Donaldina Cameron and Tien Fuh Wu rescued more than 2,000 Chinese immigrant girls and women from indentured servitude. Sex trafficking was violent, from the moment the girls were purchased or kidnapped in China and through their years of forced prostitution. Traffickers put murder contracts on women who attempted to escape and on the people who tried to help them. These contracts were posted on the walls of buildings for everyone to see. Cameron became head of the San Francisco Mission Home Presbyterian Mission in 1900. Tien Fuh Wu, a former household slave sold by her father to pay his gambling debts, became Cameron’s lead assistant, translator, and friend. They spent the rest of their lives together.
