women gave up calling their families, as they couldn't hide their emotions. "I was always afraid I would cry," said one "and give the game away."

The other said she relied on God.   "I have learned that you can't judge anyone. We came to Hong Kong with the dream of a better future, but this is shattered.  It's hard to dream here, but I still have hope. I pray every night.

I talk to God as a father. I feel close to Him because of my trials."

Now back in the Philippines, both say that time is comforting, but the scars of their traumatic adventures in Hong Kong remain raw, even after some time has passed. One said, "I cannot tell anyone here or I will be marked as a prostitute forever. But I must tell someone. I don't want anyone else to get caught. I was sold like a chicken to satisfy someone's appetite."

Fr Mulroney is the Editor of the Sunday Examiner newspaper in Hong Kong.

Related links

• Read more JPIC Articles on Migration of Peoples