Train Ticket Insert Brings Trafficked Victims Home
Human trafficking is on the rise in Mongolia, and our dual focus includes supporting prevention and strengthening the prosecution of perpetrators. We have worked closely with the Mongolian Gender Equality Center since 2005, investing in a victim's hotline and a high-profile public awareness campaign. Our combined activities have contributed to a marked increase in trafficker convictions—from six in 2006 to 26 in 2009—and stricter sentences. The promise of a better life lures young men and women across borders, and in 2007, working with our partner, we co-created train ticket inserts and leaflets, which alerted young people to the dangers and risks of trafficking and provided the new hotline number. More than 50,000 such inserts were distributed by Mongolian Student Union volunteers in stations and on trains during peak travel periods, with an emphasis on China and Russia border crossings. That fall, four young Mongolian women were offered jobs at sock factories outside of Mongolia. Immediately after their train crossed the Zamiin Uud-Erlian border, their Mongolian job contacts flew them to Malaysia, where they were locked inside a dormitory, their passports confiscated. Threatened and exploited, the women were told they were now in debt to their traffickers, and each acquired STDs as they were forced to work as prostitutes. Late one night, one of the women, lamenting the journey that got her there, discovered the insert attached to her used ticket and called the hotline. In a matter of days, the Center quickly organized the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Mongolia, the Consulate of Mongolia in Bangkok, and the International Organization for Migration's Regional Office in Bangkok to alert the Malaysian Immigration Police. The women were rescued and repatriated home. Last October, in Sukhbaatar District Court in Ulaanbaatar, the three Mongolian perpetrators received jail sentences that could be between seven to eleven years.