Cherie Balagasay Bebon remembers escaping into the hills to flee from marine police in 1988. She was trafficked and sold and now that ordeal has set her on a mission to rescue others from such conditions.
She volunteers with the Malaysia International Humanitarian Organisation, an NGO that works on helping foreigners in the country. Lured on the promise of a better life, a decent job and a handsome pay by an agent, Cherie and her three friends instead landed in the net of traffickers.
Barely at the age of 19 years, she had walked barefoot and after travelling more than 500km from her village in Palawan a fear of being caught by police gripped her.
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At home, she had to provide for her parents and five siblings and had been ditched by her boyfriend. The agent told her that she would not have to pay a single cent for her trip, but she soon came across an ordeal of being crammed in a small “kumpit”, a traditional Filipino boat.
Her journey on the South China Sea had already made her regret the decision of coming along, but she was too afraid to return and face her parents.
What made things worse for her was that the only luggage she had brought with her, a bag of clothes, was stolen at the transit house where she was taken.
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At a house in Sepanggar, a subdistrict in Kota Kinabalu, among the line of prospective buyers looking for domestic help, employees in restaurants and clothing stores, she was picked out as a wife.
Her future husband paid off the traffickers with RM1,500 and now at 52 she has separated from her husband. A grandmother, she also has four children and while she chooses to remain in Malaysia on a visa for her children’s sake she is using her experience to help others who have suffered a similar ordeal.
She said she can relate to people facing similar conditions “better because of my experience.” (AW)
