For the most part, the young women who made it to land and survived did pretty well. I think the primitive and rugged environment of the camp helped to soothe them and alleviate their trauma. When you put a person in really nice surroundings, then rape for some reason may come to seem even more terrible. But if the victim ends up in crude and primitive surroundings, the roughness of the existence lessens the feelings that she has about being raped. The rape victims were also able to help each other, since there were lots of others who had undergone the same experience. Most of them survived it pretty well.

Subscribe Today

• Did you enjoy our article?
• Read more in Vietnam Magazine
• Subscribe online and save nearly 40%!!!
 

They did feel that their own men, who came out with them, looked upon them as scarred merchandise after that. And that was the attitude that the men often took, that in some way the rape victims were not clean anymore and that they were damaged because of these attacks on them. And so they were shunned. That is pretty cruel and silly, when you think about it. I worked with the little raped girls, counseled them and had them write out their experiences, trying to purge them. It was very difficult. But many of them left feeling better. They found husbands and married and had children and the scars faded. They probably never completely healed, but they faded.

Then there were these strange pirates, too. Incredible. They thought the Vietnamese were gutless after they had captured them on the seas, I guess. They didn't realize that in their own element they were very strong. So they used to land near Song Khla and come into the camp several times at night and then try get back the girls that they had raped on the ocean, thinking nobody would resist them. They had to be kind of crazy to do that. Well, we seized them when they tried it, and they were arrested.

I just got a wedding card from a little girl. When I took care of her she was only 10 years old. And I remember, when I knew her in Song Khla, I told her, you went out from Vietnam, and you could have been raped or killed or drowned. But all of those things you risked for freedom, and I think that is pretty heroic. She said in the letter, 'It would be good to talk to you again since I haven't talked to you since I was in 'kindygarden"–that was the word she used, 'kindygarden.' I taught that class in camp. They were and are great people.

Some of the women who were raped became pregnant, and some kept the children. A number of them aborted them. The Vietnam-ese men didn't like the girls who had been raped. It was part of their culture not to like that. But over here they forgot it. And most of the girls once they got here got married.

A couple of the women kept their kids. But they didn't conceive that easily. Then Planned Parenthood came into the camp, and if they saw any girl who was pregnant from the ocean trip out they would offer them an abortion free. I had a little bit of trouble with them. I told them I didn't agree with them and said, 'Don't do that to my Catholics.' I said that if the victims asked them for information that was all right, but I didn't want Planned Parenthood asking my people personal questions.

When we finally got down to only 37 people in the camp near the end, it was a very dangerous situation because we had so few people and no strength in the camp. We got fearful of the Thai pirates who came in knowing there were so few people there at night. We were concerned they would try to grab the girls. So, secretly, at night, I went back to the camp from where I had to live–because the government would not let me stay in the boat people camp at night. An Indian relief worker and a Japanese fellow and I rode our motorbikes into the camp and stayed just inside the gate.

The Thai police didn't allow us in at night because they thought we might harm the girls there, but we actually were trying to protect them. We turned out the lights on the motorcycle as we approached. We had a signal telling us that we could come into the camp when the Thai police weren't around, and we went into the camp and stayed overnight and waited in the event of an attack by the pirates. That strength was important so they would not be terrorized again. We sneaked in every night for a month.

Help HistoryNet by bookmarking to