Finding Ruby | The Treasure | 4

"Light breaks into the darkness. A painstaking investigation leads to the rescue of Ruby and the other girls."

Listeners are given behind the scenes access to how a rescue operation is built–and spoiler–it isn’t all busting down doors!

We travel alongside Attorney Rey of International Justice Mission as he works alongside Philippines police to gain access to the house Ruby and the girls are trapped in, and see what it is like firsthand to work in such a dark area, bringing light one step at a time.

The path to rescue is built on a series of small, strategic steps.  At any moment, anything could go wrong.

At last rescue arrives for Ruby.  But this is in many ways only the beginning of her journey to healing.

Issues this episode explores:

• The multidisciplinary team needed for a rescue operation 
• A consideration of privacy and protection laws 
• The toll  taken on rescue workers and what motivates them to keep going

Show website: fightofmy.life

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CONTENT WARNING: This episode contains descriptions of sexual violence. Listener discretion is advised.

Please seek help if you need to.

To speak to a trained crisis supporter at Lifeline (24-hours): 131 114
To report a crime to the Australian Federal Police: 1800 333 000
For emergency assistance: 000

FOR THE PHILIPPINES:
If you have suspicions about the occurrence of online sexual exploitation of children in your community, immediately report to: www.1343actionline.ph

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Finding Ruby is a production of Cadence Productions.

Show written and edited by Nikki Florence Thompson and Rich Thompson. 
Additional production by Lydia Bowden, Anthea Godsmark, and Brendan Ridley. 
Sound design and mix by Rich Thompson and Brendan Ridley. 
Graphic design and social media by Sayaka Miyashita, Carla Moran, and Alyssa Sheridan. 
Director of photography is Brad Conomy. 
Matt Tooker is the executive producer.

Show Music
- "Homeland" by Searching for Light, featuring Jenna Carlie. 

Transcript

0:00

(ambient music)- Cadence Productions.- Before we begin, a warning. This podcast contains descriptions of sexual violence. Listener discretion is advised.- The morning of July 12th, 2013, Pampanga.(tense music)(sirens wailing)- Ruby wonders if she's imagining it when the voice calls out the words she's been longing to hear.- I heard the technical guy shouted, "There's a police." I was actually thinking that, oh really? There's a police?(tense music continues)- She's drying her hair after her night on the bathroom floor, her eyes are heavy and swollen from crying. She drops the towel and runs to get a better look. Nadine is there with Pedro. They have arrived for the girls' pay and to check on the computers with Kiko.(tense music fades) Nadine pulls the girls into the other room and locks the door.(menacing music) She's frantic. She's trying to figure out what to do with the evidence she has with her, a large wad of cash and a paper bag with a brand new iPad inside. Ruby looks around at the other girls. They are terrified. Nadine has warned them that if the police come, not only themselves, but their families are in danger. A gunshot pierces the air. It's a warning shot. Kiko is trying to escape. The other girls tremble in fear, but Ruby feels hope rising, solid and audible. She steps forward towards the noise. The police are in the lounge room now and the door to the room they are in begins to shake.(door loud banging) They are breaking through the darkness. They are breaking through the chains. They are coming to find help is here.♪ Far in the distance, there's a promise ♪From Cadence Productions, this is Finding Ruby,♪ I put it on the altar though it was mine ♪a true story of loss and trauma at the hands of one of the world's fastest growing crimes, but also a story of triumph, of rescue and resilience.♪ We're all seeking a homeland, oh ♪♪ We're all seeking a homeland ♪This is the story of 16 year old Ruby, thrown into the fight of her life and of those who have chosen to come alongside her and make it the fight of their lives too.(gentle rhythmic music) Episode four, The Treasure.(gentle menacing music) There's something about that moment when the doors kicked in that I find immensely satisfying. Light, both metaphorically and literally, breaks into the darkness. In one instant, all the tables are turned and justice begins to take its course. But in researching this podcast, I have learned that before these final doors of rescue come down for girls like Ruby, other doors need to be opened first. Here's Caleb Carroll.- You see the pictures of children being rescued, and nobody thinks about the months and months and months of work that our IJM attorneys and that our government, our government partner attorneys have gone into advocating for something as simple as a search warrant to be quicker, right? But those things contribute to children being rescued more quickly and lessening the abuse, right? They just aren't as glamorous.- It's an understatement to say that there's a lot that happens in the lead up to a rescue. In this episode, we're going to take you behind the scenes to see firsthand some of the battle tactics that are needed for a rescue mission like this one, the level of preparation and precision needed. As we explore this remarkable backstory, you'll meet not just one individual, but a diverse group of people working together for a common goal, local police, investigators, prosecutors, lawyers, social workers. What we will see more and more of as we go on is that to break down the doors, it takes a team effort. One that involves weapons of words, expertise in technology, meticulous knowledge of the law, and ultimately, a passion and a patience that drives them all towards a unified vision of justice. Nothing about this story is easy. It's hard one, but getting Ruby and the other girls out is worth any obstacle. So let's rewind back now one month before the morning of July 12th, 2013.- June, 2013, Pampanga.- Attorney Reynaldo H. Bicol, Jr, or Rey, as he's more commonly known, is sitting at his desk in the IJM field office in Pampanga with his second cup of coffee for the day when the message comes in.(cellphone dings) Most days, his inbox is flooded with requests and pressing demands, one long stream of potential emergencies. But this one is different. He adjusts his glasses and takes a closer look. For nine years, Rey has been an attorney with IJM. That's just over a quarter of his life. The weight he carries each day is heavy, but he wouldn't do anything else. The drive to rescue children pushes him on. And in the last few years, he's been getting results. Rey moved from Manila to Pampanga to set up the IJM office. The Philippine government requested he do this to help them rescue and protect children from the commercial sex industry in Pampanga, and that was no small task. Pampanga was known as one of the global epicenters of human trafficking. Some even called it Ground Zero. Children were being trafficked in broad daylight in pubs and bars and brothels. This crime was going on unchallenged and unstopped in an atmosphere of almost total impunity.- Our project was focused on this particular type of trafficking. We also call it traditional form of trafficking, wherein children are openly sold for sex in bars in the streets in Pampanga, and that place in Pampanga, Angeles City, particularly Fields Avenue, is notorious for that. And so, that led IJM to go to Pampanga, establish a presence there and confront and combat this crime.- Already in such a short amount of time, Attorney Rey and his team together with local law enforcement, had achieved a dramatic decrease in child sex trafficking in the area. The numbers proved it. The stat is officially an 86% reduction in the prevalence of child sex trafficking in the area. 86%. Of course, some of the trafficking would've been pushed underground, but still, it is a remarkable result, one the team is very proud of.- We went to Pampanga. We never thought that we would accomplish that. We were compelled to go to that place, but we didn't know that it would come to this result of drastic reduction of children being trafficked for commercial sex.- And that was on top of Manila. In Manila, under his direction, they prosecuted over 130 cases of sex trafficking and child sexual abuse. They closed 19 bars and nightclubs. He takes another sip of coffee as he reads the message. The email is from his team and it describes a series of interactions with a senior police officer, Henry Castroverde, of the Philippine National Police. They need help getting a search warrant for a new case they are building. Now, this in itself, isn't that unusual, but what is surprising is the location. It isn't for a brothel or even for a pub or a bar. It's for a house, a residential house in Pampanga that apparently belongs to a woman named Nadine. Until recently, no matter how ugly it got, at least they could see the enemy. They could confront him with their eyes. But things were changing and fast. Now they were dealing with the online abuse of children as a new form of trafficking. Rey leans in and carefully reads again through the email. It tells of some very clever police work. Once again, he's glad he's not in this fight alone. I'm going to do my best now to step you through the sequence of events that led up to that email. We've taken as much detail as possible from publicly available reports and from our interviews, but of course, and here's the asterisks, some of the detail is kept confidential for security reasons, so that law enforcement don't give away some of their tactics. So from time to time, we've needed to use what we've learned of other similar raids to fill in the blanks. Okay, here we go. It all starts with a tip from the FBI.(menacing music) They had picked up an unusual pattern of money transfers between the US and the Philippines. The thought that didn't make sense, small repeated amounts of money to a single address in Pampanga. The tip was given to the Anti-Transnational Crime Division of the Philippine National Police where senior officer Henry Castroverde was then assigned the case. Sensing that there was indeed something suspicious, he assigned an investigator, a Captain Timothy, to investigate. Timothy and his team talked to representatives at the money transfer company and obtained the residential address attached to the account. They discover the house at that address belongs to a lady named Nadine. Further investigation shows Nadine is a wealthy woman and potentially, very well connected. They would have to tread very carefully from here on in. The investigation team begin their surveillance slowly, carefully. They walk up the street that the house is on pretending to take photos of all the houses, not just their target. But the one they really focus on, of course, is Nadine's. They can't see much from the street though. A large solid fence stands between the road and the house, and all the curtains are drawn. It's very difficult to see what is happening inside. And this is where things start to get really complicated. You see, in the Philippines, it is constitutionally mandated that you must get a search warrant to enter premises to collect evidence, but the process is long and convoluted. Just to get the warrant to search the place, you first need to know the place.- What the constitution requires is the person applying for a warrant should particularly describe the place to be searched and the things to be ceased. So very detailed that you should know and tell the judge, this is what the place looks like, these are the evidence that are there that we have to cease to prove our case.- So you have to know what's inside in order to get inside.- Yes. (laughs) That's the irony or the challenge of that. So our law enforcement partners really have to be creative in how do you get an idea or get those evidence that you need that you will present before- That's what's challenging in the OSEC case work is that this crime is normally committed in residential homes, in the privacy of homes. So you typically, you don't know what the house looks inside, right? Where are those, even those evidence?- So the teams start trying to devise a way to get into the house to see what's going on. After only a couple of days, Captain Timothy starts to notice a pattern. While the house remains unnaturally silent for the majority of the time, each day, a young man exits and reenters the house. We know this guy to be who Ruby calls the houseboy. Though he leaves empty handed, he often returns with his hands full of several loaded bags of groceries, far too many bags for one young man on his own in a large house. One morning as the young man is out shopping, Timothy approaches the houseboy cautiously and initiates a conversation. At first, the houseboy is dismissive, but sometime into the conversation, he realizes they're onto Nadine's operation and there's a good chance he's going to prison. But then Captain Timothy offers him police protection, immunity in exchange for certain information, in exchange for access to the house while the owners are not there. Can he do it? Perhaps knowing that he has no other choice, the houseboy accepts. He turns. The investigation team now have an insider, and now, they have a way to get inside. In the following days, they wait for a time when the houseboy is sure that Pedro and Nadine are not coming to the house. For the plan to work, this part is essential. When the time arrives, the houseboy approaches the door quietly, releasing the padlock and lets the investigator slip in. The undercover investigator enters the duty room and makes a quick note of what's there. The girls, notepads, computers, monitors, hard drives, and an array of sex toys that makes him nauseous. This house contains all the evidence they need to return. It exceeds their expectations. In the process, the investigator has found out something further, something they hadn't expected. There is another player in this game, a man who helps with the computers. Of course, we know him as Kiko. Though they still don't have enough for an arrest warrant, they believe they have enough to apply for a search warrant, the ticket that will allow them not only to enter the premises, but to collect the evidence, rescue the victims and potentially arrest the criminals. In other words, to shut the whole operation down. Experience tells them this is far from easy. Search warrants are not given out lightly, but senior officer Henry Castroverde knows just who to contact to help them out. A man who has helped them before. A man whose track record goes before him like a torch, Attorney Rey at International Justice Mission.- The morning of July 9th, 2013, Pampanga.- Attorney Rey's team arrive at the court in the morning not too long after the sun has risen. They've meticulously checked and rechecked their list of evidence and their testimonies. They've made sure to give this the best chance of success as is humanly possible. At last, when everything is ready, as a final precaution to avoid tipping anyone off to their actions, they apply in another province for the warrant. And now, there is only one thing left to do, and it is the most painful bit of all. Wait. They must physically stay in the court to wait for the decision, and they have no idea of knowing how long that will be. The hours drag on.(clock ticking) Sometimes it feels like they're fighting a fire, but they have to wait for the water to be turned on. Meanwhile, the victims must wait in the flames.(clock ticking) The sun has long set by the time the decision is made and the warrant is granted. They are finally able to leave. It's time to put out the fire. But remember, the team have been given a search warrant only, not an arrest warrant. To make a warrantless arrest in the Philippines, you have to catch the perpetrators in the crime. This means they need to not only have them there, but have them engaged in activity.- You don't just go there, like, okay, we got the warrant. Let's go there and implement it. So you have to plan carefully and you have to wait for that time where the elements of the crime are present.- So the team waits once more. They wait for the houseboy to inform them of when Nadine and Pedro and Kiko will be at the house. Meanwhile, as they wait, the girls continue on, unaware that their lives are about to change. The cameras stay on 24/7. The merciless performances continue. Several nights later, as Ruby lays asleep on the bathroom floor, drained of tears and of hope, hope is closer than ever. The next day will bring Nadine and Pedro. Only they wouldn't be alone. And for the first time ever, they wouldn't be the ones in control.(gentle spirited music) It's hard to imagine the kind of pressure Rey and all the others work under, for trauma seems to be measured not just by the severity of the abuse, but by the days and weeks and months someone is subjected to it. Time is therefore always ticking. There is a constant need to move fast. Here's John Tanagho.- Yeah, it's really important to improve the detection and reporting of online sexual exploitation, both by tech platforms and financial sector platforms, specifically for the reason of reducing the amount of time that children are abused and exploited. The less time that they are abused and exploited, I mean, it just kind of speaks for itself, right? It's less harm that they're suffering, less trauma that they're going to experience. Not to say that someone who's trafficked and exploited online for a month or two months isn't going to experience trauma. They certainly will. But those who are abused and exploited for six months, one year, two years, four years, you can just imagine how that trauma builds upon each other, builds upon, and they might eventually lose hope, lose their sense of identity, their sense of self-esteem, and the rehabilitation process becomes that much harder.- So one of the key questions then is how do we speed up detection? Caleb Carroll sees IP addresses as key to this.- And this is where it becomes tricky in the Philippines, especially because for the most part, internet service providers here are pooling or revolving IP addresses so much and not keeping records of that, that just having an IP address doesn't do you a whole lot of good, whereas in a place like Australia, if I have your IP address at a certain time to your home internet, I could pretty much find out from your internet service provider, with legal process, where you were. That's not the case in the Philippines based on existing infrastructure.- One of the current battles Caleb and his team are working on is changing the legislation to compel Philippine internet providers to keep records of who has what IP address at what time. But of course, it raises once more, one of thorny issue right at the heart of this crime, privacy. This is one of those discussions that typically get shut down really quickly. No one wants to give up their privacy. The online world feels, in many ways, like a constant battle for privacy. Data is being sold. Sophisticated scams are being run. Identities are being stolen. It's really no wonder we want end-to-end encryption on everything we do. It helps us feel safe and protected. But of course, it's this very aspect of technology, this defensive privacy that is also protecting perpetrators. As Caleb says-- It's a bit of a two-edged sword. Efforts to combat things like financial crime or people spying in your messages, stealing pictures, all make it more difficult to protect children.- So what can we, as a society, do about it? Where is the middle ground in this? How can we have our privacy and protect children too? Well, Caleb says those are exactly the kinds of questions we need to demand that tech companies be asking themselves as they design new privacy tools. In that very same design phase, they need to be also considering child safety. It's called child safety by design.- I think these companies have a big part to play in incorporating child safety by design. I also think that a lot of these companies, the Facebook's, Google's, Microsoft's, all these companies hire some of the most brilliant minds in the world when it comes to the tech space, and genuinely, I think that's an even greater area that they could contribute more is dedicating expertise and resource to solving the problems as opposed to always finding speed bumps about why they can't solve the problem. I think that's the big thing is if you saw a significant investment from the technology sector with all of their brilliance and expertise and resources, right, I mean there's tons of resources and expertise and brilliance that can help us solve this problem. That's the biggest thing, I think, they need to bring to the table'cause their platforms are being used to do it. Trafficking is happening on their platforms, child sexual abuse is happening on their platforms, and I think they have a corporate and a moral responsibility to put some effort into stopping.- Throughout this whole podcast production, I have, perhaps unconsciously, been searching for areas of hope. How are we, and by we, I mean all of us, how are we going to put an end to OSEC? Where do we put out efforts to bring this thing to an end?(gentle bright music) You're about to hear one of the brightest sparks of hope I have come across. It's coming out of the tech sector and it involves artificial intelligence.- So AI is an important solution for a couple reasons. A, one of the biggest concerns for privacy advocates is this idea of the government or a person looking through this stuff in their servers that's yours or on your device, that really freaks people out, and you often then hear, okay, well they're using this for child's protection, but then you hear the slippery slope argument, where does it stop? Where does the government stop looking? That's often- And I'm not downplaying. I think that there are ways to academically and articulately argue those points. So AI helps in that you don't have a person manually going through things, right? There's still a level of privacy that's granted to the user. One conversation that we're starting to have now is this idea of, okay, well what if technology companies could embed on device scanning technology? Basically, when you start to video something that they've trained their AI as inappropriate, in our case, it would be child sex abuse material, it puts a gray box over it throughout the whole video. So you then couldn't use that video, right? What good is a big gray box at video? This idea of blocking the ability to create child sexual abuse material on device could potentially be a middle ground solution in that it doesn't involve somebody outside looking at your stuff, it doesn't involve reporting or the government. It just stops it at the source. And so if you could combine that kind of technology on device with improved detection on the financial side, so therefore you're making it hard to produce the image or the video, and you're also making it hard to get paid, you could really cut the head off a dragon. I mean, those are two things that could substantially move towards ending trafficking online, sexual exploitation in our lifetime. And I think it's great to talk about because I think it is a middle ground maybe with the privacy advocates,'cause again, I think their concerns have a lot of weight and I think- but I also think, as much as people have a right to privacy and security, a child has a right to be protected from sexual exploitation and abuse and a right to be protected online. And I think our duty and right to protect children should always be one of our top duties in any society. So I think it's important to come to a middle ground and maybe some on-device technology like that combined with financial sector coming along is a way to achieve that.- July 12th, 2013.(uplifting music)- Early on the morning when they plan to execute the search warrant, the team, led by Senior Police Officer Henry Castroverde, gathers together and travels to the location.

By 9: 29:58

00 AM, they are in place on the street waiting, hidden in the van. The houseboy's told them that Nadine, Pedro and Kiko were all planning to visit that morning. Kiko arrives first on a motorbike and parks across the road. Moments later, Nadine and Pedro arrive in a Fortuner van. It appears they are unaware they are being watched. Together, they open the padlock and enter the house. The door shuts. A few minutes pass. The team waiting in the vans clenched their fists in nervous anticipation. They're taking deep breaths, let them out slowly. And when finally they are given the signal, they are ready. It's time to go.(tense uplifting music)(indistinct police radio chatter)(dog barking) Ruby isn't the only one to hear Kiko's cry of alarm with those deafening, life-changing words."Police. Raid." Nadine has heard them too and she's in a total panic. In the seconds before the door collapses and the team surges in, she flaps around anxiously, and in her panic state comes up with a ludicrous story that makes Ruby, even in the seriousness of the moment, want to laugh.- She was saying that,"Just tell them that I'm a Splash dealer." That's like a brand name here. And she was saying that we should tell the police that she was there to just sell us her products from Splash. She was planning to tell the police that's the purpose of her being there. (chuckles)- At last, the team burst in in a flurry of action and noise. Ruby watches stunned and relieved as they begin seizing items from the duty room with both precision and purpose. The computers the girls performed in front of with their rectangular screens that were like virtual jails are disconnected sharply from the walls, put to sleep at last. Their power is literally removed. They can no longer do any harm.(uplifting music continues)(camera clicking) She hears the cameras click, a quick succession of sounds as not one piece of evidence is left behind. She observes the faces of the rescue team, serious, alert, fierce, most of all, concentrated. They talk around her to one another in hurried, muffled voices. And while Ruby takes her first cautious peeks at freedom, Nadine and Pedro stand frozen in the middle of it all, silent, mute, barely moving the air. It seems that they are now the ones to lose their voices.- They were just quiet. And of course, they were advised with their rights, they have the right to remain silent, they have the right to counsel, so they were just complying. But probably at the back of their mind, our good days are over.- When a policewoman steps towards her and asks her name, Ruby tells her immediately. She even has her documents ready, the ones she brought with her when she thought she would be studying. She hands them over to the policewoman without hesitation."Is that your real name?", the lady asks. Ruby nods confidently.- I was really all smiles giving her all the information that she needed from me.- At last, the truth is returning. The web of lies has been pierced. Light is on its way.(indistinct chatter) The rescue has caught the attention of more than just those inside the house. Outside, the press are waiting. More cameras. A new flurry of activity. A social worker stretches out her own arm to cover Ruby's face so she cannot be seen as they at last exit the building that has held her captive for two months. Ruby and the girls are ushered into the waiting van and taken back to the Department of Justice, or the DOJ as it's known. While Ruby has been confident and ready until now, fear starts to make its way back towards her. This is all so unknown. It wasn't so long ago she was brought to the house in a strange car, and now, she's in another, but there is something that anchors her. It is an anchor that will be there, not just now in the beginning, but all the way through the following years. She is aware of the presence of the social workers beside her, like protective mother bears. While others are there to catch the criminal, these figures have only one responsibility, to make sure the girls get through this. The social worker's presence gives Ruby courage. She feels less like she's in a whirlwind with them beside her. They gently pull her back to earth. They are trained for this and they do not leave her side.- And because of them, I could say that it was less traumatic for me because rescue operations could be quite scary, of course. You don't know where they will be bringing you after the rescue operation, but it was made easier for me to understand because of those social workers who were present during that time, so I'm very grateful for their lives.- Once at the DOJ, the girls are led into the building and taken to interview rooms. Even though now they are free, there are still things to be done. The girls are victims, yes, but they are witnesses too. Their testimony is paramount and it is essential it is done in a timely manner.- And it's guaranteed by law and the Constitution that if you arrest a person without a warrant, you have to file a charge against this person within 36 hours for heinous crimes, like for trafficking. So law enforcement partners have to work all night, 24 hours to file those charges and organize their evidence, get the statements of the victims so that you can establish probable cause when you file the case before the public prosecutor who will be the investigating prosecutor and decide whether or not the person arrested should be held for trial.- But while Ruby willingly, even enthusiastically, cooperates with all requests, the other five girls with her are not so forthcoming. Ruby approaches the other girls and kneels down. Even though she isn't the eldest in the group, she finds herself speaking to them like an older sister. She reassures them that it is safe. She speaks in a gentle but firm voice, like the social worker speak to her.- They are still actually worried at that time. Maybe they will be the one who will get imprisoned. Yeah, but also, "No, just tell the truth."- As the other girls find it hard to speak up, Ruby is already finding the first beginnings of a new voice, and not just as a witness. Ruby is finding her new voice as a leader.(gentle uplifting music) This reluctance to speak up on the part of the other girls is not unusual. In fact, it's very typical. While the rescue missions of this type are moments of celebration and relief, there is another very real and virtually inescapable side of them too. Trauma.(tense menacing music) We'll be talking more about trauma in the episodes to come, but we wanted to touch on it briefly here to dispel a preconception we may have, because even though it is for their good, it doesn't mean rescue is always easy on the victims. It may seem like an obvious thing to say, but rescues are raids. So they are noisy and chaotic. And for little children, really scary. IJM have given me some audio from an actual rescue. I'm going to play you a little bit of it now. This is the part after the door has been kicked in and the perpetrator is being arrested. You can hear the chaos of the moment.(speaking in foreign language)(children clamoring in distress)(overlapping speech)(speaking in foreign language) It's overwhelming at the best of times, but it is hardest and most heartbreaking of all when they are being literally ripped away from those closest to them, their immediate families. Lawrence Aritao is IJM's Director of Prosecution and Aftercare, and he's been to his fair share of rescues.- And that removal is tumultuous. It is an incredible change, especially if one of the abusers was their parents, and that is true in many cases. One of the first rescues I went on when I moved to Cebu, after I moved to Cebu, there were about five children who were to be rescued. And from the moment that the police and the aftercare team had arrived on the scene, they did every possible thing to make sure that the children were not in crisis. But even then, I saw a very young child running outside of the house, crying into the arms of a social worker, but crying- The social worker, running with a shoal to give them privacy, right. And it's not a clean type of event where one and done, you know, you just get everybody out and it's done. In many cases, because of their age, it is the removal from the family situation. No matter how dysfunctional it might have been at the start, that removal will hurt and traumatize the child. Now, is it worth doing? I'd say absolutely because healing cannot happen without that.(tense menacing music)- And for the rescuers too, their emotions take something of a battering. The high highs are often accompanied by feelings of being completely overwhelmed. We asked Caleb what it feels like when you come to this point, seeing kids rescued.- In that moment where you're there, I mean, you recognize that that child will probably never know your name, and that's okay. I mean, I don't really want to be famous for it, but you'll forever have an impact, right? As weird as it is to say, I love what I do. I mean, it's hard and I don't recommend it for everybody, but I love what I do and what we're involved with at IJM. The other side of that is that you have this moment of euphoria and then you get back to the office and you realize there's 50, 60 other cases sitting out there that you, you know. And those are just the ones you know about.- That first night of freedom, the girls are given bunks to share at the DOJ. Ruby lies down on her small, new patch of territory in the world. She is relieved to have a good meal, to have snacks even, to be free at last. It's almost too good to be true.- I was actually still absorbing all the things that had happened. Like, yes, already rescued, but I'm not sure what's going to happen next. But one thing I'm sure is that the boss could not harm me any longer.- But other feelings find their way in. No matter how much she wants to block it out, the past intrudes on the present. Fear comes to visit even outside the walls of that house. Later, Ruby recalls that first night as having a heavier dimension, claustrophobic even.- I could remember the feeling when I was rescued. The first nights, it's like I was lying on a coffin and being buried in the ground. You could not really breathe for some reason that you don't know. So it's just like you're living in a very closed space. You feel that- You know that you are alone and you feel it. It's very cold, it's very dark and you cannot move your body because it's very shallow. So yeah, that's how I felt.- But one thing is for certain, she will not stay trapped forever. In time, Ruby will shine, but it won't all happen at once. And like everything else to this point, it won't be easy. Much of these early days are a blur to Ruby, but she remembers two things that keep her from being completely buried. The care of her social workers, always beside her, literally helping her when she cannot stand, and the gentleness of another key character who we will introduce you to in the next episode. She was in the house when Ruby was rescued. She was the one to interview Ruby and the girls at the DOJ. Her name is Attorney Kath, and she is just 27 years old when Ruby's rescue takes place. And believe it or not, it's only her third day on the job as a lawyer with IJM. Ruby is not the only one who struggles to sleep that first night. Despite hardly sleeping for nights proceeding, Attorney Kath tosses and turns. The memories of the day so vivid, she cannot dislodge them. The dinginess of that house, that callousness in the eyes of the perpetrators, the girls terrified of their own freedom. But above all this, one image stands out. It's the face of a thin, longhaired girl with fear in her eyes. Fear, yes, but something else too, a determination and courage like Kath has never seen before. The face of Ruby. It is a face you will get to know well in the following months and years, a face she will go in to fight for, to fight alongside with everything in her. What she doesn't yet know is just how big that fight will be. On the next episode of Finding Ruby,- This particular lawyer always crossed the line, but Ruby boldly, courageously and truthfully narrated her story.♪ There's a promise ♪- Finding Ruby is a project of Cadence, a creative agency for good in Sydney, Australia.♪ We're all waiting in the in between ♪♪ We're all seeking a homeland ♪This podcast is written and edited by Nikki Florence Thompson and me, Rich Thompson. Sound design and mix by me and Brendan Ridley. The show website where you can dive in deeper into each episode can be found at findingruby.com. Our theme song is Homeland by Searching for Light. A special thanks to Lydia Bowden, Evelyn Pingel, Meryll Sarco, Lannie Alano, and all the team at IJM Philippines for opening their doors to us. And of course, a big thanks to Ruby for telling her story. And finally, a big thanks to you for choosing to come on this journey with us. We'd be really grateful if you would take a moment to rate and review the podcast so that other people can find it too. We'll see you on the next episode.