Karamjit Singh thought he had hit the jackpot for himself and his aging widower-father when he was arranged to marry a Hong Kong-born Indian Punjabi woman and relocate to the cosmopolitan city. But his dreams of a happy marriage and life crumbled as soon as he moved in with his wife and her parents and three brothers-in-law who viewed him not as a groom, but as their own personal indentured slave.
Before Karamjit, 28, got married to his wife in a lavish wedding in Moga, Punjab, India in 2012, his wife's parents targeted him for his lack of a formal education, his impoverished family background and low social status. They lured him with promises of financial security for himself and his elderly father.
But when he arrived in Hong Kong, his in-laws announced that he would be working in two jobs in construction work during the day and as a security guard in the evenings. His father-in-law kept and used his ATM card with his wife giving him small amounts for spending.
"I was deceived after coming here… I found my in-laws as supreme leaders, bullying me always," Singh said. "It's a hellish life. I work work work (to survive)." He regrets his decision to marry his wife, a mild-mannered woman who cannot stop her brothers and father. Post-traumatic stress disorder signs of depression and anxiety set in a few months.
Singh reached out to a well-known immigration consultant in Hong Kong, Richard Aziz Butt, several months after he arrived in hopes of finding a way out. Singh said he will never go to the police.
"I would call him a slave groom. He was arranged to marry to be brought here to work as a machine to earn money for the family. All these things are elements of slavery," Butt said. "These people will not talk (to the police) even if they are abused."
Butt and frontline workers within the South Asian community say that Singh is one of dozens of South Asian men, over the past two decades, who were deceived and trafficked into Hong Kong through marriage visas and forced into bonded labour and indentured servitude for their in-laws. Their passports are withheld, monitored constantly and they're psychologically controlled through threats and beatings. "I believe 20 per cent of the husbands are slave grooms. They are brought to HK, they work for the wife and the family," Butt said. These men are mostly from Punjab region in Pakistan and India but also from other South Asian countries like Bangladesh and Nepal."
These men are silent out of fear of reprisal or fear of bringing shame to their family honour if they're sent home. "These men are from male-dominated (patriarchal) countries. If they will say to someone that they were treated like slave people will laugh at them and will call them coward and useless and lazy. Therefore, they dare not to say anything to anyone," he said.
Biswas, a former pimp-turned-frontline worker in Chungking mansion for more than 15 years, has helped at least three men from the Punjab region of India who were trafficked into marriages and forced to work in restaurants and a tailor shop. He said he has heard of more men trafficked into slavery through marriage and they're usually from the Punjab region. Over the years, he's met more than 200 vulnerable South Asians in Hong Kong who were deceived into forced labour.
Nita, an NGO leader, who asked to remain anonymous because her work involves working with different government agencies, said these families learn from one another and follow the same pattern. "They have no conscience and are acting out of pure greed."
Human trafficking within the family and marriage context is underreported around the world. The UN Palermo Protocol defines trafficking in persons as using various means such as deception and force to have total control over another person, for the purpose of exploitation including slavery. Nurul Qoiriah, head of the Hong Kong office of International Organisation for Migration (IOM), a UN agency that assists foreign migrants, said, "Traffickers may use various means (coercion and control mechanism) to prevent victims to report or seek any help from others, including the use (of)…threats including threat of reprisal against victims' loved ones… and isolation."
According to Butt, he's met more than 100 male victims from South Asia trafficked to Hong Kong through marriages since 1997. However, the Immigration Department has no official record on exploitation and trafficking of spouses who migrate from other countries to Hong Kong. Butt said these men are not perceived as victims, being forced to work for the family against their will, by the Immigration Department. "Immigration never recognized them as slaves. They insist they are able bodied person and can decide at their own. They never considered their psychological and cultural problems," he said, adding that government workers are not trained to understand South Asian culture and religion.
Qoiriah said, unfortunately it is often not an easy process to identify victims of trafficking, because the person is unaware of his rights and of the assistance available and may be dependent upon the abuser ("Stockholm syndrome"). Serious and proactive investigation is also a key element in order to crackdown or prevent trafficking, she said.
Jennifer Burns, Director of Anti-Slavery Australia, said victims are reluctant to come forward to authorities due to "a lack of awareness by front-line practitioners... There may be language and cultural barriers."
Last summer, the Immigration Department began to work closer with Pakistan and Bangladesh on addressing cross-border crimes of human trafficking after seeing a spike in the number of undocumented migrants from South Asia working illegally in recent years. Hong Kong's Security Bureau, in charge of law and order as well as immigration, said while "Hong Kong does not have a single piece of legislation dealing with human trafficking, or forced labour as such, we do have a comprehensive and solid legislative framework to deal with various conduct encompassed within the definition of 'human trafficking' in the Palermo Protocol, which includes forced labour."
BONDED LABOURER TO UNDOCUMENTED MIGRANT: Kashi was brought to Hong Kong through an arranged marriage in his village in Pakistan in April 2004. Like Singh, Kashi was promised a bright future in Hong Kong by the bride's family. But he was forced to work non-stop as an indentured slave at home and a bonded labourer at a construction site.
"They treated me a slave. A person they can release their anger on," he said. "I told them I cannot do it all for you. But they said you have to do it otherwise they slap on my face. They laugh."
Kashi escaped after his brother-in-law stabbed him with a knife when Kashi refused to do something. "Yes, I did (bleed). A small cut with a knife caused bleeding. They said it was a little thing. I was afraid of dying at their hands," he said.
Kashi heard about Butt's immigration consultancy through friends at Chungking mansion and reached out to him for help. Butt brought Kashi's case to the Immigration officers and tried to extend his visa after he left his wife. However, Butt said the Immigration department couldn't help him because he no longer had a sponsor.
"(The) Immigration (department) should adopt a policy in which this kind of victims should be granted a visa when they have been abused and enslaved. The wife's family members will never come and say, "Oh yes, we have abused him". So eventually immigration will refuse their visas and ask them to leave within 3 or 7 days. This is very, very painful," Butt said.
Butt has lost touch with Kashi who is likely still living as an undocumented migrant. "I've never seen anyone go back. They end up living here illegally. They're often busted and deported."
Butt has applied for visa extensions for so many men that he's lost count.
While Karamjit still keeps in touch with Richard, his depression deepens and he has lost all hope. "I can't escape," he said.
Sylvia Yu is an award-winning journalist and writer specialising in human trafficking issues. She is also the author of the book Silenced No More: Voices of Comfort Women.
