Facing the MONSTER

iUniverse

Contents

Preface............................................................................ixAcknowledgments....................................................................xiiiPrologue—Ceal and Jake, 1991.................................................1Chapter 1—Three Questions....................................................7Chapter 2—Mark and Maina, 2004...............................................13Chapter 3—Going Down.........................................................18Chapter 4—The Unknown Horizon................................................20Chapter 5—Slavery 101, 2006..................................................29Chapter 6—The Vintage Dress..................................................33Chapter 7—Traveling Companions...............................................37Chapter 8—Surviving Crime....................................................41Chapter 9—Liberated..........................................................47Chapter 10—Food for Thought..................................................51Chapter 11—The Fall..........................................................56Chapter 12—Longing for Home..................................................58Chapter 13—Ambivalence.......................................................60Chapter 14—Outside My Front Door.............................................67Chapter 15—Hanging by a Thread...............................................73Chapter 16—A Circle of Friends...............................................77Chapter 17—On the Road.......................................................81Chapter 18—Beginning Anew....................................................84Chapter 19—Lessons...........................................................91Chapter 20—New Directions....................................................94Chapter 21—Monsters at Night.................................................98Chapter 22—Growing Concerns..................................................101Chapter 23—Where No Man Can Go...............................................104Chapter 24—Victory...........................................................108Chapter 25—A Pound of Prevention.............................................111Chapter 26—Finding Hope......................................................114Chapter 27—Going Home........................................................118Chapter 28—Afterthoughts.....................................................122Appendix—Solutions for Facing and Fighting Child Slavery.....................125Sources............................................................................135About the Author...................................................................137

Chapter One

At parties, sometimes I consider lying. Usually, evasion seems a better way to go. The truth about my travels to India and pastimes when at home can be awkward small talk at best and shocking table conversation at worst. When I end up in conversation with people whose conscience and curiosity enable candid, soulful interaction, however, three questions usually emerge about my quest and projects to help survivors of child slavery:

• What is the life of a child slave like?

• How does a rescue work?

• How can we help end slavery and aid survivors as they heal?

After nearly a decade of asking those same questions and seeking answers through books, trips to far-flung corners of the globe, and conversations with experts and survivors, I paint verbal pictures of Mahabala, Supriya, and Asha. Each of their stories—that of a boy who escaped slavery, a woman who participated in raids and rescues, and a girl who was learning to thrive in freedom—provide an answer to one of those commonly heard questions.

Mahabala had an irrepressible spirit. During a trip to a children's shelter in India, I felt his energy on the opposite side of our table. He seemed constantly in motion. Even when he was somewhat still he was making funny faces.

He was almost the shortest of his thirty-two new brothers, but he stuck out from the crowd because of his mischievous movements and expressions. When the taller boys lined up for a serious moment before mealtime, Mahabala the clown, with a green balloon hanging from his mouth, popped out from behind them. His dark brown eyes, nearly black hair cut very short, ears that slightly stuck out, and an impish grin that revealed teeth still growing in left me stifling laughter.

Running around the brick courtyard of his new home, his antics with bubbles gave no impression of his dark history. It was most likely his irrepressible spirit that had granted him a new existence. Mahabala had escaped slavery—ungodly hours of work at a hotel and beatings—on his own two feet. He ran away from a violent slaveholder and the hotel where he cleaned,served, and performed any task requested by patrons—for no pay. Mahabala had been a slave—not a sweatshop laborer, not a figure of speech—but a worker who was unpaid, unable to leave, and subjected to violence or threat of violence to himself or someone he loved.

Nowhere near adolescence, the little Indian orphan was given a second chance at life. Selfless, compassionate workers at this residential rehabilitation and education center and at other similar residential programs took care of Mahabala and youths like him: children who had survived human trafficking and slavery.

When I sat across the table from Mahabala, it was the end of 2010. Nearly one year to the day later, I had returned to India and was exploring another remote area of the country. There, my stockpile of stories—some horrifying and some hopeful—grew larger after traveling with Supriya, a director of an antislavery organization, and visiting an extraordinary campus where a girl named Asha was recovering.

Supriya told my traveling companions and me about her work as we rode in the back of a car and scooped scrumptious spicy noodles, using potato chips as spoons, from a big, shared box lunch. We were traveling in the poorest state in India, one whose poverty was nearly the intensity of sub-Saharan African nations. A toll collector in a booth along a rare, paved highway had just given us change in cookies because he had no cash. "Only here would that happen!" Supriya said, rolling with laughter.

Her tone became serious as she described a recent raid and rescue. Tension mounted as the slow bureaucratic process stretched on and on, like a rubber band seeking its limits. Starting at nine in the morning, she had spent several hours wading through red tape and a few more waiting for warrants. With each passing minute, odds increased that the timing and location of the secret raid would be leaked and the rescue would be foiled. If owners of the carpet factory and holders of the slaves who worked the looms were alerted, the slaves would be transferred to another location. They would be gone again.

Warrants finally secured, Supriya, police, and other government and nongovernment personnel entered a compound surrounded by seven-foot-high walls. In just minutes, they searched a large building but found no children, contrary to a tip-off deemed to be reliable....