This real story could be made into a movie.
In 2013, Vanessa Rodel, a Filipina woman escaped violence and human trafficking in the Philippines and traveled to Hong Kong with her baby daughter. She had hoped to gain asylum there. With limited funds she lived in Hong Kong’s slums. Her lawyer, Robert Tibbo, asked her if she would take in Eric Snowden for a short time.
Edward Snowden is an American fugitive, a former Central Intelligence Agency employee, and former contractor for the United States government who copied and leaked highly classified information from the National Security Agency in 2013.
Rodel became part of a group known as Edward Snowden’s “Guardian Angels.” They helped the fugitive while he was in Hong Kong. Snowden was there for two weeks before being granted asylum in Moscow.
Subsequently Rodel’s application for asylum in Hong Kong was denied in 2017. News sites do not explain where she and her daughter lived after being denied her petition.
Lawyer Tibbo, from Montreal contacted lawyer friends in Canada to help a process appeal for asylum in Canada. It was granted and she and her daughter arrived in Toronto on Monday March 26, 2019. Money has been raised privately for her to live in Montreal, learn French, and start a new life.
Vanessa Rodel and her daughter at her seven-year-old daughter Keana at Toronto airport
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