So there was this one time that I was in the lift with a trafficking victim.

So there was this one time that I was in the lift with a trafficking victim, in Singapore. But it’s always something that only happens somewhere else, a problem that’s forever elsewhere, right?

No-one tells you what to do if you see a trafficking victim, or even what a victim looks like. It’s not like life comes with these instructions, not like at school they tell you what to do when you’re alone in a lift with two huge scary guys and their sex slave. They pulled her away by the hair, and she was limp like a corpse, with no fight left in her. It felt so wrong… but I was young and I was stupid. I didn’t know what I was seeing. I just didn’t know.

But I know now, and I know that I’ll regret it forever because I could have saved her life.

… Yeah, I knew in the back of my mind that human trafficking was a thing… but that happens somewhere else, doesn’t it?

I bet she’s been in a lot of lifts with a lot of girls just like me; girls who could feel something was wrong but didn’t know what to do. I bet she wondered why no one helped her. How maybe she could run away.

And I bet she daydreamed now and then when she wasn’t being f**ked. She mostly daydreamed of escape, but sometimes, she dreamed of a knight in shining armor, just like she used to as a little girl. But a knight in shining armor doesn’t seem likely now, does it?

So she’d settle for the police knocking down that door because this life is worse than death. Maybe one day her prince will come, or the cops, and she’ll get away and she can see her mom and dad again because they must be worried sick.

Maybe she left her village because she has a little baby she couldn’t afford to look after; and she knew about the risks but what choice did she have? I have a baby too now, but I can hold her at night and know we’re safe, know if she gets sick I can take her to the doctor.

So, universe, how come I was relaxing in a nice hotel that night but that same girl with the dead eyes was in that same hotel getting dragged along like a piece of meat?

I wish I’d thought of calling the police. It seems so obvious now.

I’m so sorry. But I know that changes nothing.