Category: Letters

Debt, Desperation, and the Wrong Door

I am from Madagascar and currently in the Tai Lam Centre for Women.

I was born and raised in a very underprivileged family in Madagascar. My parents had no stable jobs. We lived in a small village where my father had a small rice field. My mother was only 16 when I was born, and my father was 19. They were not yet ready to manage a family or support us adequately.

As the eldest of four children at the time, I still remember going from village to village alone to sell fruits that my father harvested from his farm. This meant I could only attend school in the mornings; in the afternoons, I had to help my parents.

Later, because of our difficult life, my parents separated. My three younger brothers and I went to live with our paternal grandmother. Neither parent was able to take care of us — we were lucky if we saw them once a year.

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Double Exposure: Framed in a Foreign Land

I am Mexican and I work as a professional photographer in Mexico City. I have been doing this work for more than 30 years. My business is producing annual calendars for companies or factories, showing the most professional side of their work.

A few months before coming to Hong Kong, I did a job for a tourist company that had purchased some ships from a factory in America. I carried out the work for the company’s annual calendar, with images of a shipyard in the city of Marseille, France. I also took a trip on the ship to understand its function. I did all this a few months before coming to Hong Kong.

If you check my passport, you will see my travel history, as before carrying out the job, I made a trip to identify the places where the work would be done, and then returned to complete it. This process took me approximately four months to carry out — producing and finishing the images, presenting them to my clients and, if they were satisfied, printing the calendars.

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From Sunbeds to Shackles

I am from the island of Mallorca, Spain, and was arrested at Hong Kong International Airport for carrying in my suitcase pills containing an illegal substance known as “ecstasy” — specifically about 14,000 pills with a total weight of 2.367 kg.

I am currently 58 years old and held at Stanley Prison, awaiting a Supreme Court hearing for sentencing, having voluntarily pleaded guilty.

I wish to share the story of my life and explain how I made the mistake that placed me in this unnatural situation as a prisoner in Hong Kong.

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Sweet invitation from a bitter destiny

Hello, I am 30 years old, from Manaus, Amazonas, Brazil. Through this letter, I want to share the way I was recruited.

I was in the center of my city after visiting a client when a man approached me. He complimented me and started a conversation. He asked about my life—my children, my work. I told him I used to sell meals but stopped, and that I also worked as a prostitute.

He asked how much I would charge. I said 150 reais for one hour. Then he said, “I have a better job for you, where you’ll earn much more.”

At first I thought it would be something to do with prostitution, but I was wrong. He said it was easy and that everything would be alright; I just had to do everything he told me to do.

He offered me $5,000 USD—about 30,000 reais—to carry drugs on a trip.

Desperate for money to restart my business, furnish my daughter’s room, and help my mother pay debts, I accepted. He took my information and told me to bring my passport the next day.

The following day, he gave me an envelope with travel documents and 300 reais. He warned me not to fail, saying my family would be at risk. I promised I wouldn’t.

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