Rescuing Children from Sexual Slavery in Cambodia

Brian McConaghy with Ratanak staff working with children in Cambodia's brothel districts.

Feb 7, 2012
The Province (British Columbia, Canada)

As a former RCMP forensics investigator, Brian McConaghy has visited hundreds of crime scenes and heard the stories of countless victims of violence and abuse. But nothing has ever disturbed quite like the horrors of Cambodia’s child sexual exploitation trade.

The Richmond father of two has dedicated his life to rescuing children from brothels, saving them abject sexual slavery with his charity, Ratanak International.

McConaghy first visited the South Asian country in 1989, when it was still struggling in the aftermath of a genocidal civil war. At the time, he was working for the police and in his spare time helping vulnerable international students adjust to Canada, and he made a trip to several Asian countries to better understand their cultures.

While on visit to Thailand, he was shocked to see conditions in a refugee camp on the Thai-Cambodian border, where diseases like dysentry and tuberculosis were rampant. Cambodian children there were dying from a lack of basic medicine from conditions that were simple to treat.

Child trafficking: Midwife sells baby for $100

Monday, 06 February 2012
Phak Seangly
The Phnom Penh Post

Authorities in the capital’s Russei Keo district are investigating a case in which a midwife sold a newborn for US$100 last week.

Tuol Sangke commune police chief Huy Hean said that Srey Sorei filed a complaint on Thursday accusing her midwife of selling her baby.

The police chief told the Post that the suspect had confessed to selling the male newborn, but said she had received the mother’s permission.

Huy Hean said the mother had approached the midwife two months ago seeking an abortion, because she was too poor to raise the child.

“In Cambodia there is so much corruption”: Aussie Actor Tom Oliver

Neighbours actor Tom Oliver is the ambassador for Connecting Hands, a charity that helps Cambodian survivors of the child sex trade. CARMELO BAZZANO N31WH203

Neighbour's actor Tom Oliver's army to rescue

26 Jan 11
By Bridie Byrne
WhiteHorseLeader (Australia)

A CAMBODIAN girl is sold into sexual slavery at the hands of those she trusts.

A man who poses as her grandfather sells her into a life of torture and daily rape.

She is 12 and years later she is brave enough to escape her life after witnessing the murder of her best friend.

She vows to never forget those she left behind.

Somaly Mam is no longer a voiceless victim and has since dedicated her life to saving victims of the sex trade and empowering survivors.

America's Most Wanted Goes Undercover In Cambodia [...to be aired on FOX in the US]

2010-11-11
By Kelly West
CinemaBlend.com

In what sounds like a relatively horrifying episode, this Saturday America’s Most Wanted will feature host John Walsh as he goes undercover in Cambodia to expose international sex trafficking.

It's an unfortunate reality that sex-related crimes are a global epidemic and this Saturday, America's Most Wanted will be visiting Cambodia to investigate pedophilia crimes taking place at a notorious bar. Fox released some information on the special today, revealing that in addition to Walsh’s undercover venture in Southeast Asia, the episode will also include information on American sex predators that are still at large. The episode will air on Saturday, Nov. 13 (9:00-10:00 PM ET/PT) on FOX. Below is the full description for the episode as provided by Fox.

AMERICA’S MOST WANTED cameras go undercover in Cambodia, a nation targeted by pedophiles because the abject poverty there has made it distressingly easy to “buy” underage children. Working with international law enforcement agencies, Walsh investigates a notorious Phnom Penh bar to see firsthand how young girls are offered to foreign visitors and visits a Cambodian prison to confront jailed Westerners accused of preying upon children.

Walsh also talks to Somaly Mam, a tireless advocate who has dedicated her life to rescuing Cambodia’s children from the sex trade. A sex-crime victim as a child, Mam operates a center for other victimized children, offering them hope for the future.

In the episode, Walsh will ask viewers to get involved in the fight against predators by helping him track down several American pedophiles profiled during the broadcast.

"I wanted to come here today to see you for myself": Hillary Clinton in Cambodia

 U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is greeted by human trafficking victims Van Sina (2nd L) and Somana (3rd R) at the Siem Reap AFESIP rehabilitation and vocational training center October 31, 2010. Clinton's visit to Cambodia is the first by a U.S. Secretary of State since 2003. REUTERS/Chor Sokunthea

Clinton: US will help end sexual slavery

SIEM REAP, Cambodia, October 31, 2010 (AP) - Pledging to do more to help end the scourge of sexual slavery, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton visited a rescue and rehabilitation center for child prostitutes in northern Cambodia on Sunday.

Before touring the famed 12th century Angkor Wat temple complex, Clinton met with a group of about 50 victims of human trafficking at the U.S.-funded facility in Siem Reap and promised them continued American support.

"I am so proud of you," she told the girls and young women, most of whom are between 17 and 23. They receive an education and vocational training that includes weaving and sewing lessons.

"You motivate me," she said.

Clinton listened as one young woman, Vann Sina, recounted her story of being abducted at 13 and forced to have sex with 20 to 30 men a day for more than two years before being rescued from a brothel.

"To be a victim is very hard," she said, recalling how she did not understand what she was meant to do when she was told to "sleep" with a customer. "I cannot forget. Sometimes I dream and I get very scared."

The Siem Reap center received a $336,0000 grant from the State Department last year to fund its operating costs and Clinton said she would make sure money continued to flow.

"I wanted to come here today to see you for myself," Clinton said.

Clinton, on a tour of northern Cambodia, is about as far away as one can get from the intense political battle going on back home. Her husband and fellow Democrats are campaigning frantically ahead of Tuesday's midterm elections.

A self-proclaimed ex-politician, Clinton is barred from partisan political activity while serving as America's top diplomat.

The former first lady, New York senator and presidential hopeful is in the midst of a two-week, seven-nation tour of the Asia-Pacific. She won't be back at work in Washington until a week after Election Day.

Lucy Liu Shines a ‘Redlight‘ on Child Sexploitation in New Showtime Documentary

LUCY LIU SHINES A “REDLIGHT” ON CHILD SEXPLOITATION IN NEW DOCUMENTARY ON SHOWTIME

To Premiere Thursday, September 9th In Honor of
Washington D.C.‘s Human Trafficking Awareness Month

LOS ANGELES, CA – (September 1, 2010) – REDLIGHT, a powerful feature film documentary exposing the horrors of the illegal sex trade market in Southeast Asia, will make its television premiere on SHOWTIME on Thursday, September 9th at 8pm et/pt. Narrated by actress/producer/UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador Lucy Liu, the film’s September airdate honors Washington D.C.’s Human Trafficking Awareness Month.

Filmed over a four-year period, REDLIGHT focuses on the personal, real-life stories of Cambodian children who are victims of human trafficking and two courageous advocates for change: grass-roots activist Somaly Mam and politician Mu Sochua. Both have since been nominated for the Noble Peace Prize. Juxtaposing between gritty footage smuggled out of brothels and harrowing testimonials, REDLIGHT follows several current and former child sex slaves as they struggle to regain entry into Cambodian society or attempt to bring their perpetrators to justice, while others tragically return to their lives of prostitution – either willingly or by force.

REDLIGHT is produced by an award-winning team that includes Liu, Kerry Girvin, The Sibs (Colin Keith Gray & Megan Raney Aarons); Betsy Hart; Guy Jacobson and Adi Ezroni. The film is directed by RedLight Children Founder Guy Jacobson and Ezroni, both of whom won the U.S. State Department’s prestigious Global Hero Award for their work in Cambodia.

Child trafficking in Cambodia: Trial and tribulation

Excerpt from "The Limits of Seeing"

February 24, 2010
An Interview with Photojournalist Tim Freccia
By Lorna Tychostup and photographs by Tim Freccia
Chronogram

My next big story was child trafficking—Cambodia to Thailand—wild stuff. There’s a big casino complex in Poipet—a one horse, dirt road town on the border with a mega-big, modern casino complex. Asians go there to gamble and child trafficking is rampant. I got an amazing hidden identity interview with a Cambodian border official who stated, “Actually my commander’s involved.” Then I got an interview with his commander, on camera, saying, “There’s no trafficking here.”

UNICEF exhibition highlights children's rights

November 6, 2009
ABC Radio Australia

It's 20 years since UNICEF opened up the Convention on the Rights of the Child for countries to sign.

And ahead of the anniversary in nine days time, an exhibition has opened in New York showcasing some of the issues surrounding children's rights.

Presenter: Richard Ewart
Speakers: Guy Jacobsen, director, 'Redlight'; Ann M. Veneman, executive director, UNICEF; Anthony Asael, founder, Art in All of Us

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

EWART: Called "Art in All of Us", the exhibition was based around a book that features the art, photography and poetry of children. It also features the film documentary 'Redlight' which turns the spotlight on child trafficking in Cambodia.

SFX: 'Redlight'.

EWART: The film is produced and narrated by the Hollywood actress, Lucy Liu, who is also one of UNICEF's goodwill ambassadors. The director, Guy Jacobsen, says the movie sets out to inspire, by showing how people are overcoming the complex challenges involved in tackling the trafficking problem.

JACOBSEN: It's a very inspirational story. Not of the gloom and doom of how horrible things are, but to the contrary, how incredible people on the ground have been able to make a dent into this problem, even in the most difficult situation.

SFX: 'Redlight'.

EWART: The UNICEF exhibition was opened by the organisation's executive director, Ann M. Veneman. She says film and photography can be a powerful mechanism for exposing practices that might otherwise remain hidden from general public view.

VENEMAN: Photography and film are powerful means of shining a spotlight on the issues that are often left in the dark.

EWART: The founder of Art in All of Us is Anthony Asael. He says the issues affecting children can often be expressed most powerfully by the children themselves, using their own images and their own written words.

ASAEL: Sometimes they fear in some countries to speak out: having a camera or having pencils or using their hands, it's a lot easier for them to express themselves. So it's a very good opportunity that each kid in the world can grab that opportunity to speak out, and give their own opinion and express themselves.

EWART: UNICEF describes Art in All of Us as a powerful tool, bringing together a child's right to self expression, and the power of art as a vehicle for change.

Financial crisis driving child sex tourism

Saturday, September 26, 2009
By Esther Han for PM
ABC Radio Australia

The global financial crisis has hit hard at the non-governmental organisations (NGOs) and child protection agencies that fight child sex crimes in South East Asia.

Funds are running low, and the child sex tourism industry has boomed.

Now a US study has found that sex offenders from Australia are a big part of the problem in Thailand.

A report from the Protection Project at Johns Hopkins University found that sex offenders from Australia topped the list of foreigners involved in child sex tourism in Thailand.

Its executive director, Mohamed Mattar, says the economic downturn means plenty of cheap flights and more children and women living under the poverty line.

"We found that casual tourism and business is part of the problem. So you have a businessman, he goes abroad, and then he would like to have some sex on the side, and he would maybe go for younger boys or girls," he said.

Child sex trafficking may be booming, but donations to NGOs are not.

The Cambodian Children's Painting Project is one of 450 NGOs in Cambodia struggling to survive the global financial crisis, as manager Felix Brooks-Church explains.

"We're an art-based project working with about 100 of these children and our whole focus is to use art as therapy and also as a means to get them off the beach, alternative income and into schools with full sponsorship," he said.

"Our donations have really dropped. We run on a budget of about $3,000 a month and that feeds over 100 kids, schools them. That [has] probably dropped down to $2,000 if not less."

The project has just launched a paintings roadshow in Australia to boost their funds.

"What's remarkable about this piece, and more so the artist, is Sok Piset is 15 years old but he is extremely mentally handicapped, probably learning and acting like a five-year-old," Mr Brooks-Church said.

"But he is able to create these works of art that surpass - as far as abstract and impressionism - surpasses any of the other children."

Cronulla Sharks chairman Damian Irvine was auctioneer at the charity event.

"We should be more charitable in the harshest financial climate, as opposed to cutting back. That is where you must expend all your assets," he said.

Laws

Mohammad Mattar says Australia's law against child sex tourism could be more effective if it is fully implemented.

"The problem is that you're talking about a trans-national crime, you're talking about a distance, you're talking about sex crime, you're talking about a crime that involves children and all these are very complicating factors when you want to prosecute cases of child sex tourism," he said.

But Bernadette McMenamin, the CEO of Child Wise Australia, says the law is not good enough.

She is lobbying the Federal Government to introduce amendments, which include higher penalties for preparatory offences.

"These changes include preparing to travel overseas to sexually abuse a child; so if there is firm evidence, witness, flight tickets. It also includes grooming a child for the purposes of sexual exploitation overseas," she said.

"So we are focusing on the prevention before the sexual acts happen."

Sydney art lover Justine Carter was the winning bidder at the auction, buying Sok Piset's painting for $1,300.

"It is absolutely beautiful and personally I think I got a bargain. Knowing the history and what happened behind it, that money can go to that child and go to that community and it's just absolutely fantastic," she said.

But the extent of the problem is so broad it will take a lot more auctions and many more donations to keep the fight against child sex tourism in Cambodia going.

Child trafficking in Cambodia

Thursday 01 January 2009
By Michaël Sztanke
France 24

Special Report - Caring: humanitarian reports around the world

Caring investigates child trafficking in Cambodia. Despite stricter legislation, the problem is still rampant. On one side are parents who want to foster a child, and on the other, Cambodian parents' poverty which pushes them to sell their own.

Child trafficking, a loose term with negative connotations, is essentially when young offspring are given away to wealthy foreigners in exchange for money.

For lucky adopters, the actual sum is inconsequential. Exhausted after costly and upsetting attempts in their own countries, many gratefully look to smaller, developing nations in their bid to find a child, countries like Cambodia, where widespread poverty forces many locals to consider desperate ways to make ends meet.

Dazzled by the promise of a better life for their loved ones, parents and families readily relinquish control and sign away their offspring. But an increasing number of abuses of the system by rogue adoption agencies has prompted many Western governments to immediately suspend all adoptions of Cambodian children.

In France, the government has only just recently lifted the ban that had been in place for some five years, but French authorities are enforcing stringent tests and vetting on would-be parents.

In Cambodia, there are as yet few laws against the widespread corruption and not enough incentive to make parents stop this tragic practice of selling their children.

In Kampong Speu, a Familiar Tale of Trafficking [... and corruption]

Suon Kanika, VOA Khmer
Original report from Kampong Speu
05 November 2007

SK was a young girl when a 30-year-old woman convinced her to travel out of her home province to look for work. But, after she'd lost her mother's jewelry as payment for the trip, SK was sold into Phnom Penh's sex trade.

SK, who asked that her name not be used, became part of Cambodia's vibrant sex industry, forced to take drugs and "perform services for guests" of a karaoke parlor.

She would take little pink pills and see up to four men each night and only escaped by jumping out a window and calling her father to come and get her.

Now 15, SK is safe at home in Kampong Speu, but her family is filing suit with provincial authorities to bring her abductors to justice and appealing to the government to do more to stop trafficking.

"I lived at that karaoke place for 26 days," SK told VOA Khmer recently. "I was miserable, and I was ashamed. I wanted to commit suicide.... I now think my life has no value, and no future. I think it is my bad karma."

Human trafficking in sex and labor continues to plague Cambodia. SK's story highlights an industry that new laws have so far been able to eradicate. Young girls from the provinces still fall prey to recruiters, who promise legitimate work to the naive and desperate and have little fear of the law.

"We have to solve the issue legally," Kek Galabru, founder of the rights group Licadho, told VOA Khmer. "The perpetrators will have to be charged. When the police, the courts arrest them and then free them, claiming lack of evidence, it is wrong. The perpetrators must be punished according to the law."

Many victims of sex trafficking report similar hopelessness, and they often blame themselves or feel their lives are irreparably damaged. But Kek Galabru said women like SK are victims and must be helped.

"We must not think she did something wrong or has bad karma," she said. "They did something illegal to her and violated her rights."

SK said the owner boasted to clients that she was "new," worth $50 per session.

"I have a request, especially to Prime Minister Hun Sen," SK's father said. "Please help us. If we go to the police, the police just take money and don't work for us. If we go to the court, the court just takes the money and doesn't work for us. When we ask, they say, 'tomorrow,' then 'the day after tomorrow.'"

This had left him feeling hopeless as well, the father said.

"The perpetrators are walking with their hands dangling, complacent, and not afraid at all," he said. "I would like justice for my child, who is a victim, to pay for her compensation and have them punished according to existing law."

SK's lawyer, Heng Poung, said he phoned Kampong Speu's deputy prosecutor, Ou Phat, who claimed charges have been filed with the provincial court.

He expected the sex traffickers to be brought before a judge, Heng Poung said.

The law on human trafficking now says that such perpetrators—anyone who coerces, tricks, or cajoles another person into the sex trade of other forced labor—can face up to 15 years in prison.

Screening of the movie Holly in Long Beach; Q&A with Mu Sochua; Proceeds donated to Women Movement of Cambodia

Click on the poster to zoom in

A screening of the film "Holly" which was shot on location in Cambodia, and depicting child prostitution, will be held at:

Regal Long Beach Stadium
7501 Carson Blvd.
Long Beach, CA 90808
Tel. (562) 429-3321

Date: November 24, 2007
Time: 4:00 PM

The screening will be followed by a Q&A session with Mrs. Mu Sochua, Former Minister of Woman's Affairs of Cambodia and current SRP Deputy Secretary-General.

The proceeds will be donated as a charitable contribution to the Women Movement of Cambodia.

For tickets, contact:

Kanitha Prak (562) 3230-5100
Sovanndy Than (562) 715-9976
Davuth Chhay (562) 256-5102
Chantrea Seng (213) 271-8833
Parasoeur Vann (562) 492-1320

Film Synopsis:

Shot on location in Cambodia, including many scenes in actual brothels in the notorious red light district of Phnom Penh, HOLLY is a captivating, touching and emotional experience.

Patrick (Ron Livingston), an American card shark and dealer of stolen artifacts, has been ‘comfortably numb’ in Cambodia for years, when he encounters Holly (Thuy Nguyen), a 12-year-old Vietnamese girl, in the K11 red light village. The girl has been sold by her impoverished family and smuggled across the border to work as a prostitute.

Holly’s virginity makes her a lucrative prize, and when she is sold to a child trafficker, Patrick embarks on a frantic search through both the beautiful and sordid faces of the country, in an attempt to bring her to safety.

Harsh, yet poetic, this feature forms part of the ‘K-11’ Project, dedicated to raising awareness of the epidemic of child trafficking and the sex slavery trade through several film projects. The film’s producers endured substantial hardships in order to be able to shoot in Cambodia and have also founded the RedLight Children Campaign, which is a worldwide grassroots initiative generating conscious concern and inspiring immediate action against child sexploitation.