“I Just Called To Say Thank You.”
She was terrified to make the phone call.
A slave to the diplomat who brought her to the United States from the Philippines, all Amalia knew of the country was 24-hour video surveillance, verbal abuse and long hours scrubbing toilets behind locked doors. Could she trust the people on the other end of the line? Her English was broken. Would they understand her plea for help?
But the phone number was all she had; she was painfully aware of that. She mustered courage and dialed.
1-888-373-7888.
In her Washington D.C. office, Vanessa Chauhan was waiting by the phone.
“National Human Trafficking Resource Center,” she said. Her voice was friendly, comforting. “How may I help you?”
That call was the start of a months-long relationship that would support the Filipino woman through the process of escaping modern-day slavery and building a new life for herself.
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