Your Giving in Action

During their transit monitoring duties, our team found a frightened 9-year-old boy named Ashur* who was unaccompanied at a market during school hours. During questioning, Ashur began to share his harrowing story, revealing a backdrop of abuse and exploitation. 

He told our team that he lived alone with his mother in a simple house, but his home was not a place of protection and care. Instead, his mother physically abused and tortured him on a daily basis. She also forced him to work as a water vendor on the streets, completely ignoring his right to attend school and enjoy a healthy and safe childhood. He was forced to draw water from a distant well and then carry the heavy five-gallon jug back to his neighborhood to sell water in the streets.

While telling our team about the ongoing abuse, Ashur mentioned a time when his mother left him in charge of cooking a meal, and he accidentally burned the food. His mother was furious with him and sent him out to sell water, even though it was very late at night. Ashur was afraid to be alone on the streets at night, and he begged his mother not to send him out. She ignored his tears and threatened to punish him and abandon him on the porch without a blanket or food if he did not obey her.

Ashur eventually made the desperate decision to run away from home, seeking any refuge that could keep him away from the daily abuse and suffering at the hands of his mother. He spent a cold and lonely night in the local market, but the next morning, our team found him and intervened. They comforted him and provided him with food and clothing. After hearing his story, they contacted the police as well as several child protection institutions. 

Legal action was taken, and Ashur’s mother was eventually arrested for child abuse and labor exploitation. Ashur was sent to his father's house, where he will receive the necessary support and counseling to begin the healing process. Our monitoring team intends to follow up with Ashur to ensure that he is safe and well taken care of. 

Project Beautiful is our community of monthly donors who continue to make stories like this possible. Click the button below to learn more and to find out how you can make your gift go further in the fight against human trafficking.

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One of our monitors noticed Sumi*, a 21-year-old girl sitting alone on a bench at a bus station one evening last month. She seemed nervous and afraid, so our team approached her for questioning.

While they were talking, a man named Anil* came up to the group and stood nearby. When Sumi noticed him, she immediately stopped speaking and looked terrified. Our monitors knew that she was in some sort of danger, so they began to question the man. He claimed that Sumi was his aunt’s guest who had just arrived from Bangalore. He told our staff that he was picking her up from the bus station and transporting her to his aunt’s home. The team found his statement to be suspicious, so they escorted both of them to a room inside the bus terminal and then separated them for individual interviews.

During this time, Sumi shared that she was from Bangladesh. A few months earlier, she had met a Bangladeshi female named Munira* on Facebook who offered her a job working at a beauty parlor in India. Munira assured Sumi that she had worked there previously, and then she offered to help her travel to the location. Sumi was from a poor family, so she eagerly accepted the lucrative job offer. Munira helped her enter India illegally, with the assistance of many of her contacts. Sumi told our team that she didn’t know any of these people, and when questioned further, she was unable to recall many specific details about them as she had only met them one time.

After crossing the border and entering India, Sumi was taken to a transit station where she boarded a train headed toward Bangalore. When she arrived in Bangalore, someone met her at the station and then transported her to the beauty parlor. Unfortunately, she was unable to tell our staff the name or location of the beauty parlor as it was written in an unfamiliar language. About a week after Sumi arrived there, a man named Bihari* forced her to work as a prostitute under the guise of being a masseuse. Bihari told her that she would earn a daily salary of INR 2,000 ($25 USD). Sumi was appalled to learn about the change in her work agreement. At first she refused, but she was eventually forced to do the work because she was unable to leave and return home. 

After working for about a month, she devised a plan and finally managed to escape with the help of one of her clients that she had befriended. When he had learned that she was trapped against her will, he offered to help her leave, and he bought her a plane ticket from Bangalore to Siliguri. Sumi boarded the flight and reached Siliguri, comforting herself with the thought that she only had to cross the border from Siliguri in order to reach her home country of Bangladesh. 

However, she was unaware that her traffickers were searching for her. As soon as they realized that she had escaped, they informed others in their network of her disappearance. They circulated her photo and phone number, asking people to find her and notify them so they could come pick her up and take her back to the massage parlor.

Anil, a suspected trafficker, had been notified of Sumi’s disappearance. He managed to contact her by phone, pretending to be a transporter who wanted to help her cross the border from India to Bangladesh. He assured her that he would help her return home. Through this conversation, Anil discovered where Sumi was, and he went to the transit station to pick her up. She was talking to our team when he appeared on the scene. 

Shortly after our staff took Sumi and Anil to separate rooms for individual interviews, Anil escaped by breaking down the locked plastic door. Although our team chased him and tried to stop him, he managed to flee the transit station. Based on Anil’s behavior, it was evident that Sumi was in the process of being re-trafficked when our monitors intervened. They reported the situation to the police and helped Sumi file a First Information Report (FIR). The police are continuing to investigate the case. Sumi was produced before the court and has been remanded for judicial custody for further process. Our team intends to follow up on the case as it proceeds. 

Do you want to help more people like Sumi stay free? Consider joining Project Beautiful to make an ongoing impact in the fight against human trafficking! Our Project Beautiful members receive monthly updates from the field with stories of freedom like these, showing the powerful impact of their giving. Learn more here about how you can become a part of Project Beautiful, and partner with us to help keep more people free from slavery.

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This month, two of our staff in Liberia conducted a transit monitoring and capacity-building workshop for police in Monrovia. The training was well received, and the officers are looking forward to collaborating in the fight against injustice!

Our team in Uganda intercepted a minor potential victim earlier this summer, and they have been keeping us updated on the case. Our police liaison officer traveled to central Uganda to join the potential victim who bravely testified in court as it is a case of great magnitude. We are so thankful to share that on Friday, August 17, our team received a call from the Resident State Attorney informing them that the suspect was convicted on two counts of aggravated trafficking (the trafficking of a minor). This conviction is a first for our newest station in Uganda: Busia Station!

Argentina is one of our newer fields, and they intercepted 18 individuals last month to prevent them from being trafficked! Additionally last month, the team attended a workshop on trauma-informed care for victims of trafficking. This training has helped shape the way they interview potential victims and engage with suspected traffickers and officials. 

Our monitors intercepted an 18-year-old girl named Kianga*. They saw her at a trading center and noticed that she seemed stranded, so they approached to offer their assistance. During the interview, they learned that she had traveled to the area from her village. She had arrived earlier that day and had been waiting for five hours for a woman named Fatsani* who was going to take her to Mozambique. 

Kianga explained that she had previously met Fatsani, a Malawian woman married to a Mozambican man, and they had become friends. Fatsani told her that she owned a big restaurant in Mozambique, and she invited her to come stay with her for an extended visit. Kianga agreed, and they decided to meet up with one another at the trading center, which is where our monitors first noticed Kianga. 

Our team interviewed several people in the area, asking if they knew Fatsani, and they discovered that she was an agent who was recruiting people to work in tobacco fields for a certain businessman in Mozambique. Based on this information, our monitors intercepted Kianga and helped her return home.

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Our team in Sierra Leone intercepted Foday*, a 10-year-old boy being trafficked for potential human sacrifice. Foday was told he would receive a large sum of money after traveling to an unknown village, and he was instructed not to discuss his travel plans with his family. When our team reunited him with his parents, they learned that two other children from Foday's village have been missing for several months. In this video, our project manager in Sierra Leone provides further details about the interception and sheds light on the abhorrent practice of human sacrifice.

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We just released our latest quarterly report for donors like you. View the exclusive report here. This quarter, we achieved record-breaking impact with 1,732 intercepts in April! With a dramatic reduction in expenditure, we're moving closer to hitting our goal of $120 per intercept in a single month (currently at $157). To enhance our impact, we've implemented new monitoring strategies, expanded referral networks, and hired additional staff. Our partners in East Africa and South Asia, have hired spiritual care coordinators, providing vital resources for our teams and enabling us to share the gospel more effectively. This spiritual focus will be extended to all nations as funding is identified.