Human Trafficking in [Cambodia Street Children in [Cambodia] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Cambodia] [other countries] |
Human Trafficking & Modern-day Slavery Kingdom of Cambodia [ Country-by-Country
Reports ] The Cambodia is a source, transit, and
destination country for men, women, and children trafficked for the purposes
of commercial sexual exploitation and forced labor. Cambodian women and
children are trafficked to Thailand and Malaysia for sexual exploitation and
forced labor in factories or as domestic servants, while Cambodian men are
trafficked for forced labor in the agriculture, fishing, and construction
sectors in these countries. Cambodian children are trafficked to Vietnam and
Thailand for forced begging. Cambodia is a transit and destination country
for the trafficking of Vietnamese and Chinese women and children for sexual
exploitation. Sex trafficking of women and children occurs within Cambodia's
borders, from rural areas to cities such as Phnom Penh, Siem Reap, and
Sihanoukville.
- U.S. State Dept Trafficking in Persons Report, June, 2007 [full country
report] |
|
|
CAUTION: The following links have been
culled from the web to illuminate the situation in ***
FEATURED ARTICLES *** Child
trafficking takes new forms in Southeast Asia When he was 12, his parents in
rural Cambodia sold him to a trafficker who forced him to beg on the streets
of Bangkok, Thailand, and the resort town Pattaya. He lived with seven other
children in one room. All were Cambodian. Some were as young as six. "The trafficker told my
parents he would send them $55 a month," the boy says. "But I would
earn $18 or $25 every day or night I begged." Over the next three years, the boy
escaped twice and made his way home. But the trafficker found him,
repurchased him, and took him back to Thailand. The second time, his parents
sold his younger brother as well. Slavery
Continues in the Form of Forced Prostitution Psychiatrist Wendy Freed authored a report for
Physicians for Human Rights. Her report on the psychological aspects of women
trapped in sexual slavery in Cambodia presented this frightening pattern
faced by thousands of girls and women: "The young women have been in
captivity for a period of weeks to months or years. Initially there is shock
and disbelief. Many young women describe not being able to believe that they
had been sold .... Once they realize that in fact they are sold, they fight
the brothel owner's demand that they accept customers. Refusal leads to
beatings, being locked in a room, and going without food. This persists until
the young woman gives up and realizes that indeed they are trapped and have
no options .... At some point in this process, the young woman becomes
submissive in order to avoid further beatings and torment; her 'spirit is
broken.' She surrenders, becomes resigned and accommodates to the
circumstances of captivity." ***
ARCHIVES *** U.S.
Dept of Labor Bureau of International Labor Affairs INCIDENCE
AND NATURE OF CHILD LABOR - Bur of Democracy,
Human Rights & Labor - Country
Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005 TRAFFICKING
IN PERSONS – Children
were trafficked to Trafficking victims, especially
those trafficked for sexual exploitation, faced the risk of contracting
sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV/AIDS. In some cases victims were
detained and physically and mentally abused by traffickers, brothel owners,
and clients. Traffickers used a variety of
methods to acquire victims. In many cases victims were lured by promises of
legitimate employment. In other cases acquaintances, friends, and family
members sold the victims or received payment for helping deceive them. Young
children, the majority of them girls, were often "pledged" as
collateral for loans by desperately poor parents; the children were
responsible for repaying the loan and the accumulating interest. Local
traffickers covered specific small geographic areas and acted as middlemen
for larger trafficking networks. Organized crime groups, employment agencies,
and marriage brokers were believed to have some degree of involvement Concluding Observations
of the Committee on the Rights of the Child (CRC) - 2000 [63] While welcoming the enactment
of special legislation to combat sexual exploitation and the adoption of a
five-year Plan of Action against Sexual Exploitation of Children (2000-2004)
and other related measures in this area, the Committee expresses its concern
at the widespread phenomena of child prostitution and the sale and
trafficking of children; the inadequate enforcement of the new legislation on
these issues; and the shortage of trained people and institutions to provide
rehabilitation to the victims. Putting the
red light on human trafficking "Neary grew up in rural
Cambodia. Her parents died when she was a child, and in an effort to give her
a better life, her sister married her off when she was 17. Three months
later, they went to visit a fishing village. Her husband rented a room in
what Neary thought was a guest house. But when she woke the next morning, her
husband was gone. "The owner of the house told
her she had been sold by her husband for $300 and that she was actually in a
brothel. For five years, Neary was raped by five to seven men every day. In
addition to brutal physical abuse, Neary was infected with HIV and contracted
AIDS. "The brothel threw her out
when she became sick, and she eventually found her way to a local shelter.
She died of HIV/AIDS at the age of 23." Human
trafficking helps spread HIV/AIDS in Asia: UN "Trafficking ... contributes
to the spread of HIV by significantly increasing the vulnerability of
trafficked persons to infection," said Caitlin Wiesen-Antin, HIV/AIDS
regional coordinator, Asia and Pacific, for the United Nations Development
Programme (UNDP). "Both human
trafficking and HIV greatly threaten human development and security." Major human trafficking routes run
between Nepal and India and between Thailand and neighbors like Laos, Cambodia and Myanmar. Many of the
victims are young teenage girls who end up in prostitution. "The link between human trafficking
and HIV/AIDS has only been identified fairly recently," Wiesen-Antin
told the International Congress on AIDS in Asia and the Pacific. Eat
To Live: Feeding Pol Pot's children On the manicured lawn between the
Royal Palace in Phnom Penh and the Tonle Sap River, a young couple sitting
under a banyan tree offered me their 14-month-old son in exchange for my
wrist watch. Gustav Auer of Friends restaurant
is not surprised. He and others involved in non-governmental organizations
locally are waiting to see whether the adoption efforts of Madonna and
Angelina Jolie -- who visited Friends when she was in Cambodia recently --
have a positive or an adverse effect.
There is no such thing, says Auer, as a legal adoption policy in
Cambodia. It's all about the money. You pay enough, you get the papers.
"In my nine years here, I know of only one legal adoption where there
was no financial compensation." U.S.
presses Cambodia police chief on trafficking Lundy, who was in Washington
chiefly for counter-terrorism talks with the FBI, was refused a U.S. visa in
2005 because of "what was believed to be credible evidence of complicity
in human trafficking," former senior State Department official John
Miller told Reuters last week. Asked
whether Lundy was asked to address accusations against him during his talks
with senior officials, a State Department spokesman declined to provide
further details about the meeting.
Lundy previously has rejected charges of human trafficking, but Miller
said the police chief is suspected of playing a role in freeing eight
traffickers hours after they were seized in a raid in Cambodia. Cambodia
launches 1st national task force against human trafficking According to official reports,
over 180,000 migration laborers toiled irregularly in Thailand, while
hundreds or even thousands of Cambodians are exploited to work as sex slaves
in Malaysia, Japan, China's Taiwan and Hong Kong, Qatar, Somali, and Saudi Arabia. More
co-operation needed in war on human trafficking Reviewing the human trafficking trend in the region, Thailand’s Susu Thatun, programme manager of the United Nations Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking in the Greater Mekong Sub-region reported that nearly one-third of the global trafficking trade of about 200,000-225,000 women and children are trafficked annually from Southeast Asia. While in the past women and
children have been reported as trafficked victims, Thatun said that boys and
men have also been identified as victims as well into the sex trade, heavy
labour, begging, marriage, and the fishing industry. In Viet Nam, Thu reported that
most of the 4,530 women and children were trafficked to China and Cambodia from 1998 for the purpose of
prostitution, arranged marriages or labour exploitation. Because of the cross-border nature of human
trafficking, Thu proposed that, under the AIPO framework, ASEAN parliaments
should establish a project on legal co-operation to fight against human
trafficking to be more successful in fighting the complex form of crime. Microsoft Uses Grants To Help Alleviate Human Trafficking Microsoft Corp. has released
grants worth more than $1 million to six Asian countries to deal with human
trafficking by providing computer skills. Called the "Unlimited
Potential," the grants were distributed throughout: Cambodia, India,
Indonesia, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. Review of a Decade
of Research On Trafficking in Persons, Cambodia [PDF] The Review of a Decade of Research
on Trafficking in Persons, Cambodia, provides a comprehensive assessment of over 70 research
studies, highlighting what is and what is not known about human trafficking
in Cambodia. The Review analyzes past studies, identifies gaps in information,
offers suggestions for future research, and calls upon the
counter-trafficking community to work together to create a solid base of
knowledge that will inform and strengthen future efforts to counter
trafficking in Cambodia. Human
Trafficking Conference Calls for Action Ormond spoke of female victims she
met in Cambodia. "I met with
girls and women from many shelters. Girls so young it was hard to comprehend
their fate. Girls as young as five, seven and 12, who had been victims of
rape and sold into forced prostitution," she said. Vietnam, Cambodia To Crack Down On Human Trafficking Under the campaign, part of
specific activities under an agreement signed between the two governments in
October 2005 regarding cooperation in eliminating human trafficking and
helping victims, Vietnam will draw up a list of suspects and rings involved
in trafficking women and children from Vietnam to Cambodia. The Cambodian side will define key
areas, suspects and rings engaged in trafficking Vietnamese women and
children. Mekong
region govts to co-op against human trafficking Since the signing of the historic
COMMIT Memorandum of Understanding in Yangon, Myanmar in October 2004, by
Ministers of the six countries, the Governments have been active in laying
the foundation for a network of cooperation to stop traffickers and prosecute
them, protect victims of trafficking and assist them return safely home, and
launch efforts to prevent others from sharing the same fate. Khmer girls'
trafficking ordeal LOOKING FOR CASH - She and her cousin were 16
years old when they decided, against their family's wishes, to travel to
Bangkok. The New Year was approaching, and they wanted some extra cash for
the festive season. A neighbour had
told them they could make good money washing dishes in a restaurant in the
Thai capital. "At first I refused to have sex with men. Then I was beaten so badly I had to hide my face for a month, until it healed. Then I was told again I would have to sleep with the customers. I knew if I refused I would be beaten again. I had no choice but to agree." Cambodian
police raid hotel, rescue three girls from sex trade Police arrested two women - a
broker and a pimp during the raid. One
of the victims was 16 years old and was allegedly sold for US$1,000 by her
mother, who needed the money to survive.
The alleged broker had the girl's family registration card and
intended to show it to pimp and buyer to prove the girl is truly 16 years
old. Rebuilding
Cambodia: one woman at a time Thyda looks like any other young
girl – only she’s lived through trauma most of us could never imagine. At the
age of 12 she was told that she needed to make money in order to buy medicine
for her sick grandfather. Because she was considered to be very beautiful,
her mother sold her to a friend for $300. This woman then sold her to a
high-ranking Cambodian official for $800. She stayed with him for three hours
on that first night. Thyda was moved all over the country, being resold over
and over again. Cambodian police
rescue 88 sex workers Police in Comments
about Cambodia’s Tier 3 status in Trafficking in Persons Report H. E.
PRUM SOKHA, SECRETARY OF STATE, MINISTRY OF INTERIOR, The parents' horrifying decision
to sell their one-month old is one that many couples in Cambodian Women
'Not Abducted' The Cambodian government has
issued a report into the alleged kidnapping of dozens of sex workers from a
safe house in the capital Police
Rescue Sex Slaves In Cambodia Cambodian police rescued 18
Vietnamese women, aged between 18 and 23, allegedly forced to be sex workers
in a massage parlor. "Every
evening they were forced to have sex with guests, and each woman had to pay
half of the money she charged a guest to the owners," Sun Bunthong
said. "They were not allowed to
go out the house. One 18-year-old
woman who had violated the order was stabbed with a knife twice in her back. Asia
Sex Traffic Case UN Hails Stunning Success The prosecution rested on the
testimony of eight Cambodian women, who left their home village believing
they would be offered work as noodle and clothes sellers in Decisive
sentence handed down in Cambodian sex trafficking cases [PDF] A
brothel keeper and a pimp were found guilty of exploiting three teenage girls
who were regularly drugged and beaten at the brothel and forced to have sex.
The girls were sold to the brothel keeper who forced them to work off the
amount for which they were purchased.
Each time they were drugged, the cost of the drugs would also be added
to their debt. The traffickers who were supposed to get her and four
female friends jobs as dishwashers smuggled them instead to Cambodia, Where
Sex Traffickers Are King Police report describes the Chai Hour II as a case "of confinement of human beings for commercial sex" and adds that it is also "a place for trafficking/sale of virgin girls." "Terrify
No More" by Gary A. Haugen This non-fiction narrative revolves around IJM's efforts
to dismantle the notorious sex trade in the Cambodian Sex
Trafficking Growing In S.E.Asia Girls from the villages of The
Modern Scourge of Sex Slavery [photo
caption] Cambodian
policeman escorts 11-year-old Vietnamese girl from brothel in Toul Kork
red-light district of Phnom Penh: Six girls from 11-13 years of age were rescued
from brothel that offered only young children. Trafficked from Vietnam,
children were rescued during sting operation involving Cambodian Interpol and
local police, led by End Child Prostitution, Pornography and Trafficking
(ECPAT) Freedom
House Country Report - Political Rights: 6 Civil Liberties: 5 Status: Not Free Human Rights Overview by Human
Rights Watch – Defending Human Rights Worldwide U.S. Library of Congress - Country Study [3] Leaving the Brothel
Behind A year ago, a pimp handed me a
quivering teenage girl. Her name was Srey Neth, and she was one of the
hundreds of thousands of teenagers who are enslaved by the sex trafficking
industry worldwide. Then I did
something dreadfully unjournalistic: I bought her. I purchased Srey Neth for $150 and
another teenager, Srey Mom, for $203, receiving receipts from the brothel
owners. As readers may remember, I then freed the girls and took them back to
their villages. Now I've come back to
find out how they coped with freedom. Finally, Srey Mom said goodbye to
''Mother,'' the owner who had enslaved her, cheated her and perhaps even helped
infect her with the AIDS virus -- yet who had also been kind to her when she
was homesick, and who had never forced her to have sex when she was ill. It
was a farewell of infinite complexity, yet real tenderness. So now I have purchased the
freedom of two human beings so I can return them to their villages. But will
emancipation help them? Will their families and villages accept them? Or will
they, like some other girls rescued from sexual servitude, find freedom so
unsettling that they slink back to slavery in the brothels? We'll see. [1] Girls
For Sale Srey Neth claimed to be 18 but
looked several years younger. She insisted at first (through my Khmer interpreter)
that she was free and not controlled by the guesthouse. But soon she told her
real story: a female cousin had arranged her sale and taken her to the
guesthouse. Now she was sharing a room with three other prostitutes, and they
were all pimped to guests. ''I can walk around in Poipet, but
only with a close relative of the owner,'' she said. ''They keep me under
close watch.They do not let me go out alone. They're afraid I would run
away.'' Why not try to escape at night? ''They would get me back, and something bad
would happen. Maybe a beating. I heard that when a group of girls tried to
escape, they locked them in the rooms and beat them up.'' U.S. raps
Cambodia over sex trade Under Un's direction, the
Cambodian police rescued 84 women and young girls from a brothel last week.
But the next day, gunmen kidnapped them and seven others from the shelter
where they were taken after their rescue. Hitting
Slavery Where It Hurts "Nothing compares to the
deadness in the eyes of a kid in a brothel," Haugen, 40, says. "In
Rwanda, the dead were already gone. In the brothels of Cambodia, they are the
living dead." They mapped a systematic, and
highly profitable, trade in innocents. Kids from remote rural areas are
promised work or treats in distant cities by slave dealers, who sell them to
brothels for up to $1,000. Sex with these kids costs $30 compared with $5 for
an adult prostitute in Cambodia.
"Our investigators came into Svay Pak, and within ten minutes
pimps came up saying 'Do you want small-small? I can get small-small,'"
says Sharon Cohn, the head of IJM's antitrafficking unit. "It was
unbelievable--kids as young as 5." Dateline goes undercover with a
human rights group to expose sex trafficking in Hagar, an
NGO, Helps Human Trafficking Victims in Cambodia Tami believes the dramatic rise in
abductions and coerced sex slavery in Cambodia can be traced to regional
efforts to curb prostitution. Trafficking basically grew out of the pressure
in neighboring Thailand to change Bangkok's image as a "sex
capital," he said. "From Bangkok, organized crime had to find
another fertile place to operate." "Cambodia was just coming out
of 30 years of war, with weak legislation and rampant corruption, so
organized crime thrived," Tami continued. "Poverty and lack of
education, particularly among the countryside, also contributed to the
phenomenon." Cambodia is among the poorest and least developed countries
of the world, according to the World Bank. Slavery
Continues in the Form of Forced Prostitution Psychiatrist Wendy Freed authored a report for
Physicians for Human Rights. Her report on the psychological aspects of women
trapped in sexual slavery in Cambodia presented this frightening pattern
faced by thousands of girls and women: "The young women have been in
captivity for a period of weeks to months or years. Initially there is shock
and disbelief. Many young women describe not being able to believe that they
had been sold .... Once they realize that in fact they are sold, they fight
the brothel owner's demand that they accept customers. Refusal leads to
beatings, being locked in a room, and going without food. This persists until
the young woman gives up and realizes that indeed they are trapped and have
no options .... At some point in this process, the young woman becomes
submissive in order to avoid further beatings and torment; her 'spirit is
broken.' She surrenders, becomes resigned and accommodates to the
circumstances of captivity." Cambodia: Young
Trafficking Victims Treated as Criminals "These arrests violate every
principle regarding the appropriate treatment of apparent trafficking
victims," said Colm. "They should be provided with medical and
legal services, counseling, secure shelter, and given the opportunity to
cooperate in the investigation into the traffickers. It is imperative that
these girls get the services they need and deserve." The investigating judge on the
case told reporters that initial findings revealed that the girls were
trafficking victims, but that when the court learned the girls had entered
Cambodia without legal documentation, they were no longer considered victims,
but violators of Cambodian law for illegal entry into the country. Measuring
the Number of Trafficked Women and Children in Cambodia: A Direct Observation
Field Study [PDF] [page 25] SUMMARY AND CONCLUSIONS - Across Cambodia, 5,317 sex
workers were observed in direct and indirect sex work establishments. Of
these, 2,328 or 43.8% were in Phnom Penh, and 2,989 in the remainder of the
country. An additional 12,939 unobserved workers were estimated to exist
throughout the country, for a total estimated number of sex workers in
Cambodia of 18,256, with an observed percentage of 65.5% Khmer and 32.8%
Vietnamese. A total of 1,074 persons, 20.2% of the 5,317 observed sex
workers, were classified as trafficked, 876 by their indentured status and
198 as underaged. Almost all observed trafficked workers were Vietnamese or
Khmer, with less than 1% of other ethnicities, and the total number of
trafficked women and children throughout the country was estimated at 2,000.
The majority of those trafficked, 80.4%, were observed to be Vietnamese since
61.9% of Vietnamese sex workers were or had been indentured. Trafficked
persons were concentrated in population centers such as cities and towns,
with the majority in cities. No indentured workers were found in villages, as
defined in this study, or in rural areas. Those judged to be under 16 were
found only in cities, particularly Phnom Penh, Sihanoukville, and Koh Kong.
All trafficked women and children observed in the present study were in
brothels, some marked as “massage.” Child
trafficking takes new forms in Southeast Asia When he was 12, his parents in
rural Cambodia sold him to a trafficker who forced him to beg on the streets
of Bangkok, Thailand, and the resort town Pattaya. He lived with seven other
children in one room. All were Cambodian. Some were as young as six. "The trafficker told my
parents he would send them $55 a month," the boy says. "But I would
earn $18 or $25 every day or night I begged." Over the next three years, the boy
escaped twice and made his way home. But the trafficker found him,
repurchased him, and took him back to Thailand. The second time, his parents
sold his younger brother as well. ARIS STORY - My family is poor and so my
mother pledged me for $500 to help feed my eight brothers and sisters. I am
the most beautiful, Ari says with pride. Most of the money she makes goes
directly into the pocket of a brothel owner, leaving little to pay off the
debt she now shoulders. How Ari came into prostitution is
a familiar story to the local organisations researching child sexual
exploitation. According to NGOs, the majority of child sex workers are
abducted by middlemen (or women), sold or pledged by parents, relatives,
neighbours or boyfriends, or deceived with the promise of jobs or marriages.
Often children are hired out or sold by their families to agents who may or
may not reveal the true nature of the work. All material used herein
reproduced under the fair use exception of 17 USC § 107 for noncommercial,
nonprofit, and educational use |
|
Human Trafficking in [Cambodia Street Children in [Cambodia] [other countries]Child Prostitution in [Cambodia] [other countries]