Victims of human trafficking tell their stories at Miami conference

Published: 2004-11-30

MIAMI (CNS) -- At a Miami conference on human trafficking, victims told tales of forced labor and torture, of beatings and threats, of people who preyed on their dreams and trampled their psyches. One spoke from behind a screen, still fearful that her former master would find her. Another revealed her face but not her current hiding place; her slave master -- a woman -- had threatened her children back in Mexico. A third individual, reed thin and elegant in a pinstriped suit, stood tall -- 6 feet 5 inches tall to be exact. Fearful no more, he challenged the world to free his people. "I know how a slave looks, how you feel, because I was a slave for 10 years. My people are still there," said Francis Bok, 25. "What is good, your freedom, if you don't use it to help other people live in freedom?" Bok, a native of southern Sudan, had been enslaved at age 7 to an Arab family from northern Sudan. Forced to herd goats, endure daily beatings, sleep with the animals and eat the gruel they were fed, he finally escaped. He found refuge first in Egypt and then in the United States through the intervention of the United Nations.

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