Mia’s Story: How DNA Analysis Could Have Changed Her Life
University of New Haven
Publication Date: 2014
However, today a man from Kathmandu arrives in their rural poverty-stricken village to offer her parents and the parents of two neighbors an opportunity to provide for their families and give Mia a chance in life. This stranger promises to bring these village girls back to the “modern” capital of Nepal and provide the girls with an opportunity for an education and work in the food service industry. Mia is frightened yet intrigued by the possibility of a hope she often dreamed of realizing. Truly out of desperation, the father agrees and bids Mia goodbye. Little did he or his wife know they would never see Mia again nor learn of the daily horrors that would become the norm of her life in a “cabin restaurant” and ultimately an Indian brothel.
It is not long into her journey from home that Mia realizes the horrors of slavery. Life in a “cabin restaurant” means life as a sex slave, “servicing” 5–10 men per day. In exchange for enduring the repeated rape and brutality, a girl is given a bed to sleep in, the same one where she is sexually assaulted. Occasionally, she will be given some form of food and an opportunity to bathe the filth from her frail body. There will be no trip outdoors, no windows in which she can appreciate nature, no special holidays, no days off, and her only friends will be limited to her partners in suffering. During the initial years of slavery, their youth and innocence attract attention, and they becomes the “prize” of the restaurant. As time progresses they find a way to survive, certainly not to thrive.
Then, with no warning, Mia is sold and escorted from the building to a car that will bring her on a several-hundred-kilometer journey to the Nepal/India border. She is in the company of two other girls, whom the traffickers picked up along the way. They are escorted by a male who makes it clear the consequences of any attempt to escape or inform the police. Once at the border, with very little questioning or inquiry, Mia and her associates are transported into India. That journey ends a few days later when the girls arrive in the notorious brothels of India. The sexual, physical and mental abuse is more intense than ever. Malnutrition and fatigue eventually take their toll on 17-year-old Mia. By age 19, severe malnutrition and complications due to sexually transmitted diseases overcome her. Mia’s journey ends with a fatal bout of pneumonia, and her body is discarded with the trash in the dark filthy alleyway. For Mia, her journey and daily torment were finally over.
Why? How could this happen? What could have been done to stop this? What are the obstacles that so often hinder the best intentions of the all-too-few non-government organizations (NGOs), community members or government workers who care enough to try? What if we were able to stop the supply of these young helpless victims? Given the state of poverty and conflict throughout these regions, this is not likely as there is a seemingly endless supply of victims. Well then, we must be able to do something about the demand. That would require changing the mindsets and cultural norms embedded in communities over thousands of years. It is the deeply rooted status where one individual feels justified looking down on another or where the needs of one person trump the rights of another. Add to that the enormous amount of money that can be obtained by engaging in the slave trade. Methods aimed at stopping the demand are difficult at best. The best answer lies in an approach that recognizes human slavery as an organized criminal network, wholly focused on making money. Success will require sophisticated investigative methods that culminate in the dismantling of these networks and often the corrupt portions of government that condone their actions. In addition, the profitability must be removed, and simply this “transaction” must be viewed as too difficult of an enterprise to engage in on a regular basis.
Major investigative objectives are needed to increase prosecution and conviction rates, reduce re-traumatization of the victims, utilize analysis of physical evidence and build sustainable models within the affected country. Forensic DNA analysis is a powerful tool that can have a major positive impact on obtaining these objectives.
The use of forensic DNA analysis can have the following benefits. Victims need and want an identity. Practically, they are stripped of their passport or identifying documents and presented with a false identification. DNA is the constant that cannot be stolen from them. In addition, far too many of the limited court trials that occur depend almost exclusively upon the victim’s testimony. Victim cooperation is key to a judicial proceeding, but bolstering their testimony and countering the lies of the accused can be accomplished with the power of an unbiased analysis, such as DNA testing. Even before the investigation culminates in an arrest, properly focused evidence collection and DNA analysis can be a huge asset in the investigative process. This type of analysis can confirm victim and perpetrator identities. In addition, it can help establish the location and nature of events or assaults that the victim endured. Moreover, DNA results can be mapped and analyzed to help establish connections between multiple victims, traffickers, exploiters and locations where the assaults occurred. Finally, a DNA database can be a method for identifying and keeping track of victims and their forced migration. In addition, if they become, rather when they become, a victim of a crime, their known DNA standard is already available for analysis and comparison to crime scene samples.
Back to the story of Mia, but this time let’s affect her journey with our resources. Let’s assume there is a robust DNA collection, analysis and database system in place. How could the story have changed?
Analysis already conducted on data obtained from the hard work of NGO groups in Nepal identified areas where many of the victims originate. These locations are in the numerous little villages scattered throughout Nepal. Poverty and difficult living conditions are the norm. They are obvious and consistent sources of vulnerable victims and their families. Ideally, NGO and government workers can collaborate to travel into these remote and vulnerable regions. They can help educate the families and communities about the dangers that face their children if they are released or sold into a “better” life in another community. In addition, they will seek voluntary buccal swabs from the most likely victims and ultimately load the profiles into a nationally managed local DNA database. Let’s assume Mia was one of those who voluntarily provided her DNA sample for this newly developed database. Swabs taken from her and other vulnerable residents of her village can be transported to a national forensic science laboratory in Kathmandu. With recent advances in swab technology, the swabs can endure a week or more of varying travel conditions before arriving at the laboratory.
Unfortunately, even proactive education programs and known DNA collection will not totally deter traffickers, at least not until the costs for their nefarious activities is greatly increased. That will require a comprehensive law enforcement approach.
Again, let us alter Mia’s outcome. During Mia’s enslavement in a “cabin restaurant” she is “purchased” by an undercover law enforcement official. Rather than sexually exploiting precious Mia as he was entitled to do with his payment to the restaurant madam, he visits her in private and begins the process of winning her trust. After several more visits, Mia learns that there is hope and that she can help herself by once again providing a voluntary buccal swab. Investigative efforts continue in this transit village for the next 60 days. Finally after substantial investigative efforts and collection of physical evidence from ten “cabin restaurants’, truly brothels, authorities begin planning a rescue operation. This activity will be accompanied by search and seizure of physical evidence within these rape centers and arrest of the identified traffickers—those responsible for any portion of the transportation, abuse, control or exploitation of the trafficked victims. Once sufficient aftercare facilities and programs are identified, the rescue operation is launched, designed to minimize any additional trauma for the victims who will be rescued.
Ideally, Mia is one of those victims who is rescued and begins her long journey of healing and restoration. As she progresses in her treatment and recovery she is encouraged to cooperate with investigators and the pending trials. In this circumstance she is no longer the lone voice facing a network of abusers who have so controlled her for the past few years. Numerous other girls who have been rescued accompany her. Further, physical evidence, bed sheets, etc., were recovered from her cell of abuse. Using standard DNA-typing methods as well as Y-STR analysis, lab personnel were able to verify her claim that a large number of males contributed to the daily assaults she endured. If some of these male exploiters are already in a national or international DNA database for offenders, investigators can identify some of the offenders and work toward bringing them to justice.
Let’s assume a worse scenario: one in which Mia was sold to another trafficker who moved her toward the Nepal/India border a few days before the rescue operations. As she approaches the border, her trafficker makes it clear that law enforcement is against her and her only hope lies in her cooperation with him. At the border, a monitor from an international NGO observes the approaching party of a 20-year-old Nepal male and two teenage girls who appear concerned. The trafficker claims the girls are his sister and first cousin and that he is bringing them across the border for seasonal work in India at the request of his parents. Questioning yields no conflicting information, yet the border monitor feels something is not quite right. Without the power of DNA the crossing would be complete. However, this time there will be an 84-minute delay while the buccal swabs taken from the worrisome girls and alleged brother/cousin are obtained and placed into the Rapid DNA biochip. Through a funded collaborative program, rapid DNA instruments have been placed on the major border crossing points. Soon the analysis clearly indicates that the trafficker is not a blood relative, and he is taken into investigative custody. With courage that arose from this intervention and the truth declared through science, the girls come forward and tell of their captivity and abuse. The border-monitoring staff quickly accompanies the girls into the protective care of a local aftercare facility. Investigators now have another link in the long chain of abusers that exploited these girls for the past few years. As they dig deeper into this investigation, more information is obtained, which will be of value not only in court proceedings involving their specific abuse but also in a larger investigation designed to attack the network that allowed this connected level of sexual exploitation.
To those of you who have dedicated your careers to the development and implementation of DNA analysis in forensic settings, your efforts have far greater reach and purpose than you will likely know. Your work is an unbiased, incorruptible voice that speaks truth into a dire situation in every dark corner of this world. Well done! For those in law enforcement, government or other agencies focused on combating the crime of human trafficking, the obstacles are many and great. Yet, with technologies and tools such as DNA analysis, there is hope that we can create an effective and sustainable model designed to rescue the oppressed and dismantle the networks of abuse.
Note: The character in this story is fictional. Yet, the essence of this story is a reality lived and endured by countless women, children and men every day. Further, this was not intended to be an indictment against Nepal. In fact, the newly elected Attorney General for Nepal is very committed to using his power and authority to combat human trafficking and desires to incorporate forensic DNA analysis as a weapon in that battle.
How to Cite This Article
Scientific Style and Format, 7th edition, 2006
Palmbach, T.M. Mia’s Story: How DNA Analysis Could Have Changed Her Life. [Internet] 2014. [cited: year, month, date]. Available from: https://www.promega.com/resources/profiles-in-dna/2014/mias-story-how-dna-analysis-could-have-changed-her-life/
American Medical Association, Manual of Style, 10th edition, 2007
Palmbach, T.M. Mia’s Story: How DNA Analysis Could Have Changed Her Life. Promega Corporation Web site. https://www.promega.com/resources/profiles-in-dna/2014/mias-story-how-dna-analysis-could-have-changed-her-life/ Updated 2014. Accessed Month Day, Year.
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