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theboysfcrged · 2 years

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Amazon’s The Boys S01E01

A multi-billion dollar global industry supported by corporate lobbyists and politicians on both sides.

A world without crime, with liberty and justice for all, that’s within our reach, thanks to the 200-plu Superheroes in the Vought Family.

And look, I know that you’re powerful. I get it. Your powers are no joke.

And now I just feel sick. Partly because I did it, but… mostly because… …turns out I’m not who I thought I was.

And then you know what happens? All your dreams come true.

But if you knew half the shit they get up to… Ooh… Fuckin’ diabolical.

Can I… can I get a selfie?

Despite your best efforts, I’m actually still hungry. I’m actually more hungry now.

Do you think I'm a fucking idiot?

Fuck A-Train. Fuck A-Train. Fuck-fuck The Seven. Fuck all... Seven.

Goes to show you, doesn’t it? The bollocks people will believe if you get them scared enough.

Hi. I’d like to make an appointment for you to come over and… lay some cable.

I appreciate the apology. Accidents happen, right? After all, I mean, you were saving the world.

I appreciate you coming on the show, my man. I love you.

I bet growing up you had a poster of Homelander on your wall, huh?

I had a whole welcome speech planned.

I know, I know, it’s a tough swallow. But we both know that your city needs a hero.

I mean, why would you get into this business if not to save the world?

I really need to talk to you about something.

I was born Super-Abled. Uh, my mom was thrilled. She took me to all the little miss hero pageants, but I hated it. Ugh, I mean, I can still… smell the hairspray.

If you want to know the truth, I actually had a poster of you.

If you’re negative, negative things happen to you.

It happens a lot more than you think.

I’m gonna take that son of a bitch’s head clean off his body.

Just quit being a cunt. That’s what I’m saying.

Just think of all those kids. I mean, the kids. Those kids who look up to you, they’d just be shattered. I mean, th-that’s not what you really want, right?

Just ‘cause you fall on your ass doesn’t mean you have to stay there.

Ladies and gentlemen, it is without a doubt a good time to be in the Superhero business.

Like you’re starring in a porn version of The Matrix.

Movie tickets, merchandising, theme parks, video games.

Oh, honey. Who else would they be here for?

Or… you could take the blue pill. Or is it the red pill? Anyway, take the other pill and quit being a cunt.

Please. Invisible Force 1 was lame. I’m all about Rising Tide.

See, people love that cozy feeling that Supes give them. Some golden cunt to swoop out of the sky and save the day so you don’t got to do it yourself.

Since when did “hopeful” and “naive” become the same thing?

Supes are like cops. They can’t be charged for damages while they’re on the job.

Supes lose hundreds of people each year to collateral damage.

Take it easy. Settle down. We’re just, we’re just talking.

Thank you so much. As you know, a crimefighter's work is never done.

The branding opportunities are limitless.

They sell a billion dollars worth of that shit worldwide.

Th… I’ve… Hold on, can you just… can you repeat it again? Just a little bit slower? Because I…

Uh, but……at the Q and A, they always asked me what my wish was, and I always said, “to save the world.” And the judges just chuckled like it was cute. But it wasn’t a joke to me.

Uh, thank you for an extremely weird conversation, but, uh, I don’t want to go to a second location with you.

Um, that doesn’t mean what you think it means.

Until the Deep makes a shark bite Translucent’s dick off.

We're both in a shitload of trouble.

We're The Seven, Earth's most mighty, champions of the innocent, motherfucker!

Well, I don’t know, whatever dodgy shit he was up to that night.

Well, I-I felt like a fraud. Yeah. But the good news is, everybody feels that way.

Well, well, well, if it ain't the invisible cunt.

What was I supposed to do, kick his door down?

Would've taken me forever to work that one out. Good job.

Yeah, I mean, but I-I can...I can help with other stuff, you know?

Yeah, look, son, I, uh...I think it's best that I take it from here. You know what I mean?

Yeah, that’s why we love you.

You pussy, I followed you from the fucking Tower.

You should turn away from the camera, and you should close your eyes, or else I’ll blind you.

#MEME #RP MEME #SENTENCE MEME #THE BOYS RP MEME

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breakfast-at-tifacat · 3 years

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Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Naruto Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Nara Shikamaru/Temari Characters: Nara Shikamaru, Temari (Naruto), Original Female Character(s) Additional Tags: Emotional Whump, Whumptober 2021, Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Suna and Konoha at war, you know the rest, Major character death - Freeform, but in a soft way, offscreen major character death Summary:

Two kilometers or so east of the camp lay a border. Just outside of the line of trees that define the changing of climate. A long line of barbed wire on sand, more of a formality than a defense; any genin could easily jump over them. But Suna’s real defense lay on the desert, waiting for fresh meat who can’t differentiate dunes from seal traps.

This border was a warning, a finish and a start line simultaneously.

Glancing above the barbed wire, Temari found what she came here for.

What kind of soldier hates war?

Temari is a shinobi, in her job description there’s lying, kidnapping, maiming, torturing, spying, fighting, and even killing.

Well, perhaps mainly killing.

Point still stands; she is a shinobi and her job is not the kind of job you can be at peace about. Every training is a war against death, as you will be dead if you’re not good at what you do. Every killing is a war against morality, should you hesitate even for a second you risk yourself losing the courage to do it. Every mission she takes, every movement she makes, every breath she takes as a shinobi is a form of war, one way or another.

Her objective in said wars was, mostly, to survive.

(To survive a childhood without friends, to survive an assassin sent to kill her in the night of her tenth birthday, to survive an enemy nin’s kunai aimed at her throat, to survive the threat of being killed accidentally by her little bro-)

This war is no different.

Suna, after that disastrous chunin exam’s failed invasion had begun to make amends with Konoha. It was a process that Temari herself pioneered and supervised, young as she was, to make sure that none of that shit with the Fourth Kazekage and Orochimaru ever happened again, a notion that her brothers (and surprisingly a good chunk of Suna’s forces) agreed to. Suna went on rescue and aid missions assigned by the Fifth Hokage, built a better trade with Konoha, and signed a new peace and alliance treaty with said village.

All of which was done by either Temari’s or her sibling’s hand.

And all of which was for naught.

It started with the debate on who should be the next Kazekage. As Suna’s governance is less of Konoha’s meritocracy and more straight up a hereditary monarchy, the candidates were three teenagers with anger issues and too many killing counts to be comfortably discussed over meal, even for shinobi. Temari was the oldest, with a sharp strategic mind and more diplomacy experience on her hand. Kankurou has more solo mission experience on his hand, and let's face it, the one who actually has a better reputation (compared with The Cruelest Kunoichi and The Shuukaku Monster). Gaara of course, is the powerhouse and the true ‘weapon’ of Sunagakure, and If Temari was allowed to voice her assessment, a stubborn idiot who’s trying to change ways and is now perhaps, more human than Temari ever was. He’s trying to be kind, to be hopeful, to be soft in a way they never know how.

After all the shit Suna went through because Rasa decided to put being shinobi above being human, being Kazekage over being a father, Temari thinks it should be clear who should be the next Kazekage.

Apparently it wasn’t clear for some people.

Civil war broke out, a thing that every hidden village dread, as shown from Konoha’s Madara Uchiha to the situation in Kiri right now. Many things could be the spark that lead to a civil war; a disagreement, a void of power, and especially a disagreement on who should fill the void of power. There were two factions, the one who supported Gaara as Kazekage, and the one who wanted their head on the stake.

Well, perhaps that’s oversimplifying, they deemed The Kazekage clan as it is now has failed to protect Suna and they are demanding power to the people so that Suna may see a brighter future.

…and their head on the stake.

…and another military family on the Kazekage seat.

…said family is known to be power hungry in elite circles.

(Hungry for power in a way that could very well end their world, as is common for shinobi, such greed for power that made them, who came from a family that choose to seal a demon in a child with unstable seal for power, genuinely concerned)

So, war for her and her family’s survival, no big deal right? Right, no big deal. They’ve won, Gaara is on his seat on the Kazekage tower. Temari and Kankurou are his advisor slash right hand slash ambassador slash anything he needed them to be.

Except that when there’s rotten flesh there’s a pack of vultures, ready to feast.

Power over trust, land over alliance, money over peace.

Konoha has a new Daimyo, and this one is ambitious.

Thus the fourth shinobi war broke out.

This time, Suna is the prize.

(Turns out, Gaara needed them to be war generals.

When one shark bite, the blood will draw the other in.

Iwagakure joined the war a few months ago.

The other will be close behind.)

“How are things on the northern border?” Temari asked, finishing her morning ration and standing from the commander table. The tent they were in was worse to wear, but Temari was glad she could sleep in the command tent alone, and not having to share her space with five other jounin.

“Earth’s forces are admirable, but our defense still holds strong,” Her second in command, a kunoichi in her early thirties named Chisaki, said, “Kankurou-sama’s report arrived yesterday, after you went to bed. It states that we should not worry about any breaches on his side of the border,” she finished.

“And?”

“…And I quote ‘Worry about your own damn job Temari, you’re not my mom.’”

That earned a smirk from her, “Son of a bitch,” she glanced at the other shinobi, “And for the record I was calling my father a bitch, not my mom.”

Chisaki, in a show of true professionalism, doesn’t even bat an eye on Temari’s blatant disrespect of the late Kazekage.

(Or maybe, she was too used to Temari’s rant of how The Fourth was a loser who could totally do better and he was a jerk, and he was such a controlling, egoistical piece of sh-)

Temari goes out of the tent, the sun has yet to rise, everything is still and dark.

Chisaki doesn’t follow.

Temari is so glad her second in command doesn’t ask questions and trusts her so completely.

In an hour she has to make morning rounds, she has to make sure their defense is at their best, the soldiers (Are we soldiers? We weren’t supposed to be soldiers. Were we?) fed and ready, their weapons polished and deadly.

In an hour she has to be a general of war again, but for now-

This border was a warning, a finish and a start line simultaneously.

Glancing above the barbed wire, Temari found what she came here for.

Dark eyes watching her sharply from the top of a branch. Green flak jacket, black shirt and trouser, staple of Konoha's basic gear. Long hair tied in a ponytail.

She used to make fun of that ponytail.

(She used to card her hand through it, when he's agreeable and not shy enough to try to evade. She used to say that she uses his hair as training exercises for braiding, lest a mission requires a kunoichi to be able to braid a really troublesome and lazy chunin's hair. She used to marvel at how soft it was, and how such an act filled her with a warm, bubbly feeling.)

She used to nag him to wear proper attire,

("You don't even look like a chunin, and what's this mesh shirt going to protect? Not you, that's the answer."

"Says the woman who wears kimonos to battle."

"Excuse you-")

She used to-

They used to.

(There was a they once upon a time.

Temari used to think that given time they could be something more. Maybe he would finally find the courage to ask her for dinner instead of working so ineffectively she was forced to pull an all nighter with him to meet deadlines, maybe she will finally snap and grab his hand to lead him instead of his shirt and then keep holding it even if it would be inconvenient, maybe on one of their diplomatic meeting they will finally meet each other's eyes instead of stealing glances-

Maybe given enough time, she could lov-)

They used to banter, snipping remarks over snarky ones, having fun with harmless verbal battles.

Now they mostly stand in silence, five hundreds meters apart, barely able to discern the other in such dim light.

Neither of them is going to talk, neither of them is going to even move or make some kind of microexpression. One knows the other too well. Being any other than stone might as well be a traitorous act for their own homeland; it would mean divulging information to the enemy.

Neither of them is going to stop coming here either.

This is a breach in their defense, both Konoha and Suna can make use of this and strike the other.

(Neither of them is going to say anything either.)

These days Temari usually fills their dialogue in her head. Like an actress reading from a script, practicing in front of the mirror. Desperately trying to imagine the other actor's voice so that her own act might seem real.

I will kill you, Temari, brash as ever, would say.

Wow, not even a hello? He would answer, snarky.

I know your weakness, She would insist, I have fought you in the chunin exam once, I have fought you in sparring sessions countless times. I know your strength, your strategy, I know how you think, I know you and your weakness.

It would be Illogical for anyone else but me to kill you.

Counterpoint, he would say, as you have fought me, I have fought you. Everything you have said might be true but so does the other way around; I know you too.

Do you? She would ask, her lips would be set in a line and her eyebrow would be lifted, If you truly know me then you know why I am willing and capable of killing you.

He would be quiet for a minute, and then; I can assure you I can kill you too.

Perhaps, She would cast her gaze away, pretending to mulling it over, and then she would shift her gaze, sharp as a cheetah zoning on a gazelle in the savanna, and she would ask, But would you?

And, as said question would trigger the same reaction he has when confronted with his emotions ever, he would stay silent. And she would fill in for him; No, you wouldn't.

How would you know, I haven't exactly tried. He would half-heartedly rebuke.

And, because this is a totally hypothetical situation in which she is allowed to do anything, she would walk towards said barbed wire, closing in on the no man's land, and she would say, There, you didn't kill me.

A single person, not even crossing the border line is not a threat. He would say, I am not obligated to kill you.

Do not invalidate my strength just to cover your own weakness! She would snarl, she would grab the wires out of emotions and her hands would bleed. You know damn well I can level this forest in a second if I wanted to. I could kill you and all of your friends and your parents and your teacher and everyone else behind this blasted wire if needed. I could, I would, I will.

There's a reason I'm named The Cruelest Kunoichi. You haven't met her yet.

He would stay silent throughout her rant, and even after that. She would continue, out of spite.

Konoha's propaganda, she would spat, has always been reliant on a bond to the people inside of the village. Will of fire, empathy, solidarity, whatever you want to say.

I'll tell you why you wouldn't kill me. She would whisper with a concealed rage.

Because I am your weakness.

And then she would turn around and leave him to stand there alone, stewing on her words.

Except of course that didn't happen.

In reality it was forty five minutes of silence with both of them just standing there, watching each other. Forty five minutes of not talking and filling the silence with an imaginary fight in her head. Forty five minutes of the sun slowly rising up and warming everything around them except themselves.

(How could anything warm the heart of a killer? Especially if you're the one supposed to kill the one you lo-)

Forty five minutes before Shikamaru's face suddenly crumpled in grief and he all but ran away from his spot, to the darkness and safety of the forest.

Forty five and one minute later realization and dread filled Temari's chest.

(One knows the other too well. Being any other than stone might as well be a traitorous act for their own homeland; it would mean divulging information to the enemy-)

Konoha will attack soon.

(I could, I would, I will. )

“What kind of soldier hates war Shikamaru?” She would ask, four to five minutes from blacking out from blood loss, or perhaps something more permanent; severed femoral artery and ruptured spleen would do that. Fair, he has always said that she needs to cover her left side.

“The good kind.” He would answer, crying.

What a crybaby.

#whumptober2021 #no.1 #barbed wire #naruto #fanfiction #offscreen major character death #war

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newstfionline · 6 years

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Venezuelans become Latin America’s new underclass.

By Anthony Faiola, NY Times, July 27, 2018

PORT-OF-SPAIN, Trinidad and Tobago--Free-spending Venezuelans once crammed store aisles in foreign countries famously uttering “dame dos”--”I’ll take two.” But the citizens of what was once South America’s richest nation per capita are now confronting a devastating reversal of fortune, emerging as the region’s new underclass.

As their oil-rich country buckles under the weight of a failed socialist experiment, an estimated 5,000 people a day are departing the country in Latin America’s largest migrant outflow in decades.

Venezuelan professionals are abandoning hospitals and universities to scrounge livings as street vendors in Peru and janitors in Ecuador. Here in Trinidad and Tobago--a petroleum-producing Caribbean nation off Venezuela’s northern coast--Venezuelan lawyers are working as day laborers and sex workers. A former well-to-do bureaucrat who once spent a summer eating traditional shark sandwiches and drinking whisky on Trinidad’s Maracas Bay is now working as a maid.

The U.N. refugee agency has called on nations to offer protection to the Venezuelans, as they did for millions of Syrians fleeing civil war. But in a part of world with massive gaps in protection for refugees, Venezuelans fleeing starvation at home are often trading one harrowing plight for another. Trinidad, for instance, has no asylum laws for refugees, leaving thousands of desperate Venezuelans here at risk of detention, deportation, police abuse and worse.

Sometimes much worse.

Luz, a 21-year-old Venezuelan single mother, came to Trinidad by boat with two friends in May, trusting a man with a soft Caribbean lilt who claimed to be from a Christian group offering aid and resettlement. Instead, she said, the three women were taken to a house and beaten before being abused by what appeared to be a pornography ring. Each woman, she said, was filmed while being raped by a series of men.

“We are helpless,” Luz said. “All because of the crisis.” She and the other two women escaped and are now in the care of a Catholic charity.

Carolina Jimenez, a senior official with Amnesty International, said, “Venezuela’s unprecedented situation has turned a domestic human rights crisis into a regional human rights crisis.”

“Countries in the region are not prepared to take in so many migrants and do not have the asylum systems needed to prevent job exploitation and human trafficking,” she said. “These people should be protected, but instead they are being taken advantage of.”

From the 1950s through the early 1980s, Venezuela was an economic dynamo--a nation with the world’s largest oil reserves and a beacon for immigrants from as far away as Italy and Spain. Then oil shocks and currency crises plunged the country into turmoil.

Hugo Chávez, who became president in 1999, adopted a form of socialism that resulted in many businesses collapsing or being nationalized. A purge of the state-run oil industry--a center of opposition to his rule--removed thousands of workers, who were often replaced by political supporters with little to no technical experience.

Venezuela’s slide turned into a free fall under President Nicolás Maduro--a former bus driver and union leader who inherited power after Chávez’s death in 2013. Critics say his government’s mismanagement and corruption and Maduro’s own ruthless bid to cement power--even as oil prices tumbled--have broken the nation.

Wealthy Venezuelans have been fleeing their homeland for years, landing in multimillion-dollar homes in Miami and Madrid. But as the economic crisis escalates, those leaving now are increasingly destitute, including members of a crippled middle class. The United Nations projects 2 million Venezuelans will exit their nation this year--on top of an exodus of 1.8 million over the past two years.

Those with means and visas are still venturing to the United States, where Venezuelans now make up the single largest pool of asylum seekers. Far more often, escaping Venezuelans are finding themselves in Latin American and Caribbean nations.

But in a region where many already live on the margins of society, governments are making it harder for Venezuelan refugees to stay.

Last year, Panama slapped new visa requirements on Venezuelans. This year, Colombia ended a program that allowed tens of thousands of Venezuelans to circulate in its border area. Chile welcomed tens of thousands of Venezuelans who showed up at its land border in 2017. But in April, it threw up new hurdles, requiring them to have a passport--something the vast majority do not possess--and to apply for asylum through Chilean consulates in Venezuela rather than at the border.

The regulations are “leaving Venezuelans with no choice but to work for pennies in the informal sector while being extremely vulnerable to exploitation and a high level of abuse,” said Geoff Ramsey, a Venezuela expert at the Washington Office on Latin America, a think tank.

Tens of thousands of Venezuelans fleeing to the Caribbean--where many island nations lack asylum laws--face particular challenges. Mary Anne Goiri, spokeswoman for Venex, an aid group on the island of Curacao, said Venezuelan migrants there were being brutally exploited. In one case, she said, a restaurant owner had been holding the cash savings of one of his undocumented Venezuelan workers. When the employee asked for her money back, the owner beat her and called the police to have her detained, Goiri said.

Up to 45,000 Venezuelans, aid groups say, have crossed the narrow straits in recent years to Trinidad and Tobago, a country of 1.4 million. As many as 160 a week are still making the trip.

Irregular migration is criminalized here, and Venezuelans who arrive on smugglers’ boats face possible detention and fines. In April, Trinidad sparked international condemnation following the deportation of 82 Venezuelans.

“We cannot and will not allow U.N. spokespersons to convert us into a refugee camp,” Prime Minister Keith Rowley said after the incident.

In Trinidad, diplomats and international agencies say, there is also evidence of a worrying trend: Desperate Venezuelans, particularly women, have become commodities to be bought and sold.

In Trinidad, the International Organization for Migration, a United Nations body, has received 23 suspected cases of trafficked Venezuelans in the past three months--compared with no Venezuelan cases last year, according to Jewel Ali, the organization’s local director.

They include victims like Luz--who said she lost one of her three children in April after the hospital in her Venezuelan town ran out of medication to treat her daughter’s bacterial infection. When she was approached to come to Trinidad, the offer seemed too good to be true.

“But I told myself, I’m going anyway. I’m not going to lose the chance for my kids to be better off just because I had some doubts,” she said.

The ordeal--five weeks spent captive and repeatedly filmed being raped--had “damaged” her, she said. At one point, Luz said, she and a friend were tied up and raped side by side.

“We were looking at each other,” Luz said, tearing up. “We would cry. And I would tell her, ‘Sister, be strong, you have a daughter.’ I would just keep repeating that.”

The case has been documented by the U.N. refugee agency as a potential act of trafficking. Alana Wheeler, head of Trinidad’s counter-trafficking unit, said authorities were looking into Luz’s case and could not comment on an active investigation.

In a telephone interview from a detention center for migrants in the Trinidadian town of Arima, a 34-year-old single father said he came ashore in November after selling his possessions to pay for passage. He was arrested in June. Although he produced his asylum documents from the U.N. refugee agency--which give him a legal right to remain in the country--a policeman demanded $700, he said.

“I told him I didn’t have the money, so they took my belongings, what money I had and detained me,” said the man, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals from the Trinidadian authorities.

Dozens of Venezuelans are being held at the facility, he said. He said guards are serving food by throwing it to the floor and that he had witnessed several Venezuelan inmates being beaten. One migrant with advanced cancer, he said, is receiving no medical attention. No soap, shampoo or clean clothes are being provided, he said.

Guards, he said, routinely humiliate the Venezuelans. Trinidad’s Ministry of National Security did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

“They tell us, ‘Go back to your country, or we’re going to make your life impossible,’” the Venezuelan said.

For many Venezuelans, life in Trinidad amounts to a jarring turnaround. Jhohanna Mota, a 42-year-old former secretary from coastal Venezuela, studied English in Trinidad in the 1990s. She spent Sundays at the beach and evenings at the discos. In 2016--with inflation soaring and food growing scarce in Venezuela--she opted to abandon her three-bedroom house to come back to Trinidad with her two sons.

But it has not gone as planned. She said she worked under the table in a bakery for a year, doing 8½-hour shifts for $20 a day. Then she got fired. “My boss didn’t want to employ an ‘illegal.’” She tried to legalize her stay but said she was duped into paying $800 for a visa that turned out to be fake.

She now faces a hearing and potential deportation proceedings. In the meantime, she is supporting her boys as a house cleaner--and is at risk of arrest for working without a job permit.

“Every time I walk out my door, I know I could end up in jail,” she said, weeping as her two boys sat in the hall of the building where they all now sleep in one rented room. “I think, ‘What will happen to my boys? Why am I doing this? How did we get here?’”

#Venezuela #Trinidad #Venezuelans in Trinidad #Venezuelan refugees

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bangkokjacknews · 4 years

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Why Vietnamese are being TRAFFICKED into the UK

A Sun Online investigation can reveal that behind Britain’s #cannabis trade lies a dark and shocking reality, in which around 3,000 #slavechildren are cultivating crops in dire conditions.

And most of those kids are Vietnamese teenage boys who have been ripped from their families by traffickers, who smuggle them into the UK and force them to work in secret drug dens in houses all over Britain. Once here, many endure horrific conditions, beatings and sexual abuse at the hands of gang masters. Children as young as 11 are forced to survive on scraps as they tend cannabis farms, and one man was even reduced to eating dog food to stay alive while he grew weed for gangs. Their suffering has led anti-slavery campaigners to coin the phrase ‘blood cannabis’, to reflect the true horror behind some of Britain’s £2.6bn-a-year illegal weed market, which sees an estimated 255 tonnes of weed smoked annually in the UK. The National Crime Agency says 96 per cent of trafficking victims forced to grow weed in Britain are Vietnamese, and 81 per cent of those are children. Many of them are dangerously smuggled into the UK in lorries — the death of 39 Vietnamese people, including 10 teenagers, in Essex in October highlighted the lethal peril of such journeys.

A police officer inspecting a huge cannabis farm in an abandoned nuclear bunker in Tisbury, Wiltshire - where four young Vietnamese workers were found sleeping on mattresses at the siteCredit: Solent News

The Essex lorry deaths, in which 39 Vietnamese people died being trafficked into Britain in October, showed the dangers of faced by those being illegally brought into the UKCredit: Press Association

Police are too busy to focus on weed farms Giant cannabis farms have been uncovered all over the UK — including in town centre bingo halls and even a disused police station — but thousands of smaller operations are being run all over the country. In London alone between 2016 and 2018, police found 314 illegal cannabis farms, but the true scale of cannabis growing in the UK will never be known as they're illegally run in residential properties and shop backrooms. For users, an eighth of an ounce (3.5g) of cannabis costs around £20, and a full ounce (28.3g) will set you back around £180 — which is cheaper than prices of legalised cannabis in the USA. Horrifyingly, government figures released last week show raids on cannabis farms have plummeted in the last seven years as police forces focus resources elsewhere. And millions of Brit users have helped the trade thrive — around 30 per cent of the UK population aged between 16 and 64 admit to having tried cannabis, which is roughly 10 million people.

Three children were kept in this industrial unit in Rochdale, Greater Manchester and forced to grow cannabisCredit: MEN Media

The kids had been trafficked from Vietnam and were being 'criminally exploited'Credit: MEN Media

Cops found £850,000 worth of weed in the unit - but this is just one of many illegal factories across the UKCredit: MEN Media Fingers cut off children The victims are children like Le, orphaned at just 11 years old. He was left saddled with loan shark debt from paying his dying mum’s hospital bills in his Vietnamese homeland. He was taken in by a convent - but was kidnapped by money lenders who demanded church elders hand over Le’s family land to settle the loan. Their ultimatum came with a grisly threat - a package containing Le’s severed finger. Although the church tried to help Le, he was put to work by his captors in a warehouse, where he was kept in chains and fed scraps. After being sold to a gang in China, he was sent on a perilous lorry journey across Europe to the UK. Forced to work on an illegal cannabis farm he grew so hungry he tried to eat the plants. When police raided the cannabis farm, he was rescued and taken into local authority care. But after meeting a man in a shopping centre who spoke Vietnamese, he was enslaved again and put to work in a warehouse. Phil Brewer, former head of the Met’s Anti-Trafficking Unit, says that’s because cannabis slaves are coached to mistrust the authorities. “They don’t speak the language and have nowhere to go,” he explained. “The fear factor takes over and they gravitate back to what they know, back to exploitation.” Le eventually managed to escape his new captors and was given refuge in a safe house by the Salvation Army. But they say he lived in fear of deportation or of being found by gang masters. One day, he left the safe house and never returned. Nobody knows what happened to him.

Le was kept in chains and had his finger cut off by a brutal gang before being trafficked to the UK to grow cannabisCredit: Getty - Contributor Le’s agonising story is far from unique. While some, like Le, are kidnapped from orphanages or the streets into slavery, others voluntarily leave behind their families in rural Vietnam in search of a brighter future. They are enticed by traffickers with false promises of exciting job offers or student exchanges. But instead they spend years in servitude, passed from grow-house to grow-house, under the thumb of brutal organised crooks, as they work off the cost of their passage to Britain. Police raids have revealed the nightmare existence endured by these slaves, whose work exposes them to toxic chemicals, fire risks, and violence from rival drug gangs.

Gangs cater to a multi-billion pound cannabis market in Britain - some campaigners say its time to cut criminals out of the trade by changing the lawCredit: Getty - Contributor Survived by eating dog food In October, police rescued three Vietnamese children found living in squalor in an industrial unit in Rochdale. In April 2015, a 32-year-old Vietnamese man was found surviving on tins of dog food at a house in Northern Ireland, where cops recovered over 500 weed plants. And in 2017, four young Vietnamese workers were discovered sleeping on mattresses and locked in a subterranean nuclear bunker while they tended 4,000 plants in an operation worth £2m a year. Brewer says: “Cannabis is seen as a bit of a soft drug, unrelated to violence and sold through traditional drug dealing methods. I don’t think people always make the link to the violence and control that goes with it.” Efforts to take down the kingpins behind the trade have had piecemeal success. In September, 20 gang members were jailed after a joint sting by the NCA and three police forces in south Wales. The investigation uncovered a network of 45 cannabis farms and storage units as far away as Coventry, thought to have netted the gang £25m.

Cannabis farms often steal mains electricity to power their operations - this farm stole £650,000 of electricity from a nearby pylon to keep the lights onCredit: Solent News

The vast complex was run behind the steel blast door of an abandoned underground Cold War era nuclear bunkerCredit: Solent News Cops losing fight against gangs But despite the success of some high-profile operations, police only busted 8,600 cannabis farms in 2018-19 - a thousand more than the previous year but still just over half the 16,590 raided in 2011-12. And Volteface, a non-profit group campaigning for cannabis legalisation, says Ministry of Justice data obtained under a freedom of information request shows prosecutions for growing weed fell 63 per cent in the five years to 2018. It comes down to police budgets and priorities. Volteface director of policy Liz McCulloch, said: “Police are withdrawing from policing cannabis markets. "Their budgets are stretched and it’s not a priority anymore. “Growers are probably a bit more confident there’s a good chance their activities aren’t going to be found out.” Tony Saggers, former head of the NCA’s Drugs Threat and Intelligence added: “We seize what we look for, and we look for what we prioritise. “Considering all the pressures on policing, not least another drug generated threat in County Lines – it doesn’t surprise me that less focus has been on cannabis, this does not mean it is not still being taken seriously”

The heartbroken parents of Hoang Van Tiep, who died in the Essex lorry deaths last month - he was 18 years oldCredit: Ray Collins - The Sun Mimi Vu, a world expert on the trafficking of Vietnamese children and young people, hopes the container tomb tragedy in Essex will serve as a wake-up call for Vietnam’s youth to seek their fortune in their own booming economy, instead of gambling their lives on a deadly lorry journey to the UK. “They grow up believing their best bet is to go overseas,” she says. “But what happened in Essex has brought everything into the open, and shown that the dangers are real. “There’s no way now that anyone can say we’re making up stories to scare them off.” But even if fewer Vietnamese do decide to make that perilous crossing, police intelligence reveals there will still be a plentiful supply of trafficked slaves to help grow weed. There is growing evidence that ruthlessly efficient Albanian gangs are now moving into cannabis. And Home Office data suggests the number of trafficked Albanians exploited in the UK for labour – which includes cannabis farms – is on course to double this year. Tony Saggers, former head of the NCA’s Drugs Threat and Intelligence says, cannabis users should give more thought to the human cost of lighting up a spliff. “Leisure users blame prohibitionists and the law for preventing them the freedom of choice to use cannabis,” he says. “There’s a selfish inclination to do what they want instead of thinking of the wider consequences.” *Le is a false name. His whereabouts are still unknown. – You can follow BangkokJack on Instagram, Twitter & Reddit. Or join the free mailing list (top right) Please help us continue to bring the REAL NEWS - PayPal Read the full article

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bangkokjacknews · 4 years

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Why Vietnamese are being TRAFFICKED into the UK

A Sun Online investigation can reveal that behind Britain’s #cannabis trade lies a dark and shocking reality, in which around 3,000 #slavechildren are cultivating crops in dire conditions.

The Essex lorry deaths, in which 39 Vietnamese people died being trafficked into Britain in October, showed the dangers of faced by those being illegally brought into the UKCredit: Press Association

Three children were kept in this industrial unit in Rochdale, Greater Manchester and forced to grow cannabisCredit: MEN Media

The kids had been trafficked from Vietnam and were being 'criminally exploited'Credit: MEN Media

Cannabis farms often steal mains electricity to power their operations - this farm stole £650,000 of electricity from a nearby pylon to keep the lights onCredit: Solent News

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