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Sylvia Yu Friedman

  • Executive Producer and Freelance Writer, Freelance
As seen in: CNN International, Daily Mail, Reuters, Yahoo Singapore, Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), South China Morning Post, The Globe and Mail, The Japan Times, New Zealand Herald, DNA India and
Covers:  Human trafficking, human rights, women's rights, North Korea, China, SE Asia, Social issues, HIV/AIDS, Migrants, Migration, Poverty, Human interest stories, Profiles, Biographies, AML
Penguin Random House Author of 'Fearless: A Guide to Freedom and Fulfilling Your Fullest Potential' (2024). Private equity/Pro sports. More active on LinkedIn
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Sylvia Yu Friedman’s Journalist Portfolio

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Slave husbands of Hong Kong: the men who marry into servitude

Slave husbands of Hong Kong: the men who marry into servitude

Shahid Sandhu's sense of loss and anxiety from his loveless marriage knows no bounds. But his is more than a …

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Wartime sex slaves still emerging in China

Wartime sex slaves still emerging in China

In the 12 months leading up to Wednesday's 80th anniversary of the start of the Nanking massacre, a researche…

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How North Koreans become victims of human trafficking

How North Koreans become victims of human trafficking

The great famine that struck North Korea during the 1990s triggered a mass exodus from the reclusive country.…

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Gaps in records cloak China's North Korean labourers in mystery

Gaps in records cloak China's North Korean labourers in mystery

It is an open secret that a significant number of North Korean labourers work in China and Russia in border c…

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Don't be 'slave husband', Pakistani migrant to Hong Kong warns

Don't be 'slave husband', Pakistani migrant to Hong Kong warns

A Pakistani man claiming he was deprived of food and forced to work as a "slave husband" after he immigrated …

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Trafficking crisis looms for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh

Trafficking crisis looms for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh

A slender girl with a solemn demeanour, Tahera was only nine when a trafficker came to her parents in the Roh…

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How Hollywood stars helped street child escape North Korea

How Hollywood stars helped street child escape North Korea

Charles Ryu, now living in the United States, spent nine months in a labour camp in his teens after his first…

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The Indonesian child maids of Hong Kong, Singapore

The Indonesian child maids of Hong Kong, Singapore

Lia ran away from home more than a decade ago, fleeing three elder half-brothers whose physical and emotional…

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Trafficked North Korean 'bride' reveals desperate flight from China

Trafficked North Korean 'bride' reveals desperate flight from China

China has made life dangerous for North Korean refugees living in the country amid the escalating nuclear wea…

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'I sold my body in a Hong Kong bar'

'I sold my body in a Hong Kong bar'

Jean never knew how long it would take to repay her debt. All she knew was that doing so was destroying her. …

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Ex-pimp helps trafficked women cook their way to new HK life

Ex-pimp helps trafficked women cook their way to new HK life

HONG KONG (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Pimp turned do-gooder Kaushic Biswas has swapped the brothel for the…

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'I trafficked women at a famous Hong Kong nightclub'

'I trafficked women at a famous Hong Kong nightclub'

Mary Zardilla looked like she had it all. It was 1986, the heyday of Hong Kong hedonism and she had spent the…

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Reconciliation cannot wait for 'comfort women' of wartime Japan

Reconciliation cannot wait for 'comfort women' of wartime Japan

Sylvia Yu Friedman says an unsatisfactory Korea-Japan deal on resolving the painful past must be renegotiated…

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Works of Mercy

Works of Mercy

EVERY TUESDAY, AI JIN and two other young women from one of China's underground urban Christian churches get …

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Fake passports fuel child trafficking to Hong Kong, Singapore

Fake passports fuel child trafficking to Hong Kong, Singapore

HONG KONG (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - When Siti was promised a high salary for working as a maid overseas,…

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The sex slaves of Japanese soldiers deserve - at least - a real apology

The sex slaves of Japanese soldiers deserve - at least - a real apology

Sylvia Yu Friedman is the author of Silenced No More: Voices of Comfort Women In 1970, Willy Brandt, the late…

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Forced smiles mask pain of Hong Kong's trafficked bar girls

Forced smiles mask pain of Hong Kong's trafficked bar girls

Clients pay up to $650 for sex with Kat, but the money goes to her pimp. Without money, she cannot escape or …

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Who cares for sex slaves?

Who cares for sex slaves?

COMFORT WOMEN: We pursue Nazis, but do little about Japan's wartime atrocities, says filmmaker SYLVIA YU …

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The forgotten victims of Japanese biological warfare

The forgotten victims of Japanese biological warfare

CBC News - Viewpoint: Sylvia Yu For 63 years, Mr. Chen Chong Wen has had to change the bandages on his leg…

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TVB Pearl Report - Hong Kong: Helpers' Hell, 3.3.14

TVB Pearl Report - Hong Kong: Helpers' Hell, 3.3.14

How and why do people abuse their domestic helpers? How does the law exacerbate the abuse? Hong Kong has come…

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(Opinion) Asia's 'comfort women' deserve more - CNN

(Opinion) Asia's 'comfort women' deserve more - CNN

The agreement states the Japanese government will offer a one-time final apology and to pay 1 billion yen ($8…

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The plight of Singapore migrants from Bangladesh

The plight of Singapore migrants from Bangladesh

Uddin thought he was tapping into a financial lifeline for his future and his family back in Bangladesh when …

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Bangladeshi Migrants are exploited in Singapore | The RMG Times

Bangladeshi Migrants are exploited in Singapore | The RMG Times

Sylvia Yu: Like so many Bangladeshi young men with limited work options in their villages, Uddin felt an urge…

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