CNN Freedom Project: Escaping slavery in Hong Kong

He needed help.

It was 2012 and he had just returned to Hong Kong, smuggled in illegally by boat.

The man -- who goes by the court-assigned pseudonym ZN -- says he had spent four years, working seven days a week in a Hong Kong cell phone store, sleeping on the floor and suffering beatings at the hands of his employer. Then his boss sent him back to his native Pakistan without a cent in pay. When he demanded his money, he says, his boss' associates back in Pakistan threatened to kill him and his family.

So he came back, determined to get his money.

View the full story by Pamela Boykoff and Alexandra Field at CNN.com