Southeastern Asia: Rani Hong
- Hayeon Kwak
- Jan 16
- 4 min read
In 2021, an estimated 50 million people were affected by human trafficking around the world. The crisis is especially glaring in Southeast Asia, where human trafficking is fueled by the plethora of vulnerable people as a result of the devastating natural disasters and conflicts that frequently flare up in the region. Desperation combined with low digital literacy allows human trafficking to run rampant and endanger the most vulnerable, including migrants, ethnic minorities, women, and children. Countless individuals are lured in by the promise of opportunity into forced labour, sexual abuse, and even criminality. As the frequency of natural disasters and typhoons rises alongside the increasingly urgent threat of climate change, more people are becoming displaced and made vulnerable to traffickers. In fact, according to the World Migration Report in 2018, approximately 227.6 million have been displaced due to natural disasters since 2008. The Typhoon Haiyan, a particularly destructive tropical storm, wreaked havoc on the Philippines in 2013, and amid the chaos, victims were coerced and trafficked into forced labour as servants, beggars, prostitutes, and labourers. The social conflicts in Myanmar expose its ethnic minorities to the human trafficking crime network, and minority women such as the Karen, Shan, Akha, and Lahu women are trafficked into sexual abuse, and Kachin women are forced into marriage in China. Rebellious groups such as the Moro, lure and trap children into combat roles in armed conflict. These are just a few generalizations of thousands of stories of modern slavery that go unrecognized in Southeast Asia.
Rani Hong
Rani Hong was born in 1972 in Kerala, India, a state known for its tranquil beauty. She was one of five children and had a normal childhood with two loving parents. However, when Hong was about seven years old, her father’s health started to deteriorate, and the family struggled to adjust. The struggling family was offered a helping hand by a respected woman from their community, a kind and well-known soul from just down their street, who offered to take care of one of the Hong children to alleviate the pressure in the household during hard times.
The proposal was ideal: Rani Hong would be well-cared for and be removed from the chaos, and her parents would be relieved of one mouth to feed, all while never leaving the proximity of the same street she grew up in. Hong’s parents accepted the help gratefully, and Hong moved in with the woman down the street.
Rani was well tended to, and her parents were able to see her happy and healthy whenever they visited. However, in six months, the innocent arrangement morphed into every parent’s worst nightmare, as Rani was sold for profit to a strange man from Malaysia. At just seven years old, Rani was sold into an abusive system and removed from her familiar hometown to one that spoke a different language– she was trafficked to Malaysia.
Without ever being able to speak to her parents before being relocated to Malaysia upon her “master’s” will, the Hong family was devastated and lost hope of seeing their daughter again. Isolated, confused, and helpless, Rani endured violence and oppression from her traffickers, witnessing other children kept in cages and bred into submission to make a profit. As the physical and mental abuse continued, Rani’s health began to deteriorate as well, and her traffickers quickly put her up for adoption with an American couple to make what money they could still get out of a sick child. Ironically, Rani’s oppression had opened the door to her liberation.
With her adoptive parents, Rani grew up in the United States, and only returned to her home country, India, at the age of 21, filled with dread. By a stroke of luck, Rani met her birth mother in the hotel she was staying in, and was able to reconnect with her parents. The connection allowed both Rani and her parents to realize the truth– Rani had been trafficked. This newfound knowledge numbed Rani, and she grappled with aspects of her identity, past, and future.
The incident sparked in Ms Hong an indignant rage that emerged alongside the childhood trauma she had nursed without being able to name for many years, and she began campaigning for justice and advocated for an end to child trafficking. She found a partner in Trong Hong, who became not only the co-founder of a counter-trafficking organization the two created together called Tronie Foundation but became her husband as well.
Ms. Hong’s endurance and passionate voice helped make strides in addressing human trafficking. In 2002, her speech and advocacy in front of the Washington State legislature passed a piece of anti-trafficking legislation, making Washington the first state in the US to pass such a law. Her admirable mission to raise awareness and attack the core of the trafficking crisis by educating wariness has earned her numerous other recognitions such as the Jefferson Award for Washington State and the 2008 United Nations Rights Ward.
Written by Hayeon Kwak
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