NELLY’S STORY
COMMUNITY AWARENESS AND RECOVERY (CAR) PROJECT - THE PHILIPPINES
Nelly* lives in Tubod, Lanao del Norte with her husband, an on-call electronic repairman. Despite her husband’s efforts to provide, his income is not enough to meet the needs of the family. Therefore, Nelly decided she also wanted to support her family. She applied to work abroad in the hopes that she could improve the living conditions of her family from the money she would be sending home. She travelled to Manila with her friend to process her application. After they arrived in Manila, they were taken immediately to a house in Pasay. No training or orientation was given to them. They were not told about their work conditions and who their employers were but simply instructed to wait for more information. After three days, they were taken to Palawan and instructed to travel to Malaysia. From there they were told they would receive a call about their contracts and other documents needed to work in Dubai. Nelly and her friend were about to board a boat to Malaysia when the authorities intervened. She was angry as she could not understand why the authorities had stopped her from boarding the boat. Nelly felt that she had missed her chance of going abroad to help her family. It was only later that she came to realise that her life was in danger and that she could have been a victim a human trafficking. Nelly was eventually reunited with her family but her life went from bad to worse. She did not have a source of income and she was debt because it had cost her a lot of money to travel to Manila. Nelly thought about taking another chance of going abroad to work. She was in the process of applying in other recruitment agency when she met staff from the CAR project. The CAR Project team conducted a series of Anti-Human Trafficking orientation sessions with Nelly and her family. As a result, she began to slowly realise what human trafficking was and the way that traffickers operate. Through the project, Nelly was also supported with a rice retail business which enabled her to earn a daily income. She also took up some skills training sessions offered through the project which she has now completed. Nelly is now working and earning a steady salary for her family. Nelly said, ‘I am extremely grateful for the CAR project due to the support it has given to me and my family.’ Without the project, Nelly may well have accepted an offer to work abroad and been trafficked as a result. The support she has received has changed her life, given her a new direction and prevented her from being trafficked again. Nelly said, ‘These [traffickers] were really good at convincing people and then deceiving them. Many were victimised because of poverty. Thank you so much to all of you for helping me not to become a victim again.’
*Name has been changed
