Speakers and Student Orgs Shed Light on Human Bondage

Sina Vann was 13 years old when she was electrocuted for the first time. Any act of disobedience resulted in a beating and, fearful of being drugged for another round of rape, Vann drank from the toilet rather than accept water from her captors. She had thought she was leaving her home in Vietnam to go on vacation to the neighboring country Cambodia. Instead, Vann was forced into sexual slavery and held in bondage for over two years.

The experience killed part of her. “For me, it seems I’m already dead,” said Vann, through a translator.

Vann was one of two slavery survivors invited to speak at the Elliott School on Thursday. The event, which was co-hosted by the Sigur Center for Asian Studies, honored Vann and a formerly enslaved Pakistani debt laborer, Veero. Approximately 75 students, graduates, faculty, and guests attended the event to honor the two women and the work they are doing.

Both women are recipients of the 2009 Freedom Award, bestowed by the non-profit organization Free the Slaves, for their work helping others to escape from situations similar to what they experienced. Vann is a spokesperson for the Somaly Mam Foundation and visits brothels to provide condoms and advice to sex slaves, looking for girls to be rescue and bring to the foundation’s rehabilitation center. Veero, whose entire family was enslaved to repay salary advances borrowed from a landowner, not only escaped bondage but persuaded police to help her free the rest of her relatives. She then founded the Saath Saharoo Society (“Help Together”) to free other enslaved Pakistanis.

The event was the latest GW effort to spread awareness about human trafficking. In March, students in the IAFF 183 course on Human Trafficking founded Trafficking Free GW. The student organization currently has 10 members committed to providing information about modern slavery and encouraging efforts to stop it.

Co-president Gaby Dorantes ’10 explained the importance of the group’s mission, noting that slavery is not simply an abstraction but exists even in the GW area.

“Last year there were a few instances that indicated child labor by the metros, selling bootleg copies of DVDs,” said Dorantes. “Some of our classmates called the human trafficking hotline and there is an ongoing investigation into that specific issue. [Our] peers and teachers often don’t realize that human trafficking occurs in the United States, in our neighborhoods.”

That sentiment was echoed by Associate Professor of History and International Affairs and Director of the Sigur Center Shawn McHale and Laura Lederer, a U.S. State Department expert on human trafficking, who both spoke at the event.

“This is an issue that we also find in our backyard,” said McHale.

Lederer explained that the continued demand for slaves is a cross-cultural problem that must be solved through international cooperation. Organizations and governments are working on a variety of initiatives aimed at educating not only potential consumers but encouraging enforcement of laws and active effort to seek out and prosecute slaveholders.

The stories of former slaves provide the fuel guiding these endeavors.

“Only by telling the stories, hearing the stories of the people trapped in slavery, can we make the harm visible,” Lederer said.

Jordan Sussman ’10, who attended the talk and previously interned with Free the People, is worried that not enough people are listening to those stories.

“I think it’s an issue that not many students are aware of,” she said. “There are other issues that are more public.”

Dorantes and the other members of Trafficking Free GW aim to raise the volume of those voices that have previously been silenced. The group is working with other anti-trafficking organizations in the D.C. area and next week they will be passing out slave-labor-free Halloween candy outside the Marvin Center with GW Students for Fair Trade.

For Vann, returning to the brothel to help others is a daily, necessary battle. Girls as young as four are enslaved in Cambodia. She cannot separate her past from their present. But knowing that there are others across the globe who are working to raise awareness of human trafficking gives her the courage to keep trying. It is something she cannot do alone.

“Please help us,” she said. “We don’t have anything more than ten fingers and what we have is our heart, our emotions.”