In the weeks leading up to her month-long holiday in Singapore, Ayesha (not her real name) was almost too thrilled to sleep.

When she finally arrived, the 25-year-old South Asian and her five-year-old daughter spent time with some dear friends she had not seen since 2017.

Together, they enjoyed splashing around at a water park, taking countless rides at Universal Studios Singapore and drinking in the sights at Gardens by the Bay.

Ayesha’s trip in September was undoubtedly one of the highlights of her life – and a stark contrast to her first visit to Singapore about a decade ago.

Just 14 years old then, she had been trafficked into the country on a fake passport and tricked into becoming a sex worker here.

The lure of a better life

Sharing her story at an event organised by Hagar Singapore (Hagar), a Christian non-profit organisation that helps victims of sexual slavery and human trafficking, Ayesha said she had agreed to come to Singapore after she was offered a “job opportunity” as a cultural dancer here.

The monthly salary, she was told, was S$1,000 – an amount she could not even fathom, having come from a family of 11 that lived on a single plate of dry rice a day and stale scraps from neighbours.

At the time, Ayesha, who has never been to school, had been helping her family to earn some income by selling fruits along roadsides and on buses and trains. But the money was never enough.

At an event organised by Hagar Singapore and hosted at law firm Linklaters Singapore, 25-year-old Ayesha bravely shared her story of being trafficked into Singapore.

When she was 11 years old, her parents gave her away in marriage to an older man, thinking that it would give her a better life. Instead, she was abused and mistreated by her new family.

The oldest of six girls in the family, Ayesha did not want her younger sisters to suffer the same fate as her. So when the seemingly lucrative job offer came, she took it.

“I thought to myself, ‘If I do this job, I can help my mother and support my younger sisters. They can eat nice food and go to school,'” she said in her language through an interpreter to an audience of more than 100.

“I didn’t want my sisters to have a hard life like me.”

Tricked, starved, threatened 

After she arrived in Singapore, however, she realised that she had been tricked.

She found out that her workplace was actually a nightclub in South Bridge Road. “I had to wear very revealing dresses and dance very differently than I was taught,” she said.

Her bosses also made her drink with customers and accompany them to hotels, threatening to withhold her pay if she did not comply.

She initially refused, but they were determined to break her will. They locked her up, starved her and threatened to not let her return home.

With no one to turn to for help, Ayesha finally relented. “I thought, ‘Anyway my life is already wasted, so I’ll do it for a better life for my siblings.'”

According to Hagar, Singapore is a popular transit point and destination hub for trafficking activities like sexual or labour exploitation.

Since 2010, the government has introduced a slew of measures and legislation to tackle the issue, including the enactment of the Prevention of Human Trafficking Act in 2015.

A daughter’s greatest regret

Just as Ayesha felt she had reached her lowest, she received a call from her mother saying that she was deathly ill. She needed money to see a doctor, but Ayesha had none to give her.

Her mother then pleaded with her to come home to see her for one last time. Not too long after that phone call, her mother passed away.

“I still cannot forgive myself today for not seeing her before she died,” Ayesha said, choking up with emotion.

She had watched her mother give everything she had for the family.

While her father rarely worked and spent all he had on cigarettes, Ayesha’s mother had cleaned 15 houses a day as a house maid, earning an average of just S$1 per month for each house. In the evenings, she would collect water for others, carrying it up as many as six floors, to earn an extra S$1 a month.

“Mum was always caring for our family. She would take care of us when we were sick, but if she fell sick, she would never care for herself,” Ayesha said.

She recounted the time she had been violently abused by her mother-in-law, which caused her to miscarry at three months, and badly needed medical attention.

Putting aside her pride, her mother went to each of her employers, begging and pleading for money so that Ayesha could receive treatment.

“When I was unwell, my mum did everything to save my life. But when my mum was unwell, I couldn’t do anything to save her,” Ayesha said through tears.

“My heart is filled with sorrow.”

Unexpected love

Two months after her ordeal began at the night club, Ayesha was rescued by the police and placed in a rescue shelter.

Yet, she could not be happy. Grieving her mother’s death and struggling with the trauma of the work she had been forced into, she withdrew into herself.

During this time, she was introduced to staff members from Hagar. The Singapore branch is part of Hagar International, which provides trafficking victims with residential and transitional care and support, legal aid, counselling, education, family services and employment.

Despite their efforts to connect with her, Ayesha was reticent.

Nevertheless, they continued to reach out to her gently until she finally agreed to come under their care.

In 2015, Ayesha (in green) participated in Hagar’s Trauma Group Therapy session with other trafficking victims.

Over the next few months, she learnt English and how to read and write. When she told Hagar that she was worried about her siblings back home, they found her various jobs so she could send money to them.

Their love also went deeper than provision, recalled Ayesha. As a key witness in a human trafficking case against her perpetrators, she had to go to court often to give evidence. They accompanied her to each session.

“They gave me confidence, talked to me patiently and comforted me. They told me I have value and encouraged me to stand up,” said Ayesha.

“I started to learn to laugh,” said Ayesha (left) on after she joined Hagar’s programmes.

A big-hearted favour

Nine months after her mum’s passing, Ayesha told Hagar she wanted to visit home to check on her siblings and visit her mother’s grave.

It was extremely unlikely that the police would allow this as there was a risk that she would not return, thereby jeopardising the prosecution’s case.

Taking a chance on her, Michael Chiam, the executive director of Hagar Singapore, went to the police with her request and offered to stand guarantor for her return.

Ayesha (centre) with Hagar Singapore’s executive director Michael Chiam (right) and May Lim, a volunteer life skills trainer, after completing a life skills programme by Hagar.

Explaining his decision, Michael told Salt&Light: “I put myself in her shoes and, after much prayer, felt strongly that allowing her to visit her mother’s burial site was the right decision. I believed this would help bring closure to her grief and further the healing work that God had begun in her life.”

Amazingly, the request was granted.

“I will never be able to thank brother Michael enough. What he did was really big for me,” Ayesha said, who returned to Singapore after 10 days as promised.

A change no words can explain

What Michael did not know at the time was that his sacrificial decision was an answered prayer that opened Ayesha’s heart to Jesus.

Back when she was first rescued and placed in a shelter, she had attended a Christian prayer session and, after some thought, decided to “pray and see if Jesus answers”.

Her first prayer was to get a job – something she felt was impossible given she had no education and no knowledge of English.

Her second prayer was to go home to visit her mother’s tomb and see her siblings – a request she knew was equally impossible as long as the court case against her perpetrators was ongoing.

However, both of her prayers were answered “100% and more”, she testified. “Jesus paved the way for me and He worked through Hagar. Apart from Jesus, no ordinary man can do this.”

Ayesha with her first-ever birthday cake, bought by her colleagues in Singapore.

Her experience of answered prayers, along with her growing knowledge of Jesus’ love and sacrifice on the cross, eventually led her to put her faith in Jesus – this, even though her family and community at home are hostile to the Christian faith.

“If Jesus could solve these problems of mine, I was sure He could solve those problems as well. So I joyfully accepted Christ,” Ayesha told Salt&Light.

Since then, her life has completed changed, she said. “Earlier, I had a lot of fear. But now I have courage. Whenever something comes up, I’ll close my eyes and pray. There is a change that I don’t have words to explain.”

Faith on fire

After the court case against her perpetrators concluded in 2017, Ayesha returned to her home country, sent off at the airport by her friends from Hagar.

Some of them even gave her love gifts out of their own pockets to help her rebuild her life.

She returned to find that her father had remarried and was, with his new wife, depriving her sisters of food and forcing them to work. The youngest was just two years old.

Intent on not letting her sisters suffer as she did, Ayesha gathered the courage to defy her father. One night, she took each of them and escaped from their village to the city.

With the money she had saved from working in Singapore, and with the love gifts from her friends from Hagar, she rented a room and enrolled all her sisters in school.

She has since been working numerous jobs like running a beauty parlour, packing items, sewing and selling clothes so that she can feed them and put them through school.

Some of Ayesha’s sisters received gifts for their good performance in school. “I want my sisters to have a better life,” Ayesha said.

While life has been far from easy, Ayesha lives with joy and a steady resilience that is hard to shake.

She has to contend with a violent father who once took her sisters back by force and beat her up.

She has encountered near-death encounters with bomb blasts and traffic accidents.

She returned to her husband, and had two children by him, only for him to abandon them.

Singlehandedly earning enough money to provide for her six sisters and two children is a daily struggle.

Yet she sees God’s grace and provision – in the faces of her two children, in the jobs she has, in the fact she is still alive and has enough food to eat.

“In the past, we would to go other people’s houses and eat stale leftover food to live. Now, God has lifted me up so much that I don’t need to do that, and can even provide food for others. Even if I don’t have anything, God just provides,” she testified.

As her community is hostile to Christianity, she has to keep her faith a secret. Religious leaders are known to burn Christians alive, she said.

“But even if people eventually come to know, I’m willing to die for my faith,” she said matter-of-factly, adding that she cannot deny the love of Jesus she has experienced.

“This world is only for a few days, so I want to end my time on it well.”

“Hagar gave me new life”

More than a decade on, Ayesha remains deeply grateful for the kindness that those at Hagar showed her in her most desperate time of need.

When all she had known was disdain and betrayal, they loved her, accepted her and treated her well. Even after she returned home, they continued to support her materially, spiritually and emotionally, and once even visited her with presents for her siblings.

A member of the audience giving Ayesha a hug of encouragement after listening to her story.

She has since become one of Hagar’s greatest partners in her home country, where she receives and takes care of girls like her who have been repatriated from Singapore.

Lynette Lim, who is in charge of communications at Hagar, told Salt&Light that the team has learnt much from journeying with Ayesha.

“Many times, when it seems like she’s reached the end of the road, she continues to look to Jesus and hold fast to the hope she professes. Even in suffering, she trusts that God has a wonderful plan for her and her family. Her genuine care extends not only to us but also to the poor and vulnerable around her,” she said.

All this, Ayesha credits to the love that God had first shown her through Hagar.

“I know that my mum gave birth to me, but Hagar gave me a new life,” she said. “In the past, whenever I tried to rise up, I’d always fall down. But Hagar has given me a hand up. I’m here because of what they have done.” 

*Ayesha’s name has been changed to protect her identity.

Help give girls like Ayesha a new life

When Hagar started its Freedom Race in 2019, there were 40.3 million women and girls trapped in modern day slavery. Today, the number has risen to nearly 50 million, said Hagar.

From November 1 to 10, Hagar Singapore will be holding its annual 40.3+ Freedom Race to raise awareness of human trafficking and funds for its victims. The number 40.3+ represents the 40.3 million (and growing) number of women and children that are trapped in modern day slavery. Tap here for more details.

If you’d like to support Hagar Singapore in other ways, tap here. 

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