Antislavery Usable Past

Duyen

2013 (Narrative date)

The Global Slavery Index 2018 estimates that on any given day in 2016 there were over 3.8 million people living in conditions of modern slavery in China. Included in the types of slavery prevalent in China is forced labour, with China's unprecedented rise to the world's second largest economy and its domestic economy specialising in the production of labour-intensive, cheap goods for export, increasing the demand for cheap labour. Forced labour occurs in both the manufacturing and construction sectors, as well as more informal industries such as brick kilns and garment facoties. Many women are also tricked in to forced labour as domestic servants, lured by the promise of good jobs with high incomes they instead find themselves confined to the house and forced to work long hours with little or no pay.

Duyan was told she would just be visiting China when she was sold to a Chinese family to be their made. Duyan was finally able to escape and reported her trafficker to the police.

We were just supposed to be “visiting China”. That’s what she said. That’s what he said. But as soon as we crossed the border from Vietnam, I was given over to several men.

They made me their “wife”—or housemaid. I was forced to live with them for a year. Finally, with the help of a delivery woman and a student, I was able to escape and return to Vietnam.

I reported the incident to the police and my trafficker was convicted and then sentenced. He’ll be spending 20 years in prison in exchange for my one.

What happened to me that year in China is still very difficult for me to talk about or even to comprehend. There was so much pain, so much trauma. I try to share my story with my counsellor. She listens.

Today, I’m training to be a hairdresser—I eventually hope to open my own salon! But for now, I’m just focused on gaining work experience and preparing to return home.

Narrative provided by Hagar Australia

Country

Theme

Domestic slavery

Type

Narrative

Tags

VOICES: Narratives by Survivors of Modern Slavery

This is the world's largest archive of modern slavery survivor narratives. Across more than a million words spoken or written by survivors of modern slavery, we can see why slavery persists in particular hotspots, analyse patterns in trafficking routes, identify vulnerabilities, understand more about the challenges survivors face in liberation, and discover new antislavery solutions. These narratives offer the chance to systematically design new antislavery strategies based on the experiences, ideas and solutions of enslaved people themselves.

The database is searchable by country, name, theme, and narrative date. Narratives can be viewed in list or map form. A short introduction provides context to each narrative. Narrative provenance appears after the main narrative text.

For ideas on how to use this database, please see our accompanying guide.

Project Lead: Zoe Trodd. Team Members: Andrea Nicholson, Lauren Eglen, Rosemary Pearce, Olivia Wright.

Project Funders: AHRC Antislavery Usable Past grant (2014-19), ESRC/AHRC PaCCS Modern Slavery: Meaning and Measurement grant (2016-19), and AHRC-GCRF Antislavery Knowledge Network grant (2017-2021).

For any queries about the collection please contact: rightslab@nottingham.ac.uk. If you wish to cite a particular narrative, please acknowledge the survivor’s name, the provenance of the narrative and cite: Voices Database, the Rights Lab, University of Nottingham.

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