rkers stories
It all came together towards the
end of, ‘The Last Journey’, the last
book in his River trilogy launched
last year, where some of the characters in the book decide to initiate an
action campaign: Bee with us (Bee
as in the name of one of the characters in his book).
With first-hand experience in
trafficking they decide they should
do something to tell the truth to the
world. In so doing they speak for the
author.
Staffan Nordstrand initially
came in touch with this world when
he started to take an interest in the
stories related to him from workers
under his supervision as a developer
of residential homes in Phuket.
A number of years travelling
and research gathering followed
which has resulted in three documentary novels.
And now Staffan brings fiction
into the real world with this new
international aid initiative - without
middlemen.
The website Beewithus.com
does two main things. First, spreads
information on trafficking of children
and young people within the sex
industry and manufacturing in Asia.
Second, it links donors with qualityassured recipients in South-east
Asia, without any middlemen involved who just waste large parts of
the funds. Donations will go directly
and in whole to the particular operation being supported by people.
“Actually, there are many competent organisations out there doing an excellent job. They need support, but the donors don’t know of
their existence,” he elaborates.
Bee with us will also reach out
through holding lectures and other
kinds of advocacy work. At the
Göteborg Book Fair (Gothenburg,
Sweden) held in September Staffan had his booth designed to reflect the slum in Bangkok and also
attended a symposium on trafficking
as speaker.
His trilogy has sold well. During
the book fair alone, Staffan signed
over 500 books. The first book has
sold around 30,000 copies and is
about to be translated into English
and other languages.
The books and Bee with us constitute various part of the same effort to counteract human trafficking
and prostitution with exploitation of
those poor and vulnerable.
“More organisations should inform about human trafficking. We
know that at present this is the largest form of slavery ever on earth.
And still most people believe that
slavery is something we abolished
globally a long time ago. The truth
is that the sex trade and sex slavery
has not been stopped, so we need
to start a new war to stop it,” states
Bee with us.
“Child sex trade, young girls and
boys, kidnappings… that’s where
we should work hard to fight it. I
think it’s very important that people
come to understand that tourism
plays an important part. On Bangla road in Phuket, for instance, the
main sex customers are Asian tourists. Up towards 90 per cent of the
customers in the brothels are locals.
On top of that you have the tourists coming here and using H