Migration education trainings provide the knowledge needed to help prevent human trafficking.
My name is Daw Shwe Aye and I live in Mandalay and work as the housekeeper at the Samaritan’s Purse office. Because of Samaritan’s Purse, I had the chance to attend a migration education and trafficking awareness training. I am very glad I attended. I heard many stories about human trafficking and I would like to share one of those stories. The story is from Pyin-Oo-Lwin, where I once traveled on holiday and attended a Bible study camp.
At the Pyin-Oo-Lwin Tower Gate a woman was selling betel nut (a traditional chew stimulant) and she saw two men come through the gate and driving a truck which carried pigs. It appeared that they were transporting the pigs to Musel, a city near the Chinese border. They stopped the truck near her shop to buy her betel.
Migration education training
While the woman was preparing and packing the betel nut for the two men she heard sounds from the truck carrying pigs. It was not clear, but she felt it was an odd sound, and she asked the two men, “Did you hear something like a voice asking for help?” The two men replied, “No, it is just from the pigs.”
When they continued on their journey, the woman became suspicious of the two men and reported this to the Tower Gate authorities. They phoned the next Tower Gate with orders to check the truck carrying pigs. Police then found two young boys in a storage unit under the pigs in the truck. The two boys were from a town in central Myanmar, and did not know the men. They reported that the men took them and then forced them in the truck against their will. The two men intended to bring these young boys to Musel, where they had planned to sell the boys at the border.
Although I know a number of cases like this of trafficking in our community, I did not know about human trafficking in detail until the Samaritan’s Purse training. For example, I didn’t know about the methods of traffickers, the definition of human trafficking, and about safe migration. Everything in the training was interesting and helpful. I learned about what human trafficking is, types of human trafficking, common methods of traffickers, safe migration, and that everyone can be victims of traffickers. I can share what I learned about human trafficking with my friends who live near me and with my church.
In the future, I want to share and discuss more about human trafficking, and encourage others not to blindly trust people, but to ask more questions. My wish is to attend more trainings like this one.
