Just a dollar a day will rescue a sex slave

Just a dollar a day will rescue a sex slave

Docklands-based charity The Big Umbrella this month launches a national campaign to rescue Vietnamese girls from sex slavery in China.

The Big Umbrella founder Justin Dickinson has just returned from five months in Vietnam where he was exposed to the work of the Blue Dragon Children’s Foundation.

Blue Dragon’s primary purpose is to rescue Vietnamese girls who are sold into slavery across the border in China, however its reach is restricted because of a lack of available financial aid.

“It was a no brainer for me, I was determined that when we got home, we would be able raise $52,000 in a year to fund one rescue a week,” Mr Dickinson said.

“It’s mind-blowing that in 2013, slavery has now overtaken arms trafficking to become the world’s second largest criminal activity, behind drug trafficking,” he said.

“World-wide, more than 30 million people are living a life of abuse, rape, malnutrition, beatings, forced labour and exhaustion with little to no hope of ever escaping.”

“Our crowd funding Campaign 147 aims to give the power back to the people. We are looking for just 147 people to sacrifice a $1 a day for next 365 days so that these girls can be rescued from a terrible fate as a sex slave in Chinese brothels. It only costs $1000 each rescue and this means that more children will be freed from garment factories and more traffickers will be arrested and imprisoned.

“The traffickers in Vietnam will court a young woman for one year or so … they deceive them, playing the role of a trustworthy and loving partner for up to 12 months. It all seems very normal until, one day they take a ‘holiday’ or ‘go shopping in China. Here she will be sold by her ‘boyfriend’ to a brothel for as little as US$2000,” Mr Dickinson said.

“If she is a virgin the brothel can sell her two or three times the normal price. Once she is no longer a virgin the brothel will then give her very painful surgery to make her a virgin again, they continue this process three or four times before her body can not take the surgery anymore.”

“One particular girl’s recount was that on her first day she was made to ‘service’ 47 men. She said that she was about to kill herself on that day. However, she did not want to die without seeing her parents and siblings.”

“A few years will go by, she will then be sold all around China to other less expensive brothels where she could service up to 50-70 men a day.”

“If she becomes pregnant they make her have an abortion, after this happens, she will be made to go back to work within hours of the operation.”

“Some girls are then sold to a boat out at sea, she will never return from this. Locked in a room and made to service sailors day and night until her small body can’t take it any more.”

“She will eventually die from this abuse and her body will be dumped overboard, with no papers and no passport, no one will ever know of this crime.”

To enlist in the fight for humanity go to http://www.thebigumbrella.org/campaign-147 or contact Mr Dickinson on 0426 816 456.

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