45 million people are enslaved and Hong Kong aid work veteran is out to free them, as CEO of Mekong Club
Having seen slavery at first hand over long years working in Asia, Matthew Friedman now seeks a business-to-business solution to the problem of human trafficking
STOLEN LIVES I first heard about human trafficking when I was a child, growing up in (the American state of) Connecticut. My mother used to tell the story of how her mother came to the United States from Germany, in 1925, and arrived in Chicago, not speaking a word of English. She was headed to Los Angeles but didn’t know how to get there, until a German-speaking stranger offered to help. He was a white slaver. Luckily another family realised what was going on and rescued my grandmother in the nick of time.
Natasha Reyes, international aid worker, on a career dealing with disaster
Even at five years old, I was struck by the notion that people stole other people’s lives. Fifty-one years later, there are an estimated 45 million slaves around the world – more than at any time in history – 30 million in Asia, 26,000 in Hong Kong, where they are either engaged in prostitution or domestic servitude.
MODUS OPERANDI I’ve been involved in aid work pretty much all my life, starting with the UN Population Fund in 1985, after college. I joined USAid (United States Agency for International Development) as a reproductive-health adviser in Nepal, in 1991, and worked with them at country and regional levels until 2006, also spending time based in Bangladesh and Thailand.
Watch Matthew Friedman’s recent talk at TEDxWanChaiWomen in Hong Kong