A new focus on human misery

18/06/2011
Bangkok Post
EDITORIAL

Mention human trafficking and most people will immediately think of the horrors of the sex trade. That is understandable because the exploitation of women and children are rarely out of the headlines, making this an issue of deep concern. But a recent surge in slavery cases involving men as the prime victims, has highlighted the need for anti-trafficking agencies to smash criminal gangs illegally exploiting cheap labour.

The fact that young men are trafficked into slavery in the fishing industry and condemned to spend months at sea in appalling conditions, is not new. This has been well documented by the International Labour Organisation, and Mahidol and Chulalongkorn universities. It is the increased scale of this exploitation that is causing alarm. And although police intensified their operations against traffickers in Suphan Buri and Ayutthaya this week and made arrests, some criminal gang members slipped through the net.

NGOs play crucial role in rescuing Cambodian child sex workers

September 15, 2010
ABC Radio Australia

Four young Cambodian girls are in the care of Thai social services are being rescued from a brothel in the border town of Aranyaprathet over the weekend.

The girls were aged just 14 and 15 and were reportedly being kept in locked rooms with bars over the windows. That was until an Australian-based group known as Grey Man got word of their plight, gathered some evidence and tipped off local authorities. Non governmental organisations carry out hundreds of these so-called "rescues" of child sex workers every year.

Presenter: Helene Hofman
Speakers: 'John Curtis', President, Grey Man; Patchareeboom Sakulpitakphon, Program Officer for combatting child sex trafficking and child sex tourism, ECPAT International, Christian Guth, Law Enforcement Advisor, Ministry of the Interior (Cambodia)

Patchareeboom Sakulpitakphon, program officer for combatting child sex trafficking and child sex tourism with ECPAT International says that's because many groups don't fully understand the underlying issues.

Click here to listen to the audio program (Windows Media)

HOFMAN: It's almost impossible to gather accurate figures, but according to the United Nations and anti-trafficking groups working on the ground, anywhere between 100-thousand and 200-thousand children are trafficked every year, in Southeast Asia alone.

Some are rounded up for cheap labour, but about half - it's thought - are forced into the sex industry.

That was the case with the four teenage Cambodian girls rescued from a brothel just a kilometre across the Thai border this weekend.

Trafficking first emerged as a major problem for Cambodia back in the 1990s and has grown steadily as an internal and cross-border problem ever since.

The extent of the problem has led to numerous international organisations and non-governmental organisations like Grey Man moving in.

Its president, who goes by the pseudonym 'John Curtis', says there are many difference types of groups working in Cambodia, and some are more useful than others.

CURTIS: I think Cambodia's probably got more NGOs than any other country in the world and to a degree they're probably all fighting a little bit to find people to rescue. Yes, they are helpful in that they will often place these girls into education and that but I think 87 per cent of those involved in anti-trafficking are religious groups and many of these groups they do have an underlying compulsion to convert these kids unfortunately, but I suppose better that than being stuck in a brothel.

HOFMAN: Grey Man is made up mostly of former members of the Australian police force and Special Service Air Service regiment and has rescued 108 child sex workers in the last three years.

Of those, about 60 per cent of those have stayed out of the sex industry. The other 40 per cent, often with nowhere else to go, have gone back.

Grey Man and many of the other anti-trafficking groups organise re-integreation projects and training to help the victims find an alternative role in society.

But it hasn't been enough to stop hundreds of rescued victims simply slipping through the cracks and back into the industry.

SAKULPITAKPHON: I have to give credit to the Cambodian goverment that in the past couple of years they have really taken the time and effort to create a stronger legal framework; improve collaborations between government officals, law enforcement and NGOs at the ground level. The police by themselves would have a difficult time getting all the information. As a member of an international NGO I think the work of NGOs is of great importance but I think you have to understand too that there are many types of NGOs.

HOFMAN: Sure, and by different types you mean there are smaller ones that might not adhere to the procedures in the same way that you might?

SAKULPITAKPHON: Exactly, because I think each organisation has their own capacity and understanding of issue because sometimes a lot of people have great intentions but if they don't understand what's going on or don't have the proper guidance and guidelines than they could still tumble and have mistakes.

HOFMAN: The Cambodian government stepped-up its efforts to limit these mistakes and tackle the issue more effectively around the year 2000.

However, the number of cases of child sex trafficking is still on the increase.

Christian Guth, a law enforcement advisor who works with the Cambodian Ministry of the Interior and anti-child-trafficking agencies, says there are many reasons for this, ranging from persistant poverty to the complexity of prosecuting offenders.

GUTH: These NGOs are doing very good work, because they are close to the community and they are reporting cases to the police so if things can be successful for the future here. If things can progress it's because there is, first point, strong commitment; second point: people who accept to be trained to make things going forward as with the police this is the case and third thing: international support given. Without this support I think it would be very difficult.

HOFMAN: And the Cambodian General Commissioner has just approved a new set of police guidelines on conducting rescue operations and arresting offenders.

It will be presented to members of the police force next week.

Forced to fish: Cambodian sea slaves

A fisherman mends a net. Photograph: Brian Harris

Friday January 30th 2009
The Guardian (UK)

Promised better-paid jobs across the border in Thailand, Cambodian men are being kidnapped by gangs of traffickers and sold onto illegal fishing boats that trawl the Gulf of Thailand and the South China Sea. For two years Chorn Theang Ly was kept at sea under armed guard. He describes how his quest for a better life turned into a nightmare

I live in the village of Anlong Khran in Cambodia. One day a man came to the village and said we should go to Thailand as we would have a much easier life there. Here, we work in rice fields, growing our own rice and vegetables. We make up to $200 a year. The man said we would make a lot more than that in Thailand.

He took a dozen of us over the border. We paid him 7,000 Thai baht for this – 3,000 for the transport plus a month’s worth of our pay. He said we would work on the riverbank, in factories, and have a much better life.

When we got to Thailand he took us to a house. Suddenly we were locked up inside it, all of us together in one room. It was only then that I realised that we had been sold. We tried different ways of escaping, all of us, but we had no money, passports or papers; there was nowhere for us to go.

We stayed there all night. Then, at about 4am, we got a wake-up call. Some men took us to a fishing boat, and that's when I realised what would happen to us. We had been trafficked. It was too late to do anything. We were powerless.

At sea, we all got seasick. I remember it got so bad for me that I was vomiting blood. As a group we decided we would stick at it for one month, earn our wages and then somehow get back to Cambodia.

The boat's owner told me we would have to work for him for at least three years. I found out that there is a whole system at work: a good employer lets you go ashore after eight or 10 months and pays you off, but a bad one will keep you at sea for three years and not pay you anything, or just a token amount.

Conditions on board were very hard for us. We worked all hours of the day, and there was little food or fresh water, just one small bucket. If we got a big catch we’d have to work day and night, slicing and gutting fish. If there was a torn net we would have to work for two or three nights without sleep to repair it. Another boat would sometimes meet us to take the catch and give us more food and water. We scarcely saw land.

I saw killings too, with my own eyes. There were three Thai crew on board and they were all armed. The captain would physically abuse us. In the early days he beat me nearly unconscious. He would beat us with the tentacle of a squid or sometimes a large shell. The man I saw killed was beaten and then thrown overboard. Another time, a man was shot and his body thrown into the sea.

We were constantly plotting to kill the captain and take the boat ashore. But the crew had guns and we knew we couldn't do it.

I was transferred to other boats after that first one. In the end I was at sea for two years. Finally, when a boat I was on put ashore in Thailand I persuaded them to let me go. They took me back to the border in a truck and left me there. With the help of one of the traffickers I got back across the border into Cambodia.

There are many people from my area who still want to go to Thailand. I tell them about the cruelty and the lies, but they are determined. The problem is there is so little to do here. We used to make money from charcoal, cutting and burning trees, but the government stopped that for environmental reasons. How else are we supposed to make a living?

• Chorn Theang Ly was talking to Jonathan Gorvett in Cambodia.