happy ending?
"I was very happy to be back home," Hoa says. "My parents were shocked and hurt, knowing what I suffered over there [in China]. They didn't shout at me or anything, they just encouraged me."
Her unemployed brother is remorseful that a woman he had known turned out a trafficker.
"He said sorry to me because his wrong choice of friend had such an effect on his sister," she says.
"I am disappointed with what happened to me. I want to have a new life. I want to study something that can help me find a job," she says, worried that her ageing parents will be unable to care for her for much longer.
"Actually I ought to be feeding them, not they me," she says.
In the weeks since her return, she has had no job offers but the Women's Union says it is helping her get part-time work.
Linh of IOM says the union and her organization are offering training courses for both trafficking victims and other young women deemed vulnerable to exploitation.
The course is made up of lessons in cooking, English and "life skills in order to help them gain con-fidence," says Linh. Hoa will take it next month and get help with food, accommodation and some pocket money for course material.
Throughout the interview, the only question Hoa adamantly refuses to answer is what she thinks of men in general now and whether she will ever get married.
She has a more fatalistic view of life.
"Destiny has a bad part and a good part," she says. "If early in life misfortune occurs, then I believe good fortune can come in the future."



