“Published with permission from Penguin Random House SEA’

In Asia, women are trafficked from across the world, many coming from places like Myanmar, North Korea, Cambodia, Vietnam, Indonesia, and even from as far away as Pakistan.
Years ago, I had a flash of insight into this dark trade when I visited a shelter for survivors of sex trafficking in China. I was managing an HIV/AIDs fund for a philanthropist at the time and wanted to interview some of the women for a book I was writing.
Each woman I met was formidable in her own right, but Mei was nothing less than a walking miracle. Short and stout, she wore dark eye-shadow and pink lipstick on her heart-shaped face and had caramel highlights in her chin-length hair. Trafficked as a young bride at fourteen,
Mei had been bought by an elderly farmer who kept her chained up like a dog for years on end. Workers at the shelter told me this type of enslavement—chains and all—was common.
Mei, who was around nineteen years old when I met her, recounted to me how she had been trapped in this nightmarish existence. Shortly before her abduction, her father had pulled her out of school so that her much younger brother could continue his education. The family had been struggling with their farm, and Mei’s father wanted to prioritize their only son, since he was their ‘insurance policy’ and would be expected to care for his parents in their old age.
Mei, naturally, had been angry. So, she had run away from home and visited a friend, Ting, and vented about this cruel and unfair treatment. Ting’s ‘auntie’, a family friend, overheard the conversation and offered to take the two shopping in a nearby town. Once they left the city, Ting was sent back home while Mei was taken to an apartment where the aunt’s husband was waiting.
Mei had been shoved into a room with only a wastebasket to relieve herself and was starved for two weeks until her will to resist was completely broken.
During that time, several men had come to inspect her like a piece of meat. Among them was a farmer with a wizened face who was in his seventies. He scrutinized her body as if looking at an animal for slaughter. Instinctively, she resisted, and he began to hit her. She sobbed and promised to do whatever he wanted if only he would stop. Instead, he handed over a wad of bills to the aunt, grabbed Mei, and grunted that he had paid for her and was now taking her home.
He had taken Mei back to his village home and kept her chained in a room except when he wanted to use her. So traumatic was her time in captivity that even today, Mei struggles for words to describe it. About a year in, she became confused, as her stomach began to swell. She did not know it, but she was pregnant with a baby girl.
Mei had gone on to have that child, but she was to face a decision no mother should have to make. She adored her daughter yet knew that to escape her husband, she would have to abandon her.
After scrimping and saving money that she had found around the house, she ran away. She made it to the bus depot and got on the first bus she could find. It took her from the frying pan straight into the fire. When she got off, a female trafficker sensed her vulnerability and pounced, luring her with a false promise of a good job. The pimp took Mei to a brothel and forced her to work there. Then, Mei contracted HIV. To cope, she turned to hard drugs and alcohol.
I was shocked to hear her story. How could this happen in this day and age? I thought. Yet, there was also an evil familiarity to it, a sense that I had heard this story before. The aged faces of the women forced into prostitution by the Japanese Imperial military before and during World War II—sex slaves known by the awful euphemism, ‘comfort women’—flashed before my eyes.
Up to 400,000 women and girls as young as eleven years old were forced into systemic sexual servitude on the frontlines of World War II alone. In Japanese-occupied China, there were more than 1,000 ‘comfort stations’ or military brothels. Many were Mei’s age, fourteen or fifteen when they were deceived into thinking they were going to work as a nurse or a factory worker before being taken to a comfort station on the frontlines of war and raped repeatedly by Japanese soldiers.
I had spent nearly fourteen years writing a book on the wartime sexual exploitation of young women across the Asia Pacific, and this felt like a profound moment for me. It confirmed my calling as a documenter of these atrocities against women and as a witness to mobilize others into action.
The cycle of sex trafficking keeps repeating with no end in sight. Worldwide, there are an estimated 29 million women and girls in modern slavery—more than the population of Australia—according to the International Labour Organization, Walk Free, and the International Organization for Migration. Of those, 6.3 million are sex slaves.
Mei eventually glimpsed a route to freedom. Shelter workers monitoring the brothel helped her leave and offered her treatment for HIV, drug addiction, and therapy for her trauma. They offered her an opportunity to learn new skills and start a new life. Most importantly, they gave her hope. Despite struggling with suicidal thoughts and self-hatred, Mei seized her escape route with both hands.
When we sat together, she smiled brightly after sharing her story and said she wanted to prevent others from suffering as she had. She didn’t want any more girls or women to be sold as brides. Her raw, simple courage inspired me.

I have often thought of Mei in the years since I visited that shelter. ❦

About the Author

Sylvia Yu Friedman is an award-winning Penguin Random House Author, TV Host, Keynote Speaker and Advisor to Ultra High Net Worth families.
Sylvia is a director at a global private equity firm that provides advisory services to prominent family offices in Asia and across the globe. She works at the intersection of finance, Hollywood and specializes in brokering deals within the professional sports industry. Her firm is involved in the growing finance hub between Dubai, Singapore/ SE Asia and South Asia.
Since 2005, Sylvia has spearheaded philanthropic initiatives for some of the world’s wealthiest families. Her pioneering investigations into the dark underworld of sex trafficking and modern-day slavery for two decades – often at risk to her own life – have shattered barriers and charted a course for a new generation of philanthropists and activists.
In Hollywood and Singapore, a producing team, including the showrunners of the hit show, NCIS, is developing a TV series based on Sylvia’s life and memoir, “A Long Road to Justice.”
Additionally, she is a Luminary Thinker for the RedBoxMe ideas platform, a collaboration with Cartier. Favikon has recognised her influence, ranking her as one of the Top 10 LinkedIn Creators in Hong Kong, and she holds the #6 spot.
An accomplished author, Sylvia has written six books, including her latest book, “Fearless: A Guide to Freedom and Fulfilling Your Fullest Potential.”

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