Aaron Cohen - Slave Hunter: One Mans Global Quest to Free Victims of Human Trafficking

W HEN PEOPLE FIRST USED THE TERM SLAVE hunter to describe my work, I didnt like it. The men who hunted down escaped slaves during the preCivil War era were also called slave hunters, but they were bad guys. Yet the moniker didnt go away, and so I started to realize that people simply needed a concrete term to make sense of what I was doing. To the untrained eye, modern-day slaves are not easy to see. I was hunting for slaves. And I was finding them everywhere.

I found my peace with the title.

S LAVERY DIDNT GO AWAY WHEN IT WAS ABOLISHED with the Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment. It fell off our radar, went underground, and changed its face.

Human trafficking involves the recruitment, transportation, transfer, harboring, or receiving of human beings through use of force, fraud, coercion, threats, or deception for the purpose of forced labor, violence, debt bondage, prostitution, or other forms of exploitation. In many cases, human trafficking results in modern-day slavery. This business is tied with the illegal arms industry as the second-largest racket in the world, after drug dealing. There may be as many as 27 million people enslaved todaydouble the number taken from Africa during the three and a half centuries the trade thrived therewith approximately 800,000 new victims trafficked across international borders each year. At least 17,000 of those victims are brought annually into the United States and forced to work against their will, for nothing more than subsistence. But no one really knows how many victims there are, since so many are unseen.

This book is dedicated to them.

T HE CRESCENT MOON HAS ALREADY RISEN, AND Venus is shining brightly in the night sky. Im following the commander and his men down an unlit back street. At this hour, the metal gates on the neighborhoods living room emporiums are all down. The relative quiet belies the not-so-clandestine activities of the citys shadow world, which bursts into life after dark. I watch drunken men stagger away from makeshift street bars and roar off into the dark on throaty Chinese motorbikes. Children in dirty T-shirts and plastic sandals are splashing in swampy puddles created by a combination of daily rain and ruts deep enough to lose sight of a rat, of which there are more than a few.

We pass a small night market, with a cluster of low red and blue plastic tables and stools where small groups of men have gathered to slurp soup and homemade rice moonshine. The vendors candles flicker and cast a dim glow on some of the exotic delicacies on offer. Locusts roasted on tiny coal grills. Duck blood with fresh herbs. Deep-fried tarantulas.

Toward the back of this makeshift market, I spot a dozen or so dogs crammed into cages, ready and waiting for the hot pot. I can hear a few of the puppies whimpering in the darkness, see them chewing at their chains. I wonder if they slaughter them right here, too. No one else seems to notice. We enter our fourth karaoke bar of the night through a door so low I have to fold my six-foot-five-inch frame almost in half to make it through.

The darkened room is long and narrow, with a U-shaped leather sectional facing a large-screen TV blaring karaoke in Khmer, the Cambodian language. A young Vietnamese woman in a short blue dress grabs my elbow and leads me to a spot in the middle of the couch. Other hostesses seat the commander and his menall in Royal Cambodian Armed Forces uniformon either side of me. These guys are the Cambodian elite, and I need their approval. Although Im dressed up in a collared white shirt, Im suddenly self-conscious about my unruly hair and dark jeans next to their pressed fatigues and linear haircuts.

The images of the dogs dont go away when I close my eyes for a second. I feel for the tiny bottle of green eucalyptus oil in my jacket, shake out a few drops, and slowly rub it into my temples, but it cant prevent the slideshow of canine slaughter scenarios flickering behind my closed eyelids. Its after midnight and theres a full glass of Johnnie Walker Black on the table in front of me, next to a stack of thick plastic binders bursting with photocopied lyrics in six different languages. The table is so low it barely hits my shins.

The rest of the men in the room, whose faces I cant make out in the dim light, are waiting for me to sing. One of them hands me a microphone.

U.S.A. song, the man in the uniform insists, nudging me. I dont want to sing, not now, not here. I need to focus on the long and ugly night ahead, and its hard to keep the mood light. But everyone is smiling, prodding me to go on. This is part of the game Ive played for the last few years in a dozen other countries. Now Ill sing Peace Frog or Sounds of Silence, and the commander will applaud, smile encouragingly, and pass me the dried squid as if to tell me not to worry. Life here is like this. Sing another karaoke number to take your mind off reality.

Blood in the streets its up to my ankles

Im the only one in the room who knows what Im singing aboutthe only one seemingly bothered by the rooms crimson bulbs casting a bloody glow over our gathering. Ive got to smile, to reassure these men that I can party with them, show them I am not shaken by any of what weve seen or are about to see. No one goes home until the commander says its time.

As I continue to sing, I notice a young, pretty girl wearing too much lip gloss. She pours more whiskey over a big chunk of ice, picks up the glass with both hands, and offers it to me with a winning smile. I accept it with a nod, then put the glass down immediately and go for the beer instead, which seems more reasonable considering my physical condition. I never get enough time in one place to recover from the jet lag. I havent fully unpacked my suitcase for a long time now.