Greyman Blog

Border town of Aranyaprathet

Aranyaprathet is a fairly non-descript border crossing point from Thailand into the town of Poi Pet on the Cambodian side.  It is the busiest crossing point into Cambodia and a key transit point for human traffickers.

On the evening of 13 September 2010 in Aranyaprathet, a joint operation between The Grey Man and the Royal Thai Police resulted in the rescue of four Cambodian girls on the Thai side of the border.  The girls were 14-15 years old and had been trafficked into Thailand for prostitution.

A three person Grey Man team had set up a sting operation the previous day but it fell through when the go-between became frightened and did not bring the girls he had promised.  It had been a frustrating month for the team with a number of leads ending in dead ends.

The team then changed to another target.  They had acquired video and audio surveillance of a brothel that had under-aged girls in it and called in a specialist Thai police unit.  In this brothel the girls’ rooms were padlocked and the windows covered in bars.

Bars on the windows The doors were padlocked.

After a thorough briefing between the two groups, the Grey Man operatives then re-entered the brothel with Police nearby ready to conduct a raid. 

The operatives continued their undercover roles, and once they ensured that the girls were still there, triggered a raid by the Police.  Twenty Anti-trafficking Police and three Grey Man personnel were involved in the operation.

15 year old rescued from the brothel

The mamasan (manager of the brothel) and a number of Thai males were arrested and the four girls are now in the hands of Thai government officials.

They will be moved to a government shelter in Bangkok where they will either be repatriated to Cambodia or sent to a Khmer vocational training centre.  Grey Man is looking into how to best assist the repatriation of the girls.

I would like to thank the Thai Police unit involved for their assistance.  Our team were very impressed with the level of their professionalism and our thanks also to the government of Thailand for setting up such a great unit. 

It seems that this particular specialist police unit were also impressed with The Grey Man team and intend to run further operations with us.  

Just a final worrying statistic, 46% of Cambodian kids trafficked into Thailand when interviewed said that the key figure who facilitated their trafficking was … their mother!!  Here in the West we may never understand what poverty can drive people to do but we were born lucky and safe so don’t waste time in judging these people … please just support us to help more kids.  

To this Grey Man team, consisting of former police and special forces people, thankyou for a job well done as I know how difficult the past month has been. 

John Curtis

President

These Armidale Class Patrol Boats are primarily tasked with border protection, fisheries patrols, immigration, customs and drug law enforcement operations, although two vessels are permanently assigned to protecting the oil and gas production facilities of the North West Shelf Venture. An Armidale class boat, the fictional HMAS Hammersley, appeared in the second and third seasons of Australian military drama series Sea Patrol.

Here at Grey Man we think the ship looks great and although Shane thinks that he and his crew are a little more rough around the edges, we think they are a great bunch of guys. Shane is by his own admission “the chubby grinning submariner (more shiny gold on my patch) in the front middle, the others are my lads”.

HMAS GLENELG at sea in Darwin

Captain and crew

Shane and his crew have been some of our most enthusiastic supporters with Able Seaman Brian Mobbs being continuously creative in raising charity money. According to Lt. Cdr Doolin, “So far Brian has had a poker competition, sold the rights to a swim-ex and charges people $2 every time we go to sea if they choose not to shave …. small amounts but he never lets up”. 

Recently, Captain and crew had a chance to wear their Grey Man T-shirts and the Captain had this to say: 

“Just a quick update as we have now left Colombo, Sri Lanka and as you can see we played the Sri Lankan Navy in cricket.  

Unfortunately we learnt that you should NEVER play cricket in the subcontinent and we were soundly defeated. In the end ‘cricket’ was the real winner on the day!! We put up a gallant fight and as you can see The Grey Man shirts were worn with pride (about 20 of us) and at least made us look the part. Next stop will be more cricket in India!!

My crew wear the shirts at sea, I will get a pic from my bridge with 90% of my guys in their shirts, they love the design and colour and I have sold out of nearly everything now!!”

Sri Lankan cricket

 

 

They lost but still winners

March 18, 2009

Grey Man Operatives, in a combined operation with the Thai Police, arrested three members of a Laotian trafficking ring (including the ring leader) who have been transporting ethnic minority children from Laos into Thailand. The girls were sold to brothels and karaoke bars for sex work, and to factories for slave labour. Today, five 15-year old girls were rescued from the traffickers in an undercover operation this morning.

Boat used by the traffickers to enter Thailand illegally from Laos

In 2005, families in Hill-Tribe villages in Laos were approached by a group of Lao males who were led by a man named Aunwieng who was arrested today. He told the families that he would take their daughters and find them good jobs in Thailand. He also gave an advance on the girls’ salary to their parents - around 20,000 Thai Baht each or US$600 for each girl.

The girls stated that Aunwieng took them to Thailand where they were passed on to a female Laotian trafficker who put them to work in the sex industry. The girls were initially working at a karaoke bar in Pharn for a few weeks and were then trafficked to another province by a Thai male. They were eventually arrested by Thai Immigration Police and handed over to a Thai NGO. Although the girls’ statements were taken, the case managed to get ‘lost’ for three years.

The Thai NGO contacted us a month ago and asked if we could help. We responded and sent a team to investigate. Our people met with the Police in Bangkok responsible for the case. Covertly, we contacted people who knew the traffickers and organised to meet with them. We flew Prosecutors to interview the girls and met with a Police contingent to map out an action plan. Arrest warrants were to be issued, but could not be issued in time for our meeting with the traffickers. As a result of this, we negotiated to buy four girls from the traffickers and have the girls delivered at a later date.

Finally, the arrest warrants were ready and we just had to wait for a call from the traffickers. It came earlier this week. Grey Man then rolled into action with covert equipment and operatives.

Traffickers arrested on the beach

A series of meetings were held on Wednesday 18th March with police involved in the case.  Plans were made for four separate operations. One involved arresting the traffickers at two locations as well as separate raids on a house and a brothel.

At 10:00 am today, a Grey Man Team met with the first trafficker. By 10:05am one trafficker, Aunwieng, was in police custody. Another two traffickers were in police custody by 11:00 am and the girls that they wanted to sell to us were under Police protection. Only one trafficker resisted arrest but was quickly subdued.  Another girl was rescued from the house of one of the traffickers in a subsequent raid.

The face of the ringleader

These traffickers are part of a larger criminal ring and we expect up to seven further arrests. This gang has been acting without fear for many years and we estimate they have been moving 8-10 girls per month. Grey Man’s destruction of their ring means around 100 girls per year have been saved from trafficking.

One of the 15-year old girls rescued by Grey Man with a police guard

All at The Grey Man again convey our sincere thanks to the Thai Police CWD unit from Bangkok for an excellent job and to our Grey Man Team in Thailand for putting their lives on the line.

This is what we do.

John

Grey Man received intelligence in March, 2006 about a pimp (a lady boy, trans-sexual called Nom) who was offering underage girls.  A sting operation was put in place and he turned up with a number of under-aged girls but unfortunately got cold feet and left before the operation was concluded. 

Two years later after receiving intelligence from a reliable source we again came across the pimp and again attempted a sting.  It took our operatives 6 months to build trust and we had to accept over-aged (over 18) girls during this time (no sex was involved) and found that all of them had become sex workers because they were in debt to the pimp.  Even when some of them had paid off their debt they were too frightened to leave and many showed us the signs of physical abuse from Nom that kept them working for him.

In October, last year, Nom finally offered us a young girl.  He said she was a grade 8 school girl (aged 14) and asked for 3500 Thai baht ($US100) for short-term sex (1 hour) with her.  Grey Man authorised our operatives to conduct a sting operation in conjunction with local police.  Unfortunately, Nom turned up with a girl who was not a school-girl at all.  We were sick of dealing with him by this stage and decided to get him off the streets once and for all and to protect the girls that were indebted to him and whom he had abused.

The sting went ahead and Nom was arrested.  From her Thai ID card the girl turned out to be 21 years old. She stated the reason she ended up as a sex worker was because she owed Nom money that she borrowed to pay for her education.  We asked a social worker to contact her parents and she was taken back to her family.

Police and Grey Man personnel arresting Nom the pimp

Although our brief is the rescue of children from the sex trade, we will also rescue adult women from sex work if they have been trafficked or forced into it.  We will also rescue those trafficked into other abusive forms of labour if the situation presents itself.  This case took some time but in the end we got an abusive pimp off the streets (he is awaiting trial), rescued a woman from prostitution and also freed her and her friends from debt bondage and the abuse of Nom.  This case took up a lot of Grey Man resources but demonstrates that we will pursue the perpetrators and rescue the victims wherever the opportunity presents itself.

John

President Bush signing the original 2005 legislation. The latest 2008 bill strengthens anti-trafficking laws

It is probably not well known, but despite the generally negative view of President Bush, he has been a staunch supporter of anti-trafficking legislation, and under his leadership the U.S. State Department, Department of Justice and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have taken an active role in pursuing traffickers.  This has resulted in hundreds of convictions and the rescue of over a thousand trafficking victims.  President Bush has committed many millions of dollars towards the cause and although The Grey Man has no political allegiance it would be a pity to not acknowledge his efforts.  On December 23, President Bush signed into law the ‘William Wilberforce Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act of 2008′, a bill that enhances measures to combat human trafficking.

The bill imposes 10-to-20 year sentences on “brothel landlords” who use minors and harsher sentences for those convicted of “alien harboring” for the purpose of prostitution. It also limits U.S. funding to countries that use “child soldiers.”  

The law makes federal crimes out of receiving financial benefit from trafficking, obstructing the investigation of human trafficking or conspiring to traffic humans.  Importantly, funds seized from traffickers will not go to the government, but to help the victims. It will remain to be seen if the the bill has any effect as it was signed in spite of the objections of the Department of Justice, which sees some major problems in policing it.

We can only hope that President Obama can keep the best aspects of President Bush’s anti-trafficking legacy and also improve on it .  Goodbye President Bush and thanks for your contributions to anti-trafficking.  Welcome President Obama and we hope to see an ongoing effort to combat this terrible trade.

John

We realised a long-time back that rescuing children was not enough.  The real answer lies in giving children a future and that requires education.  Ethnic minority children often do not go to school or for only a minimal time.  This leads to lower employment prospects in the future.  To combat this issue we partnered with Kid’s Ark Foundation  in Thailand.  Their main focus is the support and care of AIDS orphans but they also have provided education to hundreds of children.

We liked their style and their philosophy.  They made financial support for a family conditional on the children attending school.  If the children were removed from school to be trafficked or for any other reason the money stopped coming.  This works very well and all of the children supported this way remain in school.  Grey Man started our prevention programme by supporting 28 families in one of the Lahu hill-tribe villages.  We continue this but have since expanded into providing transport for 100 children spread across three villages.  Without this transport many of these children would never receive an education. 

Motorbike donated by The Grey Man

We have also provided a motorbike for one child shelter that will allow the social workers to take information on trafficking to the villages at risk and will be used to travel to the families of trafficking victims to discuss re-integration into the family. 

Kru Nam is one of our favourite people so we have just provided the final payment for a truck to take Burmese ethnic minority kids from Kru Nam’s shelter to school. 

These two last projects were accomplished in partnership with Rotary Australia World Community Service (RAWCS).  They are all small steps but have the potential to create a major impact in the life of these children.

Based on child rescue work done by The Grey Man Inc in Thailand in the four months to November 2008 we can conclude the following:

• Illegal trafficking of children for the sex trade is increasing.
• Court sentences for trafficking children have increased and are more severe for children under 14 years.
• Those rescued range from mainstream Thai’s to hilltribe children from Thailand and neighbouring countries, to Burmese and Lao children. Even Chinese and Cambodian children are trafficked into Thailand but to a lesser extent than the others.
• Race of children trafficked varies with their location.
• The underage sex trade is getting more difficult to find as a result of stiffer penalties and police action.
• Not surprisingly the sex trade in the larger popular tourist destinations is operated by organised crime, both Thai and International.

If you have information that can assist the Grey Man Inc in its rescue work, please email us - you will find our address on the website.

Grey Man Inc  Director

The Grey Man has had considerable interest lately from all over the world. We have decided to establish a blog which will provide interesting articles and links to everything associated with the greyman. We will also post other information which assists with the eradication of trafficking and exploitation of children. Please feel free to leave comments and suggestions. The more people get talking about this serious issue, the more awareness we raise and the more action may follow.