International Business Times
By Kashmira Gander
November 1, 2017
Shandra Woworuntu was weeks away from turning 25 when she boarded a plane from Indonesia to the US to work in a hotel in Chicago. She planned to stay for just six months, and return to her home city of Manado with enough money to put her daughter – then 3-years-old – through university. But the day she arrived Woworuntu was forced to have sex with a stranger at gunpoint. In the following days, her name was changed to “Candy”, and she was plied with drugs and alcohol to keep her weak and vulnerable. As a victim of sex trafficking, the land of opportunity quickly turned into an unimaginable hell for her within hours of arriving.
Graduating from university with a degree in Finance and Bank Management, Woworuntu had never originally planned to travel to the US or pursue an American Dream – although she knew what that meant. She imagined she would meet movie stars when she moved to Chicago, and saw the States as a “the dreamland for everyone”, she tells IBTimes UK.
At the age of 24, she was a manager of the Treasury Department of the Korea Exchange Bank, specializing in market trading, and had a sparkling career ahead of her. Then in 1997 the Indonesian economy collapsed. She lost her job and her savings became worthless. Having previously separated from her husband, when he died of lung cancer their young daughter’s situation became even more precarious. An advert in a newspaper that Woworuntu spotted for a hospitality job paying $5,000 a month in Chicago offered a steep pay rise from her usual $250 a month. Desperate to secure her child’s future, she left her with her mother in Indonesia, and paid an agency $3,000 to accept the job.
When the wheels of the plane hit the tarmac at New York’s JFK airport late in the first week of June 2001, she felt apprehensive but hopeful. “I was happy because I thought it was a good start for me. After a few months I’d go back home and have savings for my daughter’s college fund,” she says.
“At the airport, I saw a man calling my name,” she recalls. “They were holding my picture and a copy of my passport copy, so I believed he would pick me up and take me to Chicago. I trusted him and I felt safe and secure.” Another five people joined her, and they were split into two groups. The man directed her and two teenage girls towards a car and explained that as it was late in the evening, he would take them to a hotel and they would start their 12-hour drive to Chicago the next day. Shortly after, he stopped at a building and told them to get into another car, handed the driver money, and was gone. This happened three more times.
The fourth stop was a house where she and the girls were told to get out. There, a man took her luggage, leaving her with the clothes on her back and a small pocketbook. What Woworuntu saw next set alarm bells off in her mind – but, unbeknown to her, it was already too late to escape.
“I was taken to the top floor of the house. I saw many condoms on the floor – used condoms and new ones a bedside table by the bed. And I said ‘what kind of place is this?!’ I had never seen a place like that. I said to the girls who came with me ‘wow this house is so filthy’.”
A man then entered the room and demanded that she and the girls remove their clothes so he could check their skin. When Woworuntu refused he pointed a gun at her head.
She was then bundled into a car, and driven to a location ten minutes away in the Flushing area of Queens, New York. “He opened the car door and pulled me out with a gun to my head. He rang the doorbell. When a woman opened the door he shouted ‘mamasan, this is a new girl‘.'”
“I knew that mamasan was the name of a woman who runs a brothel so I just freaked out. He told me to be quiet and start working. I was confused. I thought what is the job in this place?!”
Woworuntu heard muffled screaming from one of the rooms. A door swung open. A young girl was curled up on the floor, with a man standing over her.
Speaking on the phone, Woworuntu only refers to her ordeal as her “situation”, her voice cracking with emotion as she recalls the events of 16 years ago.
Woworuntu eventually managed to use a spoon to unscrew a second-story window – and that ingenuity secured her freedom. “I escaped when the weather was very cold. I remember holiday lights everywhere,” she recalls.
With a few dollars she had stored away in her purse, she called a number on a folded piece of paper that another woman had told her to contact if she was ever free. The man who answered bought her clothes, fed her, and put her up in a hotel room. But when he burst into the room and tried to grope her and demanded she see a client, he called Johnny Wong on the phone. He was simply another member of the gang. Woworuntu seized the chance to flee once more, and ran from the hotel.
On 1 November, L’Oréal Paris announced Woworuntu as one of its 2017 Women of Worth Honorees, alongside 10 others across the US who have committed their lives to bettering their communities and fostering positive change. The accolade recognizes Woworuntu’s work since she fled her captors. Her activism has seen her testify before the Senate Foreign Relations committee on Ending Slavery, serve on the US Advisory Council on human trafficking, and help to bring about changes in the law to protect others from similar ordeals. In 2014, she founded Mentari: a charity which helps victims of modern slavery find jobs.
“I struggled to leave because there wasn’t enough help and resource to move forward…so I learned that I need to help people,” she says humbly.
Woworuntu stresses that while she is grateful for the recognition, awards are meaningless to her, her voice trembling with force as she speaks.
“I don’t like awards,” she says. “Honestly, because I don’t do this for publicity. I get emotional when I talk about this.”
“Prevention is the best way to reduce the number of victims of human trafficking and modern slavery, because we can’t take people back to their lives before.” Starting from education in schools, the public needs to be made aware of what modern slavery is, she says. Businesses also have a role in ensuring their supply chains are free from forced labor and exploitation. Officials must also take steps to ensure that rules are strictly enforced – something that the UK police force was recently criticised for after it was revealed that victims were sent back to their captors.
“This award isn’t for me but for the people who work with me, but mostly for the people that have successfully joined our program and live independently. I appreciate the award – but the works still needs to be done.”
Read the original article here.
