A lesson for human traffickers.

(Baonghean.vn)Ten years ago, for just 3 million dong, Lu Thi Phuong (Chau Thon commune, Que Phong district) and Luong Thi Huong (Kien 2 village, Chau Binh commune, Quy Chau district) willingly lured and sold two young girls to China. Ten years later, the "pimps" could never have imagined that one of the girls had found her way home and decided to expose their crime...

Mr. Ha Van Ty's house is in Na Nieng village, Tri Le commune - a poor village in the remote area of ​​Que Phong district. His younger sister, Ms. Ha Thi Khanh, was only in her early twenties ten years ago but had to return to her parents' home with her young child because her husband had betrayed her. Out of love for her child, Ms. Khanh asked her family for permission to work at the Que Phong Forestry Station planting trees. She was accompanied by her neighbor, Ms. Lo Thi Dau. After working there for a while, they decided to return home because the wages were too low. In their desperation, they met Lu Thi Phuong, who invited them to "go to Lang Son to work cutting sugarcane" with the promise of "double the previous wages." Without even saying goodbye to their families, a day later Dau and Khanh followed Phuong to Quy Chau to meet Luong Thi Huong, and all three boarded a bus straight to Lang Son. There, Phuong and Huong sold Dau and Khanh to a woman named Mac Thi Mai for 3 million dong.

In a foreign land, Khanh and Dau were taken to a brothel near the border. What followed were days of humiliation and bitterness for the two young women as they had to offer their bodies and beauty to entertain clients. After some time there, with her alluring beauty and tall figure, even though she already had a child, Khien was chosen by a Chinese man to be his wife.

Shortly after becoming a wife, Khanh was cruelly sold by her husband to another man. This cycle of being sold back and forth continued for 10 years, during which Khanh was sold as a wife six times. On the 28th day of the Lunar New Year in the year of the Rabbit (2011), nearly a decade after being sold abroad, Khanh was given the opportunity by her husband and his family to return home for Tet. Three days later, encouraged by her family, Khanh filed a complaint against Lu Thi Phuong and Luong Thi Huong for human trafficking, and less than four days later, arrest warrants were issued for them.

The story of the two sisters, Ha Thi Khanh and Lo Thi Dau, being lost was repeatedly mentioned during the trial. Surprisingly, despite clear evidence and full testimony, Luong Thi Huong still deliberately denied the charges, adamantly stating: "I only took Khanh and Dau to Ms. Mac Thi Mai's house and took the money; I didn't know I was taking the two sisters to a brothel." Only when the presiding judge read Huong's statement to the investigating agency did she finally confess... Defendant Lu Thi Phuong, an "accomplice" of Luong Thi Huong in this case, received a 4-year prison sentence. Defendant Luong Thi Huong received a 6-year sentence, which many consider too lenient.

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(*) Character names have been changed

Song Hoang