It begins with a painful, all-too-familiar story. The friend of a friend promises a young girl from an impoverished family a high-paying job abroad as a waitress. The amount being offered both astonishes and delights her, and she responds with a resounding yes. How can she not want to help her family, after all? Magically, the paper work is prepared in the blink of an eye.

She is to be sent to the Middle East, but must first pass by Malaysia as a stowaway. So she boards a motorized banca as the dusk begins to fall, hoping to evade roving coast guards on her way from Tawi-tawi in the southern part of the Philippines to Sabah in Malaysia. Before long, she finds herself in a cramped, dark space, her wrists encrusted in cold metal. She is handed a large box of condoms and is blithely informed that this will have to be her daily quota from now on — that is, if she hopes to eat at all. By then, it's too late, as we witness the plight of yet another trafficking victim.

Read more: Human Trafficking and its Intricate Web