Refugees raped to assert power and control

Another Vietnamese woman named Suan told me a heartening story about the value of human life.

Like May, Suan was raped on the boat trip from Vietnam to Thailand. When she debarked from the boat in Thailand and saw the women being rinsed out, she faked an illness and refused the procedure. For some reason the Thai police sent her on her way to the refugee camp.

A few months later Suan realised that she was pregnant. All of her relatives and friends told her to abort the baby - and an old woman said she knew how to carry out the procedure as painlessly as possible.

Suan, a Roman Catholic who believed abortion to be a sin, prayed for two weeks for guidance. Then she told her mother she would need help having her baby.

Suan gave birth to a baby boy while in the refugee centre. Today he is an American citizen and a policeman in New England.

Suan’s decision to have her baby - a baby forced upon her by a man she didn’t know and didn’t love - turned out to be a good one. A real lesson in the value of human life and our ability to overcome hardship.