Forced Labor: Slavery Spreading in Thailand & Cambodia

From UPI:

Human trafficking in Cambodia and Thailand is no longer limited to women and children, a Cambodian rights activist said. 

Poor formers in Cambodia are convinced to leave home on the promise of better work in Thailand. Many are finding themselves on long-haul trawlers in the South China Sea and forced to work against their will.

"It's slavery. There's no other way to describe it," Lim Tith, national project coordinator for the U.N. Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking, told the United Nations' humanitarian news agency IRIN.

Exploitation is spreading beyond Cambodia and Thailand to Malaysia and Indonesian waters, with 25 men reportedly in slave-like conditions documented regionally this year.

"It's not just women and children anymore," San Arun, chairwoman of the Cambodian Coordinated Mekong Ministerial Initiative Against Trafficking taskforce, told IRIN.

Read the full article

Half the Sky Movement

Nicholas Kristof, two time Pulitzer Prize winner and Op-Ed journalist for The New York Times, recently published a book highlighting the inconsistencies in gender based progress in the developing world. "Half the Sky" focuses on various issues that have affected women throughout the world in unique and often disastrous ways. Health, education, abortion rights and human trafficking are among the numerous topics discussed in Kristof's latest book.

For several years, Kristof has been a relentless voice in raising awareness about human trafficking related issues, and his New York Times series on child trafficking gained international recognition. He first encountered human trafficking while on assignment in Cambodia and was "blown away" by what he saw. His research was intended to expose the not-so-secret child trafficking rings in Southeast Asia. But Kristoff was not prepared for the stories he would hear.

Shortly after beginning his assignment, he read about two young women, chained to bedposts, who were killed when the brothel where they were enslaved burned down. Time after time, Kristof head the stories of women being bought and sold like livestock. Their virginity sold to the highest bidder; their futures stolen without hesitation. Kristof said that like most people who get involved in the anti-trafficking field, it took a personal experience like meeting the young girls and hearing their stories for him to truly understand the atrocity that is human trafficking. "When you see things like that, it's hard to move on," he confessed.

Since this time, Kristof has spent a substantial amount of time writing, reading, researching and collecting stories about the issue. He believes that human trafficking is not black and white. "Trafficking is evil, but it's not being driven by evil but by a pursuit of money. We need to make it less profitable and more dangerous for perpetrators." For example, while in Southeast Asia, Kristof encountered a woman who has ventured to make a larger profit for her brothel by kidnapping young girls and selling their virginity. However, international organizations has recently put pressure on the local police to crack down on illegal trafficking activity. The potential cost of being found out and shut down was too great, ands she decided she could make better money by running a grocery store instead of a brothel. As the dynamics of her business environment changed, it simply became too costly to continue the illegal activity. Kristof firmly believes that with real pressure and punishment by local authorities, the whole industry could become less and less profitable which would make it less and less enticing for traffickers, pimps and brothel owners.

"Half the Sky" is a well-written, hopeful book that gives an overview of the major issues that plague women in developing countries. It does not go into much depth about any subject specifically, but it does offer a quick, educational read surveying these challenges and some of the more hopeful stories of triumph and progress. Also, the back of the book lists hundreds of women's and human rights organizations from grassroots to United Nation programs.

For more information about "Half the Sky" and the campaign to push for greater equality for women across the world, visit Half the Sky Movement. Kristof continues to write articles about women's issues for The New York Times. You can find his articles here LINK.

I would like to thank Mr. Kristof for agreeing to an interview during a very busy weekend in Oklahoma.

Nomi Network Fall Collection

The Nomi Network has released its new fall collection. The items are designed in New York and made in Cambodia with recycled rice-paper material by survivors of sexual trafficking and women at-risk. Click view the fall collection and other items, click here.

Buy Her Bag Not her Body is created by Nomi Network, a non-profit organization working to eradicate sexual slavery and the trafficking of women. They have created a partnership between the fashion industry and cause-driven, well-designed merchandise made by at-risk women and survivors of sexual exploitation, providing them with fair, sustainable employment opportunities. 100% of the profit is reinvested into training and career development programs for women.

For more information about their work,visit www.nominetwork.org.

The Sao Sary Foundation

In an earlier post, I wrote that by the time someone has been trafficked, we've already failed. The Sao Sary Foundation (SSF) of Cambodia aims to prevent trafficking before it occurs by protecting children from violence, exploitation, abuse and discrimination. On the most recent Trafficking In Persons Report, Cambodia was rated as a Tier Two Watch List Country, meaning that "Government of Cambodia does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so. Despite these overall efforts, the government did not show evidence of progress in convicting and punishing human trafficking offenders – including complicit public officials – and protecting trafficking victims."

SSF works strategically to prevent trafficking in Cambodia by identifying children who are at high risk. For example, while SSF supports boys and girls, "a special emphasis is placed on protecting girls older than ten years old, as statistics show that they represent the highest risk of being trafficked, primarily for sexual exploitation. Moreover, girls are the most likely to be deprived of the chance to attend school."

According to their website, SSF's mission is to achieve lasting improvements for children living in poverty in Cambodia's poorest communities, through a process that unites people across cultures and adds meaning and value to their lives by:

• Enabling deprived children, their families and their communities to meet their basic needs and to increase their ability to participate in and benefit from their societies.
• Inspiring deprived children, their families and their communities to socially and economically empower themselves to be agents of change in their own lives and for a more equitable world.
• Preventing and responding to violence, exploitation and abuse against children- including commercial sexual exploitation, trafficking, child labour and harmful traditional practices, such as female genital mutilation/cutting and child marriage.

SSF provides a variety of services under their Child Protection Program and Livelihood Program, including food security, safe-drinking water/sanitation, basic/emergency needs assistance, and a range of educational programs. One particularly exciting progam is Together for Rights, which works to "mobilize young Cambodian people at-high risk for being trafficked that are under care by the Sao Sary Foundation to become human rights activists."

Unfortunately, according to Vichetr Uon, Executive Director and Founder of SSF, "Sao Sary Foundation is facing an immediate crisis - due to lack of timely funding we may have to terminate our Child Protection Program which currently assists 50 vulnerable children in care ranging from room and board, medical care, education, and vocational skills training. Our program affords them the opportunity to be children and not have to worry about the burdens of finding work to support their families. Such desperation makes them vulnerable to being trafficked."

Click here to donate. Click here for information about volunteer opportunities. Click here for in-kind donations information.

Spotlight: Somaly Mam

Born to a tribal minority family in the Mondulkiri province of Cambodia, Somaly Mam began life in extreme poverty. With limited options as a severely marginalized ethnic group, and living in unimaginable despair, her family often resorted to desperate means to survive. This confluence of dire circumstances led to the unspeakable horrors that would mark Somaly's early years. Somaly was sold into sexual slavery by a man who posed as her grandfather. To this day, due to the passing of time and the unreliability of a wounded memory, Somaly still does not know who this man was to her. Yet his actions set her on an unimaginable path fraught with danger, desperation, and ultimately...triumph.

Forced to work in a brothel along with other children, Somaly was brutally tortured and raped on a daily basis. One night, she was made to watch as her best friend was viciously murdered. Fearing she would meet that same fate, Somaly heroically escaped her captors and set about building a new life for herself. She vowed never to forget those left behind and has since dedicated her life to saving victims and empowering survivors.

In 1996, Somaly established a Cambodian non-governmental organization called AFESIP (Agir Pour les Femmes en Situation Precaire). Under Somaly's leadership, AFESIP employs a holistic approach that ensures victims not only escape their plight, but have the emotional and economic strength to face the future with hope. With the launch of The Somaly Mam Foundation in 2007, Somaly has established a funding vehicle to support anti-trafficking organizations and to provide victims and survivors with a platform from which their voices can be heard around the world.




Learn more about the Somaly Mam Foundation

Launch this Thursday for Nomi Network's "Buy Her Bag, Not Her Body" campaign

On Thursday, October 1st, the Nomi Network is hosting a launch party to officially debut their "Buy Her Bag, Not Her Body" totes. The totes are made are made by survivors who earn a livable wage for their work. The bags, which are made from sustainable materials, also raise awareness about the issue of sex trafficking, and the money from purchases helps fund education, training, and counseling for sex trafficking survivors in Cambodia.

The Nomi Network started approximately two years ago as an effort to provide long-term, sustainable employment for survivors of sex trafficking in Cambodia. According to their website, the Network's name comes from a young child who is a sex trafficking survivor. Nomi (the name has been altered to protect her identity) "is an eight year old Cambodian girl who delights in running, laughing, and playing with her friends. . . Not that long ago, Nomi was held against her will in a brothel and forced to have sex with men for money. Now, she is finding hope and a renewed life in a Christ-centered rehabilitation home for formerly sex-trafficked children in Cambodia, where she is discovering her own strength and resilience. Nomi's life, however, has been permanently altered by her past sexual exploitation; those traumatic experiences as a sex slave have left her permanently mentally disabled."

Alissa Moore and Diana Mao began the Nomi Network with the aim of eradicating such sexual slavery by using fashion and the marketplace to provide economic options for sex trafficking survivors and people at risk of sex trafficking. Rather than inadvertently supporting slavery with what we buy, Moore and Mao wanted to leverage our purchases to address this human rights abuse.

Mao first visited Cambodia as a student at the Wagner School of Public Service to research Microfinance. After seeing the effects of sex trafficking firsthand, she came back to the United States impassioned about finding a way to make a difference. Mao teamed up with Moore. Together, they had the idea of finding a way to bring the goods women produced in Cambodia to US buyers.

They visited Cambodia together and met with local NGOs who were already working with sex trafficking survivors, providing them with counseling, education, and job training. Mao and Moore learned that one of the main obstacles facing these organizations in their efforts to help the women find economic stability and living-wage work is the need for demand for the products women produce. The Nomi Network aims to address this need for demand by designing products that can be produced in Cambodia that will appeal to a broad market in the US, rather than just to the segment of the market that will buy products for a cause.

Moore sums up the aims of the Nomi Network as working to address the needs and gaps between what other anti-trafficking organizations can provide. Currently, the Network is addressing gaps in the design aspect of products and in ensuring that products the women produced will have find and reach a Western market. The Network is also working to educate retailers about ways stores can easily and without cost supply socially-responsible products, and they are creating a map of New York stores that sell fair-trade or slavery-free products.

Looking to the future, the Nomi Network wants to increase capacity of their work. They also want the women they work with to gain increased educational and economic opportunities so that they can enter other careers if they so choose or can manage their own businesses rather than be dependent on the Network.

In addition to attending the launch party or ordering a bag via their website, Moore and Mao encourage people to spread the word about their organization and the products they sell. People who want to get involved on a deeper level who have business or technical skills can also contact the Network at info@nominetwork.org. They are also looking for people involved in the fashion industry, particularly buyers.

The launch party will be held on Thursday, October 1st, at 7pm at White Saffron Boutique in New York City, located at 232 Mulberry Street, New York, NY, 10012. Esosa Edosomwan, award winning actress, writer and “directress," will be the keynote speaker.

"The Road of Lost Innocence"

"In 1986, when I was sold to a brothel as a prostitute, I was about sixteen years old. Today there are many far younger prostitutes in Cambodia. There are virgins for sale in every large town, and to ensure their virginity, the girls are sometimes as young as five or six," writes Somaly Mam on the dedication page for her book The Road of Lost Innocence: The True Story of a Cambodian Heroine. In the book, originally published in French in 2005, Mam recounts her experiences as a sex trafficking victim, survivor, and eventually as a rescuer for others in the same situation.

Mam was born in 1970 or 1971 during a time of great upheaval in Cambodia. The Khmer Rouge political party came into power and ruled from 1975-1979; due to executions, starvation, and forced labor, 2 million Cambodians died during this time. As Mam notes, this time of incredible hardship and violence shaped and continues to shape life in Cambodia. People are especially vulnerable to exploitation, and Mam suggests that there is a legacy of extreme violence, particularly towards women and girls. Throughout the book, Mam contextualizes her experiences and the sex-trade in general in the larger socio-political context of Cambodia.

Mam was left as an orphan when she was a young girl. After living on her own and scrambling for food and shelter, a man calling himself her grandfather took her to a city, where he abused her and sold her out as a domestic slave. Eventually he sold her to a brothel as a sex slave. After experiencing years of abuse, she gained her freedom after the death of her "grandfather." Because she lacked job skills, education, and any support network, she stayed in the commercial sex industry until she eventually married a Frenchman who was working on foreign aid projects in Cambodia. Eventually they moved to France for a few years, where Mam gained work experience and learned French.

Upon her return to Cambodia, she started working on behalf of other girls and young women who were forced into commercial sex work, either by their parents who sold them to pay a debt or because they were kidnapped from their families for use as sex slaves. At first she mainly provided condoms and other services to the girls and women. Later, she started working to rescue them from the situations, and she opened a shelter. Eventually, Mam opened several shelters, ranging from emergency shelters to more permanent educational facilities for survivors.

In the book, Mam details the many challenges she has faced in her work, particularly relating to lack of consistent funding and police corruption. Despite these many difficulties, Mam's work has helped countless girls and women, many who had no other chance of getting out of their situations. Mam has received numerous honors for her heroic efforts, including being named one of the 100 Most Influential People by Time Magazine in 2009, which the Human Trafficking Project reported on earlier this year.

During her childhood and young-adult years, Mam endured horrific physical and sexual violence, which she graphically describes in the book. Mam notes, however, that the situation in Cambodia has only worsened. According to Mam "the brothels have grown larger and more violent. We find women chained to sewers. Girls come to us beaten half to death. They are so young. Increasingly we see that the meebons have addicted them to drugs so they won't even try to escape. When I was young we were terrorized with snakes and heavy fists, but these girls suffer a more brutal sort of torture. They have marks that are worse than anything I have ever endured" (166).

Looking back on her work, Mam writes, "I don't feel like I can change the world. I don't even try. I only want to change this small life that I see standing in front of me, which is suffering. I want to change this small real thing that is the destiny of one little girl. And then another, and another, because if I didn't, I wouldn't be able to live with myself or sleep at night" (129). Mam's words are especially powerful in light of the prevalence of sex trafficking in Cambodia. The Future Group, a Canadian NGO, reported in 2005 that at least 1 in 40 girls born in Cambodia will be sold into sex slavery.

Throughout the book, Mam emphasizes the need for people to get involved to work to end modern-day slavery. The Somaly Mam Foundation website lists a number of ways to support her work in Cambodia, including volunteering, interning, volunteering in Cambodia, donating, selling bracelets made by survivors, and hosting an awareness fundraiser. While the entire book is a pressing call to action, one passage in particular highlights the urgency of anti-trafficking work: "It's still happening, today, tonight. Imagine how many girls have been raped and hit since you started to read this book. My story doesn't matter, except that it stands for their story too, and their stories are why I don't sleep at night. They haunt me" (61).

Somaly Mam Named One of Time's Top 100 Most Influential 0f 2009

From Time:

Thursday, Apr. 30, 2009
Somaly Mam
By Angelina Jolie

Somaly Mam and Cambodia's Khmer Rouge regime were born around the same time — when the U.S. began secretly carpet bombing her country. The bombed villages became fertile ground for the Khmer Rouge's growth and Pol Pot's revolution.

By the time Mam was 5, the Khmer Rouge controlled Cambodia and had proceeded to kill 1.5 million people as Pol Pot implemented his radical form of communism. Torture, executions and forced labor were widespread. Families fled for safety, and massive internal displacement decimated Cambodian society in the years that followed.

Against this backdrop, 12-year-old Mam was sold into sexual slavery by a man who posed as her grandfather. She eventually ended up in a Phnom Penh brothel, beginning a decade of horrific rape and torture. She describes this period of her life simply: "I was dead. I had no affection for anyone."

Terror is the weapon of choice for those who hold women in sexual bondage. They depend on their victims' being frozen with fear. Traffickers hope that with enough pain and degradation, women will simply accept their fate as inescapable. But Mam was able to escape. With the help of an aid worker from France, she fled Cambodia in 1993.

The fact that she escaped makes her unique, but what makes her truly extraordinary is that she went back. While, understandably, most people would spend the rest of their lives quietly recovering from their wounds, Mam decided to confront the system that continues to victimize Cambodian girls.

In 1996, Mam created a nonprofit organization called AFESIP (Agir pour les Femmes en Situation Précaire, or Acting for Women in Distressing Circumstances) that works with local law enforcement to raid brothels and reintegrate the trafficked women into society. It is estimated that between 1.2 million and 2 million people are currently being held as sex slaves around the world. Mam, now 38 or 39 (she does not know her birthday), has established a model for addressing this issue and has already helped more than 4,000 women escape the brothels.

She has paid a terrible personal price for doing so, enduring death threats and assaults. In an effort to deter her work, brothel owners even kidnapped, drugged and raped Mam's then 14-year-old daughter in 2006.

Most people would have walked away. Mam continues to fight back so that others can be spared the pain she once suffered.

Jolie, an Oscar-winning actress, is a goodwill ambassador for the U.N. High Commission for Refugees and co-chair of the Jolie-Pitt Foundation

From AFESIP Cambodia:

Our activities cover all aspects of the consequences of trafficking for sex slavery. It ranges from investigation and rescue operations of victims from their slave-like conditions to follow-up of persons after their rehabilitation and reintegration process into the community.

The strategy is:

• To protect victims


• To use the victim centered approached to care for victims


• To develop and implement regional strategies to repatriate victims and follow up the case for up to 3 years


• To reintegrate victims and follow the case for up to 3 years.

AFESIP CAMBODIA rehabilitation objectives are first and foremost, the protection of victims; second, to implement the victim centered approach through holistic care and welcome any persons who are willing to leave sex slavery conditions to our three residential centres with the long term goal of reintegration into society. The components are as follows:

• Legal And Investigation


• HIV/AIDS Prevention


• Training


• Rehabilitation


• Reintegration

A link to the Somaly Mam Foundation

Somaly Mam on the Tyra Banks Show

Part 2 on the Tyra Banks Show

Human trafficking on the rise in Mekong countries

From Xinhua:

HANOI, Nov. 6 -- Human trafficking in the six Mekong countries is expected to increase due to growing migration within the sub-region, the Laos newspaper Vientiane Times reported on Thursday, citing the Anti-human Trafficking Committee Secretariat Head Kiengkham Inphengthavong as saying.

"Trafficking in persons nowadays is increasingly acute and dangerous. It operates in a very intricate manner, and comes in many forms, and is therefore very hard to monitor and control," said Kiengkham Inphengthavong at the sixth Senior Officials Meeting held in Vientiane on Wednesday as part of the Coordinated Mekong Ministerial Initiative against Trafficking (COMMIT).

Annually, the number of people trafficked from and within the region is estimated at between 200,000 and 450,000, according to the International Organisation for Migration.

The meeting brought together government officials from the six Mekong countries - Laos, Vietnam, Thailand, China, Myanmar and Cambodia - to share their experiences and decide on appropriate responses to the increase in human trafficking.

"The purpose of human trafficking is not only for sexual exploitation but also labor exploitation in factories, sweatshops, domestic work, begging and in the fishing industry. The problem is far more widespread than many would think," he added.

According to the Laos' Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare, from 2001 to 2008, 1,229 trafficked people, mostly women and girls, have been repatriated to Laos from Thailand under the Lao-Thai memorandum of understanding on human trafficking.

Laos is developing victim protection guidelines to ensure a more holistic and rights-based approach to the provision of care and assistance to victims of human trafficking, Khiengkham said.

The Slave Hunter

Sex Slaves, Drug Trade and Rock n' Roll

Featured Organization: Transitions Cambodia, Inc.

The Mission
Focused on caring for victims of the sex slave trade and restoring their lives, Transitions Cambodia, Inc. (TCI) provides a safe environment where girls can heal and learn viable, sustainable 21st century job skills.

TCI empowers girls to become healthy and independent adults restoring dignity, health and, most importantly, hope in their lives.

Founded by James and Athena Pond, who have been actively working in Cambodia since 2004 TCI is an Oregon-based 501c3 Non-Profit Organization serving the needs of Cambodian and Vietnamese female survivors of sex trafficking.

The word transitions in Khmer “an-ta-rak-peap” means crossing over from one place to another. At TCI we believe that the imperative goal is not to remove a girl from one form of abuse, only to place her into a situation that will further her abuse or trauma.

While shelters provide necessary services to a small percentage of trafficking victims, they have a limited application. Research and experience has shown that young women coming from sexually exploitative situations greatly benefit from being involved in decision making regarding their futures. These women need to have a broader scope of expression in their living situations, community, and family environments. We work with our clients to help them discover themselves, explore their possibilities and begin the process of crossing from one place to a better place.

In the Beginning


The roots of TCI began to develop back in 1987. Founder James Pond was in the U.S. Marine Corps traveling around Asia as an intelligence specialist. On a particular operation, James and a friend were in an Asian country wanting to find a place to relax and have dinner. They found a local bar, where the owner welcomed them in from the street. After dinner, as they sat around talking, the bar owner approached them with a young girl under his arm. He asked if they wanted some company for the night. She could be theirs for the weekend – to do whatever we wanted.

James and his friend were taken aback at how young the girl appeared to be and asked her age. The bar owner told them that she was 15 – she looked frightened and intimidated by the owner. James and his friend asked how much it would cost to have her all weekend. The price? $7.00. They paid the bar fine and received a green, circular token. After they went outside they gave the girl $10.00 and told her to enjoy her weekend, sending her away to her family that lived in the next village. The look in this young girl’s eye haunts James to this day – as does, the green token he received in exchange for her freedom.

Making a Difference


In 2005 the Pond family along with another couple moved to Cambodia and co-founded and co-directed the Agape Restoration Center (ARC), which is a high-security, long-term aftercare facility for victims of sex trafficking. After the ARC facility was established, it was clear that a trend was emerging. Clients were no longer 8 years old and younger. In fact, the median age of girls, was 15 years old.

There was a critical issue at hand – girls were in need of more progressive services. They needed to acquire adult, independent living and job skills that would assist them in having healthy and productive lives outside of institutional care. They were not receiving this in the current programs. They realized that many organizations had initiated institutional care without any thought to the long-term implications. Athena’s greatest desire was to see girls developing outside of care and discovering their vocational and personal potential.



In October 2006, Athena and James piloted a transitional home model – called the Transitional Living Center (TLC) where older girls could live and do just that. The girls live in a family setting with a mentor and social worker. This allows them to transition into a low security environment and reintegrate into society with familiar oversight and social interaction. A model of care like this had not been used before and came with lots of challenges, but within a short time, they had an experienced staff, solid programs, and a center filled with wonderful clients.

The girls ranged in age from 16-22 years old and came from other centers and direct referrals from human rights organizations. The primary objective of TCI is to provide quality transitional housing for female survivors of commercial sexual exploitation of children.



Clients participate in high quality 21st century vocational training, education and/or establish themselves in a job in Phnom Penh or the surrounding area. Providing a stable and semi-independent transitional home will encourage and facilitate these young women in becoming self-sufficient and prevent re-trafficking and re-entering the commercial sex industry as adults. TCI is a passion and life’s work for the Pond family and each client and staff member is a part of their own family.



Interview with TCI Founder James Pond


What advice would you give to someone who wants to get involved in the fight against trafficking?
Understand the issue first before you jump in. The primary fields to be involved with are - Prevention (education, awareness, advocacy), Intervention (investigation, rescue planning, coordination of victim services - this one comes with a warning - don't go rescuing people unless you are a field professional who works with the legal system, law enforcement, or others! You do more damage by playing Rambo than you think), Rehabilitation (working directly with victims - medical, dental, therapy, life skills, love, etc.) and the hardest area Reintegration (this is getting girls back into society with their futures ahead of them). But, learn more first - intern, study, and get some experience.

What do you find to be the most challenging part of your job?
All of it...this is not glamorous work. It is heartbreaking work. But, the most challenging is really reintegrative strategies...finding girls the opportunities that they need and deserve can be the most frustrating.

How do you see TCI growing in the future?
Transitions is going to expand in Cambodia, providing transitional aftercare to survivors in three Cambodian cities (Siem Reap, Sihanoukville (or Koh Kong) and Svy Reing. We are also establishing the first human trafficking shelter in Portland Oregon, and we are also expanding our work by assisting other organizations in replicating our model of aftercare in Greece, Holland, Indonesia and beyond.

What is something that you have learned about trafficking since you got involved in the issue that completely surprised you?
The issues are not as cultural as I had once assumed. Children are trafficked around the world for the same reason - human greed. Money is universal. But, I think in terms of working with victims, it has been how complex this [issue] really is...even if a girl appears to be 'normal' in social settings, she is also sitting on a ticking time bomb of emotional trauma that needs to be addressed.

How can people help TCI?
Support a girl. I know it sounds simplistic and typical, but running an organization like this requires money. Giving girls viable futures is a fairly expensive venture. So, people can donate - anything - $5, $10, $50, $100 a month and make a tremendous impact. But, they can also tell people about the work being done - with family, friends, work, etc. and spread the word. Join the Facebook Cause for TCI. Hold a fund raiser - be creative! Intern - if you have skills and can give your time, we can find a place for you. For more ideas, give us a ring and tell us what you are thinking!

Visit the Transitions Cambodia, Inc. website

Join the TCI Facebook Cause

BBC special on child slavery

BBC World is re-airing the special, Child Slavery with Rageh Omaar.

Around 8.4 million children around the world are enslaved today. Now, in a remarkable journey across three continents, five of them tell their stories. This documentary is presented by reporter Rageh Omaar.

Mawulehawe

Twelve-year-old Mawulehawe has been sold by his mother to a local fishermen in Ghana for $40 (£25). He may not see his mother again for many years.

She will use the money to buy cooking oil to fry the fish she sells on the shore at Ada, a small fishing town a couple of hours drive east of the capital, Accra.

The fishermen to whom Mawulehawe is sold, Aaron, will take him away to serve a three-year apprenticeship. Mawulehawe, like many others in the region, is being sold to help alleviate his family's poverty.

He has several brothers and sisters and has had some schooling, but there is not enough money for him to continue. It is now his younger brother's turn to go to school instead. Mawulehawe insists he is happy with the deal. Fishing has always been part of his life. And his family toast the "sale" with a strong drink, it is clear he sees his new life as a new adventure.

While many of the children working on Lake Volta go enthusiastically, most have no idea the dangers that lie ahead.

The long, unregulated hours and dangers such as getting tangled in the nets underneath the water's surface can lead to accidents and fatalities.

Ali

Six-year-old Ali was picked up by the Saudi authorities for begging on the streets of Jeddah. He was smuggled into Saudi Arabia from Yemen in order to beg.

Ali says he ended up begging after physical abuse involving metal wire attacks on his back. He says he was beaten up when he said he did not want to beg all day.

Ali is one of thousands of Yemeni children sold to gangs and forced to beg each year. These children are often sold by families who are duped into believing their offspring will get a better life.

Many of the children who are smuggled over the Saudi/Yemen border are beaten and sometimes even mutilated to become better, more effective beggars.

It is hard to be exact about figures, but in 2005 the Yemeni Ministry of Social Affairs acknowledged that about 300 children were crossing the border every month.

Rahul and Amit

The Kumar cousins - Rahul, 12 and Amit, seven - thought they were leaving their remote village in the north east of India to go to school and learn a trade. They had no idea their parents had sent them to one of the most populated cities in the world - Delhi - to work in a sweat-shop.

The boys hated sewing beads on fabric for 18 hours a day.  They lived, worked and slept in the same tiny room and only saw daylight when they were allowed out on Sunday under the supervision of a minder. Their hands are blistered and their feet deformed because of the repetitive nature of the work. They were beaten and had little food.

Children like Rahul and Amit who work in the zari units are classified as "bonded labourers", often working to clear obscure debts usually incurred by their families. "Bonded labour" has been illegal in India since 1976 but legislation is largely unenforced and charitable organizations have taken on the burden of investigating illegal labour.

A non-governmental organisation helped the Kumar boys to escape and return home... but the welcome they received was not quite what they were expecting.

Dalyn

When Dalyn was only 12 years old, she was tricked and forced into prostitution. She recalls now how she was approached by a woman who asked her if she would like to work at a garment factory in Kompong Cham.

But when she arrived, she was sold to a brothel in Cambodian capital Pnomh Penh for $150 (£78). Locked up in a cage with others underneath the brothel, she was starved, beaten and threatened at gun point until she agreed to service clients.

Many of the children at the shelter where Dalyn is, became infected with HIV or other sexually transmitted diseases after being sold into sexual slavery, and all have been severely traumatised.

Dalyn was rescued by the police and an aid agency but it is only now, at 17 years old and after substantial amounts of therapy, that she feels able to tell her story. 

Aid agencies are only able to scratch the surface of the problem of child sex slaves in Cambodia. In the first six months of last year, of the 186 raids carried out on brothels by the agency, only two resulted in convictions being made. And in South East Asia alone, Unicef says one million children are involved in the commercial sex trade.

There are more stories on the link, and the show goes into more detail about each of the above stories with interviews with these children. Rageh Omaar also wrote an article in The Somaliland Times discussing the meaning of slavery and the purpose behind the documentary. 

Cambodia Tackles Human Trafficking

From the Opinion section of the Wall Street Journal Asia:

Cambodia Tackles Human Trafficking
By Marielle Sander-Lindstrom
June 12, 2008

Cambodia is regularly referred to as the human-trafficking hub of Southeast Asia, but it's hard to know by which measure. Anywhere from thousands to hundreds of thousands of men, women and children are trafficked there annually. Without reliable data on these crimes, it's hard to combat this clandestine trade or to prioritize needs and services for its victims.

Which is why it's heartening to see Phnom Penh take action. Last week, the government launched its first-ever national effort to collect standardized data on human trafficking. Headed by the National Task Force, a collaborative effort between 14 government ministries and agencies and more than 200 nongovernmental organizations, the goal is to establish common definitions and data collection methodology.

This isn't as easy as it might sound. For example, does cross-border trafficking refer to national borders or movement across provinces? Should the recorded age of the victim be based on his or her age when first trafficked, or the age when the person was rescued? If a woman agrees to be sold by her parents into the sex industry, is she trafficked?

These questions matter. Policy makers can't construct effective laws without knowing the nature of the crimes committed. Law enforcement can't combat trafficking effectively without good data. NGOs can't provide the correct services to victims of trafficking without data on gender, age, education level, forms of exploitation and the location of rescue.

Once definitions are established, the National Task Force can start collecting and analyzing data to ensure that policies and programs respond to real needs. This is already starting to happen. The National Task Force, together with the Ministry of Social Affairs and its partners, have agreed to collect 15 key data sets to determine the profile of the victim, forms of assistance and reintegration services provided. This data will help the Cambodian government and countertrafficking actors monitor and measure the impact of antitrafficking efforts.

This collaborative effort is the latest indication that Cambodia is getting serious about combating trafficking. Earlier this year, parliament passed the Law on the Suppression of Human Trafficking and Commercial Sexual Exploitation. This law is a watershed because it criminalizes a wide range of trafficking offenses, from sex slavery to bonded labor. Phnom Pehn has also started to crack down harder on offenders, in an effort to protect Cambodian nationals from exploitation.

These are just the first steps in a long war ahead. But it's worth it. Modern-day slavery is alive and well. It will only be eradicated when government and citizens make a concerted effort to fight it.

Ms. Sander-Lindstrom heads the Asia Foundation's Counter-Trafficking in Persons Program in Cambodia.

The Future Face of the Trafficked

By Ayesha Ahmad

Trafficking is often an issue referenced in the past or the present.

Statistics concentrate on how many people are currently being exploited and the activities that they are forced to do, often justified as repaying debts the victim 'owes' to the trafficker. Sometimes victims of trafficking manage to escape or are rescued. Facing the fear of what will happen to them and their families if they speak out against the trafficker, the victim’s story is always a harrowing account of the difficulties involved in putting one's life back together.

Post traumatic stress disorder is common amongst women who have been trafficked and forced into prostitution.

And if a person is freed, because they often return home to the same desperate economic conditions that led them to seek employment to begin with, there is always the chance that they will re-trafficked.

In this personal account I want to describe my thoughts on a particular experience I encountered whilst in Cambodia that invoked not the past or the present, but a future instance of trafficking:

Walking through the streets of Phnom Penh, each footstep has to be carefully placed to avoid pools of dirty water, sewage and an array of rubbish.

Feeling hot and flustered I glanced down the street to mentally plan my path through the debri.

I saw a lady sitting in the middle of the street near to where cars, trucks and tuk-tuks haphazardly flew by.

I can still picture the lady vividly. Her clothes were ragged and dirty. The hot sun had worn her skin to a leathery texture. She appeared to be alone, then I noticed the tiny newborn baby she was breastfeeding.

There was nothing surrounding her, no open stove that some families had next to them on the street nor other children or adults. Perhaps she had family and they were busy trying to earn money or find something to eat, but for that moment that I stopped in my tracks and saw this lady.

She was alone.

She was so alone that even the noise, chaos and dirt of the street she sat in escaped her. Despite my struck stare she did not look back.

People walked on by watching where they tread.

It was in this moment of shock and horror that I felt a wave of anger crash over my body: the image of a lady so frail breastfeeding her child while sitting on the ground of a dirty street was incomprehensible to me. I wondered where she had recently given birth and if it had been in a street like this, out in the open, in public, delivering her crying baby to the sound of car horns.

You simply did not see this in London.

Who would be interested in this lady and her child?

And that’s when I realised that this babe is the face of a future child who is likely to be sold or coerced into child prostitution in one of the hundreds of brothels throughout the city. In a few years time I could see the circumstances in which this lady could be cornered into either selling her child or letting her child go- living on the street fending for oneself is hard enough, but add another mouth to feed and whatever money, food and other resources that can be scrounged are spread that much thinner.

Many times promises are made by traffickers to hopeful parents who sell their children for a lump sum of money ensuring them that the children will be looked after and provided with jobs that will send income home. Perhaps this is the point where hope creates illusion and a mother can rationalize the decision to sell her baby.

Is this barbarism or vulnerability?

Do the parents really understand what will happen to their children when they sell them? What are their options and how are they actually supposed to care for a child or children when they have neither the food nor shelter?

Who can judge this lady for her future decisions regarding this baby?

Without being in the same desperate situation, it is hard to fathom how it would feel and what should and should not be done. Living is one thing, survival is another. The necessity to survive is the breeding ground for decisions that would otherwise seem highly irrational.

I stood amidst the crowd watching this lady and newborn child sitting in the middle of the street, like a moment-less island in the world that walked on by.

I wonder where they are now. I wonder how the old woman is. I wonder how the child is. The noise and pollution of a bustling city street juxtaposed with the purity of birth and the struggle of life echoes in my mind.

People walked on by watching where they tread.

Local Sushi Owners Arrested for Human Trafficking Employees

From My Fox:

A couple who owned a Denver sushi restaurant were arrested in connection with human trafficking and having ties to the Korean mafia.

Young Jo Kwon and his wife Jessie Kwon, who formerly owned and operated Denver's Osaka Sushi, were arrested May 9 and charged with 5 counts of theft and forgery. The Kwons, who now own Greenwood Village's Sushi Moon, are accused of forcing two South Korean immigrant employees to work without pay.

The Kwons allegedly threatened employees Jailhee Jo Hong and Jong Chul Choi with the revocation of their sponsorship which the Kwons claimed would result in the subsequent deportation of the employees' families.

Between 2000 and 2005, the Kwons are accused of depriving Jaihee Jo Hong of more than $19,000 in overtime wages. The Kwons are also accused of depriving Jong Chul Choi of more than $900,000 for four years of unpaid labor.

Read the full article

Anderson Cooper Reports on Sex Slavery in Cambodia

Cambodia Halts Marriages with Foreigners to Combat Trafficking

From the International Herald Tribune:

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia- The Cambodian government has halted processing all documents for marriages of its citizens with foreigners as a new step to minimize the possibility of human trafficking, officials said Thursday.

The suspension was prompted by concerns about the potential for exploitation and trafficking following a recent surge in the number of Cambodian women marrying South Korean men, said Deputy Minister of Women's Affairs You Ay.

She said that as of last Saturday, approval for all paperwork needed for marrying foreigners has been put on hold. She did not say how long the measure will last, but that it was introduced so that government agencies involved in processing foreign marriage requests "can work to strengthen their procedures."

"We are not denying our people's rights to marry foreigners, nor are we being discriminatory," she said. "But we have also seen the negative aspects out of such marriages" recently, she said, adding that the suspension affects all foreigners, not just South Koreans. She was not able to say how many Cambodian nationals have married foreigners.

The South Korean connection made headlines here last month after a report by the Geneva-based International Organization of Migration revealed that thousands of men had come to marry Cambodian women through brokers. Over the past four years, some 2,500 Cambodian women have wedded South Korean men, mostly through the services of underground matchmaking businesses, according to the report. It said each man would pay up to US$20,000 (€12,790) to marry a woman but that a bride's family would collect only about US$1,000 (€640), while the rest of the money would go to brokers.

Although their marriages appeared to be legal, the government has expressed concerns that brokered marriages could become a cover for human trafficking, in which women are tricked or forced into marriage.

Read the full article

A Match Made in... Dollars

By Brian McCartan

From the Asia Times:

As Cambodia's once war-shattered, now booming economy opens to the world, Cambodian women are leaving in droves as several international marriage brokers have established match-making services in the impoverished country. Operating in a shadowy legal space, questions have been raised about the possible exploitative nature of the business, which some contend has acted as a front for global human trafficking rings.

Last week, the Cambodian government moved to put that trade on hold while it investigates whether any of the international brokers have ties to underworld crime syndicates. The Geneva-based International Organization for Migration (IOM) had earlier drawn attention to the trade and is scheduled to release next month an investigative report on the growing numbers of South Korean men who come to Cambodia in search of brides.

The mechanics of the trade are still murky. What is known is that women from mostly rural areas are brought by brokers into the capital city of Phnom Penh and put on display for prospective foreign grooms. The brokers are usually either informal operators or connected to one of several matchmaking businesses, which until now operated freely in Cambodia.

Most of the women who contract with the matchmaking services are in their teens or early 20s and usually from rural areas where they have received basic, if any, schooling. The IOM's report says "the vast majority of [Korean-Cambodian] marriages occur through an informal and exploitative broker-arranged process".

The introductions are more transactional than romantic. Bride selection often takes place in hotel restaurants where as many as 100 women, the IOM report claims, are lined up and put on display for prospective grooms. After a woman is chosen, details are worked out between the groom and bride-to-be and the broker.

A marriage is held after a few days, followed in some cases with a short honeymoon. The groom then returns to his home country while paperwork is processed for his new wife to follow. In 2007, the number of foreign marriage licenses rose to 1,759, up from a mere 72 in 2004. There were 160 foreign marriages registered in Cambodia in January of this year.

Read the full article

Ricky Martin in Cambodia

By Ker Munthit

From Yahoo News:

SIEM REAP, Cambodia - Ricky Martin met with victims of sexual exploitation Saturday during a visit to Cambodia to promote the fight against human trafficking.

Martin held infants and listened to a 14-year-old rape victim's song during his visit to a shelter in the northwestern city of Siem Reap, home of the famed Angkor temples. "She sings like an angel," Martin said after the girl finished a song she composed about the plight of trafficking victims.

The girl was among 65 victims sheltered at the rescue center of Afesip, a French non-governmental group working to combat human trafficking in Cambodia.

The pop star also held the 3-month-old daughter of a 22-year-old woman who was sold by her father to a brothel and is now HIV-positive. The woman broke down in tears as she urged Martin to keep fighting against human trafficking. "I'm not going to stop," Martin said, pounding his fist on his knee as he sat on a tiled floor. "All of you are my heroes. You are a gift of my life."

Martin said he plans to take what he learned in Cambodia and use it to "motivate people, organizations, governments in Latin America" in their efforts to combat the same problems. The Ricky Martin Foundation does most of its work in Latin America.

Read the full article

Children for Sale: Cambodia

*This is an old report but it shows the grim reality of child brothels in Cambodia and those who frequent them and presents what some NGOs, the International Justice Mission in particular, are doing to stop child trafficking.

From MSNBC:

It's an exotic vacation destination, with ancient cities, bold colors, legendary temples, remarkable beauty — and horrendous crimes that go on behind closed doors. Children, some as young as 5 years old, are being sold as slaves for sex. It's a shameful secret that's now capturing the attention of the world and the White House, a secret that has been exposed by Dateline's hidden cameras. Dateline ventured into this dark place, where sexual predators can gain access to terrified children for a handful of cash. How could this be happening? And how can it be stopped?

Inside the world of child sex trafficking, each year, by some estimates, hundreds of thousands of girls and boys are bought, sold or kidnapped and then forced to have sex with grown men. Dateline’s investigation leads to the troubled and distant land of Cambodia. We reveal what “tourists,” like one American doctor, may be up to, and we'll take you inside a dramatic operation to rescue the children.

The night clubs of Bangkok and the windows of Amsterdam are among the most well-known destinations in what has become a multibillion-dollar industry: sex tourism. But the business is not all about adult prostitution. There are some places you might never have heard about, notorious places, the kind of places a sexual predator would be willing to travel halfway around the world to reach — destinations like a dusty village in Southeast Asia, where the prey is plentiful and easy to stalk.

A pimp gives a tour of Cambodian brothels



They are children born into poverty and sold for sex. And while the thousands of men who flock here each year — many of them Americans — may think that they're involved in nothing more than prostitution, by any definition it is rape.

The small Buddhist country of Cambodia has a rich cultural heritage, but it has become a magnet for people who prey on the young and innocent. To follow their trail, we'll have to infiltrate their perverted world and pretend we're predators ourselves. It’s the only way we'll be able to see first-hand how serious the problem really is — so serious that President Bush told the United Nations it has become a top priority for his administration. Secretary of State Colin Powell is leading the administration's efforts and has a special office dedicated to the problem.