21BenRandall

I approached the authorities at one point to find out what support they would be able to provide, but they wanted the full details of my friends before they would tell me anything.

It was unclear what would happen - to my friends, to their daughters, and to their "husbands". My friend was afraid of what might happen and, at her request, I didn't pursue the matter any further

Awareness is key. A lot of the men buying these women - and funding the entire system - are actually ignorant of what they're doing, and what a devastating effect they're having on these girls and their families.

We've had the documentary translated into the local languages - Vietnamese, Hmong (the girls' own language), and Chinese - so that it can make a difference where it is needed most.

Unfortunately, we're limited as to what we can do with the Chinese version, since one of my friends still remains in China with the man who bought her

Initially, the only possibility I had (however slim) was to try and identify my friends' traffickers, and trace their path through the trafficking network. That proved to be just as impossible as I imagined it would be, but I got lucky when one of my friends was able to access a phone in China and call home. It still took several months to contact, locate and meet with her, but at least I had a starting point :)

The whole process actually turned out to be much more difficult than I'd expected.

Some of the traffickers had become aware of my presence during the search, and we lost all communication with one of my friends just before she was supposed to be rescued.

Based on what she'd said before we lost contact, it seemed very likely that she was being relocated to be sold again - as a bride or prostitute, we didn't know.

By that time I felt a huge responsibility for the safety of both girls, and emotionally, that was the most difficult part of the process.

It was really tough, not knowing what had happened to her, and not knowing if we'd ever find out

Thank you. Much of the trafficking is done by multinational organised crime networks, and there was certainly an element of danger involved. It was the kind of situation where we (my cameraman and I) would have been killed, or nothing would happen. We came through without any problems, but will never know how dangerous it really was for us. The only death threat I received, bizarrely, was from the family of one of the girls, who didn't want her home.