We hope this finds you happy, healthy, and safe. Thank you for taking the time to read. Our goal here is to help raise awareness of human trafficking / modern slavery. If you are not very familiar with us, you may want to check out our website.
TRAGAST was well represented at the Rotary International convention
As stated on our website, Our focus is Training to Prevent Child Human Trafficking.
The article “Train the Trainers” exemplifies our support for The Peace Culture Foundation and their excellent work in the prevention of child human trafficking
TRAGAST member and Rotary Peace Fellow Dr. Sombat Tapanya recently presented at the Child Protection Summit. Please see the article below.
The team is busy organizing and sponsoring Events to increase the awareness of Human Trafficking. With your help we can make it happen! Please help us raise awareness of human trafficking by sharing this bulletin with your kind friends and colleagues!
The Rotary International Convention saw thousands of Rotarians. A great opportunity to make new friends and renew old acquaintances.
TRAGAST members attended and were kind enough to send me some photos so I thought it would be a great idea to share a few of them with you. The RAGAS booth was a very popular meeting point. Many thanks to Malcom Biard for overseeing this year’s booth and for allowing us to place our literature there.
Sadly, I was not able to attend this year, but I'm already making plans to go to the 2025 convention in Calgary.
We are excited to inform you about this opportunity to sponsor our 2nd Chiang Mai Human Trafficking Awareness Event. Thailand Rotary Action Group Against Slavery Team has obtained a unique license from Angel Studios, the film’s producer, to exhibit the film on 30 June, 2024, at the Tulou Restaurant. We anticipate as many as 100 attendees. Attendance for this private screening is complimentary. Please let us know how many seats to reserve for you.
Following the screening of the film, we will have a premiere event dinner for those who are interested. The contribution for attending the dinner will be as follows:
For those registering on or before 15 June:
Rotary / Rotaract / TRAGAST members
฿700
General Public
฿1,000
Registration at the door on 30 June, if available
฿1,500
To reserve your dinner seats just transfer the appropriate money to:
Bangkok Bank
Pratu Chang Phuak Branch
125 Chang phuak Rd, T.Sriphum A. Muang
Chiangmai 50300 Thailand
Swift Code: BKKBTHBK
Account Number: 531-0-932891
Name on Account: GERALD EDWARD NELSON & PONGSAWART NIYOMCA
Please send your transfer receipt to treasurer@tragast.org so we can give you proper credit.
There are sponsorship opportunities:
International Sponsor Package - $500 USD Donation
Recognition at all TRAGAST Events through June 2025
Queen Suthida of Thailand and Queen Silvia of Sweden hosted the May 2024 Bangkok Child Protection Summit which held by the World Childhood Foundation and the Safeguardkidsfoundation. Her remarks included “Child sexual abuse is difficult and unpleasant to speak about. It is so for me, too, as a woman, as a mother and grandmother and as a Queen. But silence does not make it go away. Silence only helps the perpetrators. Child sexual abuse happens everywhere in every country of the world, every culture and every society. And if I do not speak up, we do not speak up, who will? To change something awareness is first and necessary”.
Dr. Sombat Tapanya, founder of the Peace Culture Foundation and excellent TRAGAST member was one of the featured speakers at the summit. He advocated for the establishment of Parent Training Centers in every province, pointing out that “It is not only economically viable but socially imperative that we PROACTIVELY prevent violence against children by strengthening families. Doing so will allow Thai society to have vastly improved outcomes, as well as a stronger economic future”.
Dr. Sombat had the opportunity to personally meet Queen Silvia and present her with some Peace Culture Foundation material at the summit.
TRAGAST is proud to support The Peace Culture Foundation and Dr. Sombat in his tireless efforts to prevent child human trafficking through prevention education.
Many years ago, I did work for the Indian government related to HIV/AIDS. My job was to go into the brothels and provide safe sex messages. I had a police officer who traveled with me. By this time in my career, I had heard many stories from victims I had interviewed. The topic greatly concerned me.
At one of the brothels, upon entering the waiting area, an eleven-year-old Nepalese trafficking victim saw me and ran up to me. She wrapped her arms around my waist, and in Nepalese she said, ‘Save me, save me, they are doing terrible things to me!’ I looked down in shock at this young girl. She had straight black hair cut in a simple hanging style that reached her shoulders. A dress, ten sizes too big, hung on her small frame. She had a pre-adolescent body. This was a child in an adult world. I can never forget the pleading desperation in her light-brown eyes.
I turned to the police officer and said, ‘We need to take this girl out of here, now.’ ‘No, we can’t do that,’ he said. ‘Why not? You’re a cop!’ ‘Because they will kill us before they will let us leave with her. Finding a child this age will create a lot of problems for them.’ We left, frustrated, but returned several hours later with more police officers. The officer I was with had to convince these others to act. It took some persuading. I felt they resisted because it would add more work to their shift.
When we arrived back, the young girl was gone. While the officers did a thorough job searching every floor, she was never found. Because of the severe fines and penalties that a brothel could face with such a young victim, they had presumably moved her to another location.
I will never know what happened to that precious child, but I am sure it included beatings, torture, and a drastically shortened life full of misery. Almost certainly, that little girl is long dead now—someone so young in the brothels had a very high probability of contracting HIV and dying of AIDS.
Every once in a while, each of us is given a life test. This was mine, and I failed. I should have found a way to get that girl out of that awful place, and I couldn’t. I failed her so thoroughly that I never even learned her name. For weeks after encountering this child, I had traumatic nightmares. I was haunted by the desperate expression etched across her face, along with those pleading eyes looking up at me. I would wake up in a cold sweat with my heart pounding in my chest. During these times, I imagined the things I could have done to help her. I could have simply picked her up and ran down the stairs. I could have had the police officer leave and come back with more officers while I stayed at the brothel. There were many other options that came to my mind. The fact that I failed to do these things weighed heavily on my heart. I also started reflecting on my own life. I had been doing public service work for years, but I finally came to realize that, to a certain extent, I had been doing the work for me—to promote Matt Friedman’s career, and get the next big job. It took this terrible situation to bring me back to what it was all about. It wasn’t about me. It was about the people out there who needed help.
Not knowing what else to do, I finally surrendered. I accepted the fact that, knowing what I did about this problem, I could no longer turn away. I had to step up and become fully involved. At that moment, an activist was born. Many people who fight this injustice have a similar story to tell. The reality of the pain and suffering gets under a person’s skin. Once absorbed, there is no escaping it.
In an attempt to restore some small shred of the dignity stolen from her, I call this child Amulya, which in Nepalese means “priceless.” Amulya and those like her have an intrinsic worth beyond measure. To give her suffering some meaning, I tell Amulya’s story in the hope that others will do what they can to protect women and girls around the world from similar fates.
The best way to understand the extent of an issue is through the eyes of a person who has experienced it. A few months after my encounter with Amulya, I started visiting shelters in Nepal that took in rescued trafficking victims. At a shelter in Kathmandu, I met a young girl named Meena. She had been trafficked to India and endured the brothels for several years. She had AIDS. The next day, I received a letter from her. The depth of Meena’s anguish can be felt in her words. Read these words carefully—they hold a very important message.
Matthew, Thank you for your kindness in coming to see me yesterday at the shelter. Your words brought great joy to my broken heart.
I turn fifteen on Monday. After being used by so many men, I can see that my days will soon come to an end. My illness gets worse with each passing day. I can hardly eat. The food has no flavour. It is sour, like so much of my life. I will not see my sixteenth birthday.
I look back on that day when I left my family’s home. I was only twelve then. I was so happy. So full of life. I had such hopes and dreams. Now look at me. I will never marry. I will never have children. I will never have grandchildren. I will not grow old. The day that first man took my virtue was the day my God died. He and all those other men stole my life away. I was just a child. Why did nobody come to help me? I have stopped asking why this happened to me. I have even stopped feeling angry.
I need you to promise me. I need you to do what you can to prevent any other girls from falling into this hole. Promise me you will end this evil. Promise me you will never stop trying. I don’t care about myself. I’m done. Don’t let any more of our sisters go through what I went through. My spirit is already dead inside. My body will soon catch up. How can this happen to a child?
Where are all the good men? Where are our protectors? Where is our humanity? Promise me. Meena
I read and re-read this letter at least twenty times that day, with tears streaming down my face. Many of us who work in this field are driven by these passionate pleas. Many other victims have similar thoughts and feelings that are never revealed to the world. This offers us a glimpse into their broken hearts.
Meena was only fifteen years old. She was commercially raped more than 7,000 times. There are literally millions of women and girls in this situation. She asked two important questions: ‘Where are all of the good men? Where are our protectors?’ They are out there. We just need to find them, wake them up, and help them to work alongside us to combat this problem.
After leaving Nepal to relocate to Bangladesh, I never returned to this shelter. Several years later, I heard from one of my colleagues that Meena had passed. This was the fate of so many of these girls. To add insult to injury, after having their lives taken away from them, after being forced to be with all of these men, their final outcome was death.
Reading this letter so many years ago was another epiphany that helped me understand that we have a mandate to help end the suffering of those like Meena. Human trafficking represents one of the most disgusting human rights violations of our time. To truly address this problem, I realized that we needed to establish a second-generation abolitionist movement in which we all step up and do our part. Help be a part of the solution. Consider stepping up and helping to address this terrible crime.
So far this year, TRAGAST has sponsored 2 Human Trafficking Awareness Events.The first was in Chiang Mai on January 27th and the 2nd in Bangkok on April 28th.The goals are simply to raise awareness of human trafficking and to encourage people to join and/or support our team.Thanks to our event sponsors, each event has made a little money, which we earmark for prevention training.
We have scheduled our next event for Sunday 30 June at Tulou restaurant in Chiang Mai.We also plan on sponsoring similar events in Chiang Rai, Phuket, Pattaya and perhaps Bangkok.
TRAGAST is working with Atherton Legal to present legal seminars related to human trafficking in Bangkok, Chiang Mai and perhaps Chiang Rai. Look for details in future bulletins.
We offer an International Sponsorship Package for $500 USD.Sponsors will receive:
Recognition at all TRAGAST Events through June 2025
The terms slavery, modern slavery and human trafficking are often used interchangeably although they have different definitions. This causes some misunderstanding and confusion. I recently read a comment in a local social media thread: “Slavery has been abolished in Thailand (Siam) by King Rama V and by the Slavery Act R.S. 124 (1905), and there is no slavery practice whatsoever in the country”. When I first read the comment, I was agast! Then I realized that not everyone shares the same understanding of the subject. The purpose of this article is to try to shed some light. How can we ask people to help fight human trafficking/modern slavery if we don’t have a common understanding? Gentle reader, may I suggest that you spend some time doing your own research? Your findings may surprise, or even shock you! Below are a few sources I have found and believe to be credible.
Your research may vary, and I’d welcome your feedback. After all, while I am very passionate about the need to put an end to modern slavery/human trafficking, I am not an expert.
*Slavery: the condition of being legally owned by someone else and forced to work for or obey them (notice that it suggests legal ownership). Certainly by this definition slavery is illegal in Thailand and most countries. That does not mean it’s been abolished!
*Modern Slavery: the condition of being forced by threats or violence to work for little or no pay, and having no power to control what work you do or where you do it: Modern Slavery includes domestic slavery, forced sex work, and force participation in crime…
*Human Trafficking: the crime of buying and selling people or making money from work they are forced to do, such as sex work.
‘ “Trafficking in persons,” “human trafficking,” and “modern slavery” are used as umbrella terms to refer to both sex trafficking and compelled labor. The Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (Pub. L. 106-386), as amended (TVPA), and the Protocol to Prevent, Suppress and Punish Trafficking in Persons, Especially Women and Children, supplementing the United Nations Convention against Transnational Organized Crime (the Palermo Protocol) describe this compelled service using a number of different terms, including involuntary servitude, slavery or practices similar to slavery, debt bondage, and forced labor’…
‘Human trafficking can include, but does not require, movement. People may be considered trafficking victims regardless of whether they were born into a state of servitude, were exploited in their hometown, were transported to the exploitative situation, previously consented to work for a trafficker, or participated in a crime as a direct result of being trafficked. At the heart of this phenomenon is the traffickers’ aim to exploit and enslave their victims and the myriad coercive and deceptive practices they use to do so’.
There is a recording made by Gary Haugen, CEO of the International Justice mission at The Rotary Action Group Against Slavery (RAGAS) Website where he states that slavery is:
More vast than ever,
Just as brutal as ever,
More stoppable than ever.
According to Walk Free it is estimated that over 400,000 people are living in modern slavery in Thailand. Walk Free has listed Guidance for Modern Slavery Risks for Thai Businesses In part they wrote: “Walk Free is proud to partner with the Stock Exchange of Thailand and Finance Against Slavery and Trafficking (FAST) to launch the first guidance to assist Thai-listed companies to identify, address and report on modern slavery risks throughout their value chain. “Modern slavery impacts every country and supply chain in the world. With annual profits from modern slavery and human trafficking estimated at US$ 150 billion in 2021, business leaders and investors must take action to ensure profits are not derived from the exploitation of vulnerable workers”.
Yes, it’s true that King Rama V outlawed slavery in Thailand. It’s also true that President Abraham Lincoln outlawed slavery in the United States of America in 1865. Similar laws have been passed in almost every country in the world. Yet it’s reported there are over 50 million people living in modern slavery, over 400,000 of them in Thailand. Rather than trying to deny this ugly truth, perhaps it’s time to get involved.
The RAGAS Mission Statement: The Rotary Action Group Against Slavery is committed to connect, empower and equip Rotarians to engage their communities to eradicate all forms of Modern Slavery/Human Trafficking locally and around the globe.
The TRAGAST Mission Statement: Enable and Assist our community to take action to eliminate human trafficking / modern slavery through awareness and specific projects, especially prevention.
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ATHERTON LEGAL
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TAXI FIGHTING HUMAN TRAFFICKING
We are a consortium that only uses taxis that have been vetted. They are all excellent drivers with safe cars.
We are happy to provide you a ride to a single destination or a customized journey with many stops. Whatever your needs, you will receive the best possible taxi service at very reasonable rates. Thank you for supporting us as we support the fight against human trafficking!
To contact us :
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THANK YOU FOR SUPPORTING OUR SPONSORS AS THEY CONTINUE TO SUPPORT THE FIGHT AGAINST HUMAN TRAFFICKING!
We hope this finds you happy, healthy, and safe. Thank you for taking the time to read. Our goal here is to help raise awareness of human trafficking / modern slavery. If you are not very familiar with us, you may want to check out our 
