UN: Victims of human trafficking speak out

Gurung urged the “big people” at Thursday’s event “to develop a mechanism to save people like me from such traps of human trafficking.”Charlotte Awino described how she and 138 other girls were abducted from a boarding school in 1996 by rebels from the Lords Resistance Army, marched for three months into southern Sudan, and used […]

Gurung urged the “big people” at Thursday’s event “to develop a mechanism to save people like me from such traps of human trafficking.”Charlotte Awino described how she and 138 other girls were abducted from a boarding school in 1996 by rebels from the Lords Resistance Army, marched for three months into southern Sudan, and used as human shields during fighting against Uganda soldiers.

“As usual, we girls suffered more,” she said. “We were distributed to rebel commanders, as objects without rights, and we were sexually abused. … I was given to a man who had 20 other abducted girls, and he was a brutal man. I had two children with him.”

Awino, who escaped in 2004 when the rebels went back to northern Uganda, urged the U.N. to “try to get back the children who have been trafficked through war, some as young as 6.”

She also called for victims to be given counseling, health care and education, for countries to better protect their citizens during war, and for improved methods to track and trace missing people. She also urged understanding for the plight of victims.

“One day I was at home. The next day I was among the rebels,” Awino said. “Is everyone going to call us rebels or terrorists?”

Kikka Cerpa described falling in love with a man named Daniel while working at a hotel in the Venezuelan capital, Caracas, when she was 17 years old. A few years later, she said, Daniel moved to New York and eventually she went to join him, only to discover that his family ran a sex trafficking ring.

Cerpa said her passport and money were taken, she was put in a basement and told she owed the family a lot of money, and the only way to pay it off was to work in a brothel. “The first night was the worst,” she said, her voice quavering. “I have to service 90 men.” Cerpa said she was trafficked from brothel to brothel over the next three years. Sometimes police would raid the brothels, but “instead of rescuing us, they demand that we perform sexual services on them.” After her best friend in the brothel was murdered by a customer, she said, she knew she had to leave — so she married a customer, but he beat her and threatened to have her deported.

Finally, she escaped and was helped by an organization to get a divorce and legalize her status in the U.S. “I’m telling my story to help all the trafficking victims around the world,” she said. “We need to pass and enforce laws that will protect us from traffickers like Daniel.”

Cerpa said customers should also be held accountable and “treated like a criminal, like they are,” and police officers and prosecutors should be trained to identify and protect victims.

Reuters