This is a picture of a young girl in peril. Girls working in the brothels are given numbers and displayed to the sexual predators. (Photo: TransitionsCambodia.org)Sunday, March 16, 2008
By WAYNE HAVRELLY for Kgw.com
KGW (USA)
As the Pond family sits around the dining room table playing trivial pursuit, they appear to be the typical American family. They’re not. Anything that was typical changed forever after watching a Dateline NBC investigation 4 years ago. The story about Cambodian children being sold to sex peddlers touched the family so deeply, this father of three quit his six figure sales job and traveled to Cambodia to see what could be done to help.
“We were seeing pedophiles walking up and down the riverfront purchasing kids, said James Pond. Pond knew he could make a difference, but only if his family wanted the same thing. His wife Athena said, “We were trying to teach our kids you can do more in life and we should all be helping others, but we really didn’t have an outlet for that before this.” It was a unanimous vote so the Ponds sold nearly everything they owned and moved to Cambodia to open a transitional housing center for girls rescued from brothels. 14 year old Srey Neth was sold by her mother for 300 dollars.
“Her virginity was sold a week later for the same 300 dollars she was sold for after that she was forced into a brothel where she saw 10 to 20 men a day, said James Pond. Neth was rescued. After 2 years with the pond family, she's now working for their Oregon based charity called Transitions Cambodia.
“She's not just our voice she's the voice of every girl that’s ever been through something like this,” said Pond.
Transitions Cambodia now provides shelter, support and vocational training to about 20 rescued girls each year.
The Ponds run the charity from their Hillsboro home. They have a staff of ten running the program in Cambodia. They recently moved back to the US to raise awareness about the child sex issue. They hope that will lead to more financial support which will enable them to open even more shelters in Cambodia and other countries around the world.
They said what started out as an idea after watching Dateline NBC has turned into a lifetime commitment. They hope to create awareness on a large scale starting in Portland and spreading all across America.
For more information go to the charities website at
Transitionscambodia.org
“We were seeing pedophiles walking up and down the riverfront purchasing kids, said James Pond. Pond knew he could make a difference, but only if his family wanted the same thing. His wife Athena said, “We were trying to teach our kids you can do more in life and we should all be helping others, but we really didn’t have an outlet for that before this.” It was a unanimous vote so the Ponds sold nearly everything they owned and moved to Cambodia to open a transitional housing center for girls rescued from brothels. 14 year old Srey Neth was sold by her mother for 300 dollars.
“Her virginity was sold a week later for the same 300 dollars she was sold for after that she was forced into a brothel where she saw 10 to 20 men a day, said James Pond. Neth was rescued. After 2 years with the pond family, she's now working for their Oregon based charity called Transitions Cambodia.
“She's not just our voice she's the voice of every girl that’s ever been through something like this,” said Pond.
Transitions Cambodia now provides shelter, support and vocational training to about 20 rescued girls each year.
The Ponds run the charity from their Hillsboro home. They have a staff of ten running the program in Cambodia. They recently moved back to the US to raise awareness about the child sex issue. They hope that will lead to more financial support which will enable them to open even more shelters in Cambodia and other countries around the world.
They said what started out as an idea after watching Dateline NBC has turned into a lifetime commitment. They hope to create awareness on a large scale starting in Portland and spreading all across America.
For more information go to the charities website at
Transitionscambodia.org
15 comments:
Some places in PP have naked girls, govt should take action.
Stop dreaming, there is no such thing as naked girl in PP, maybe New York City, yes.
listen to RFA dude.
i dun support it too , you know but u should learn more. I saw the site they posted.
k
Well, we learnt, we fixed it, now it's history.
But if you see it came back, post it, and we'll take action again. No one can guarantee that a cancer will not come back after surgery, you know?
These gorillas need to differentiate between reality and fantasy. When it comes to reality, they seem to lose it or completely confuse; however, they're good with fantasy.
Fantasy is the only escape from the Vietcong shit pit that they are in.
Poverty and the loosely practice or ineffective law lead to such kind of things. Future of our culture??
k
Can any one of you tell me who commented in this site have never been to brothel? May be none or almost all.
More ''shit '' reporting . NEVER have I seen any ''pedophiles'' walking along riverside purchacing kids. If James Pond is a real person , let him stand up and show us the evidence. This ''shit '' reporting is only giving Cambodia a bad name and has got to stop.
Hey James bond, not james pond.
welcome to the world. did you just wake up? scenes like that have been in existence longer other parts of the world like thailand for example. so don't be so alarmed that now it started to spread to cambodia. this is why i mentioned before that travel around the world really can open one's mind and eyes to new things in the world. in other words, it is not unique to cambodia a phenomenon like like if it is at all! in thailand and the philipines, the sex industry there are far more worse than in cambodia where some establishment actually performed live sex act on stage right in front of a large group of audience, so this is not unique to cambodia, to say the least. i encourage everyone khmer person to travel to other parts of the world so they can see and learn new concepts and ideas and can think outside of the box as well when they traveled because they see different things as in concepts and ideas.
Hey, we don't want to copy no gorilla world here.
Hello all; this is James Pond and I happened upon this site and felt it necessary to respond to a couple of comments and 'stand up' as one commentor stated.
If you listened to the piece done by KGW, I was talking about the sex traffickikng atmosphere found in Phnom Penh in 2004. I have worked as an investigator and during that period of time, on numerous occasions I found pedophiles, just like the photo in the piece, grooming children, talking with pimps, brokers, and yes, even parents about the cost of having sex with children.
It may be difficult to swallow, but the truth remains the same. On a daily basis I have listened to the stories, seen the evidence of the devastation visited on these children.
I love Cambodia and I don't believe that this gives Cambodia a bad name. I believe it gives people information, victims voices, and exposes those that exploit.
Human trafficking happens around the world - Cambodia is where we wanted to help in this issue. Maybe you can use your voice and your time for creating better solutions, instead of just complaining about those of us that are doing something about it.
Thank you.
James Pond
Thank you, on behalf of khmer people for your help, mate (9:50). We love you, and yes, by all mean we welcome the truth, good and bad. We don't what to do without good NGO and special people like you, and may God help you to achieve you goals.
In any cases, all I can say is it's suck to be poor if you know what mean.
its sick to know whats going on these girls have no familys to protect them.. they can be one of our children... keep up the work on trying to keep these girls safe
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