No turning back for virgin trade victims

A 16-year-old Cambodian girl hiding behind shutters, cautiously peers out into the streets of Phnom Penh from her hiding place after being rescued from a brothel were she was forced to work. The girl who wants to keep her identity unknown, was forced to have sex with male clients before she was plucked from the trafficking racket. Photograph: AFP/Rob Elliott

Thursday, 13 September 2012
Claire Knox
The Phnom Penh Post

Victims of Cambodia’s virgin trade often face extended exploitation as they turn to prostitution and isolate themselves from their home communities, anti-exploitation groups said, calling for increased education and a shift in mentality toward the trade.

Nget Thy, executive director for the Cambodian Center for the Protection of Children’s Rights, told the Post sexually exploited virgins were “incredibly challenging” for NGOs to rehabilitate.

“Brokers have an ideal market – they know many men want to do this, and that the families are so poor they can often be talked into it … we’ve had girls as young as 13 in these situations.”

Girls who had originally been sold as virgins by their families would be later taken in by local authorities or NGOs after they had turned to a life of prostitution, Thy said.

The slaves who serve us

A young school girl walks past a wall in Battambang, Cambodia. Schools across the country, with the help of NGOs including World Vision, have put education on trafficking and child labour as part of the curriculum. (THANE BURNETT/QMI Agency)

Human trafficking of the young on the Cambodia-Thai border

June 9, 2012
By Thane Burnett, QMI Agency

BATTAMBANG, Cambodia - There is a certain cost to business.

There are hidden bills to pay for the vast supply lines that build the factories and produce the goods that move beyond the reach of the local workers. Those are shipped around the world so we might walk into a store, pick that needful thing up in our hands while casually wondering 'Is it worth it?'

In this case, the expenditure was Chorvorn's arm.

Torn off, right up to her small shoulder.

More than a week ago now, the 14-year-old girl, working in a Cambodian brick factory caught her arm in the wheel on a machine that pounds clay into building blocks.

This, after workers -- many of them as young or younger than Chorvorn -- spent days stomping the mud with bare feet. Bricks are the foundation of development, and go into building the factories that lead to mountains of T-shirts and pants sold in trendy stores in Canada, and the shrimp in our frozen foods.

But there are very fragile points along the supply chain.

Our love of cheap products continues to fuel underground child labour

10 June 2012
By Thane Burnett, QMI Agency

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Though the Canadian government has announced a national strategy to fight the last frontiers of slavery, the road ahead is bitterly long and backbreaking.

As the Action Plan to Combat Human Trafficking was unveiled this week, the sad reality is it comes at a time when the numbers of people enslaved on Earth has likely never been higher.

In countries around the world, women are trafficking women, children are being sold from one hand to other for sex, the weakest members of society are tricked into forced labour for the promise of a better tomorrow, those without a voice are exploited as domestic servants and, don't kid yourself, the borders of Canada have not been a barrier to the exploitation of the desperate.

A disturbing number of trafficking victims are kids -- about 1.2 million youngsters out of an estimate of 2.4 million people worldwide -- though in some corners, including in parts of Africa and the Mekong region, children are the majority. The damage goes beyond even child soldiers and sex tourism, to become as commonplace as the domestic help working right next door.

"It's heartbreaking," says Manith Chea, the manager of a Cambodian government transit centre that tends to migrants being returned from nearby Thailand, "to see entire families lured by brokers ... where adults are told if you don't work, they would cut off parts of the body of the children."

Sex work in Cambodia

Erotic massage sex worker Keo Tha and transgender MSM Sam Sela (right) are two of five officials at Cambodia's Women's Network for Unity, the sex workers union. (Paula Stromberg)

WNU Assistant Ly Pisey explains the harmful impact of Cambodia's Suppression of Human Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation laws on sex workers to NGO Journalist Paula Stromberg in Phnom Penh. (Caffyn Kelley)

Moneybox for members' emergencies: WNU sex workers union advocates for legal and human rights, access to health care, and safer working conditions. They receive member contributions and donor funding to support emergency health services. (Paula Stromberg)

INTERNATIONAL / Group struggle for legal distinction between human trafficking and sex work

Paula Stromberg / National / Monday, March 05, 2012

Having the right to a career path like anyone else seems a small thing to ask. In Phnom Penh however, transgendered sex worker Sam Sela from Women’s Network for Unity (WNU), the 6400-member sex workers union in Cambodia, has been rejected for jobs even in low wage restaurants and garment factories.

Being instantly recognizable as transgender means she is denied work even in this ‘live and let live’ Buddhist society advertised in tourist brochures as gay and lesbian friendly. Sela explains, “I joined the WNU union because I faced so much discrimination from my family, friends and society that I could not get regular work.”

As well as transgender and male sex workers, WNU is made up of women who work in hostess bars, karaoke clubs, or massage parlours and do freelance sex work. The union has 5000 members in the capital Phnom Penh and another 1400 throughout the country.

In Cambodia, the 2008 Law on the Suppression of Human Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation and the severe stigma attached to doing adult sex work make it almost impossible for sex workers to access justice, healthcare, and social security systems. In response, WNU advocates for legal and human rights, as well as safer working conditions including condom use.

US department defends human trafficking report

April 15, 2011
ABC Radio Australia

CDEBACA: One of the problems that we have in the entire region, whether it's in Cambodia or in other countries is that the good work of police forces, prosecutors, national coordinators who work with the non-government organisations to come up with ways to attack human trafficking are then undercut by official corruption. We have a high ranking police official who owns the bar where the women are being held as slaves, when you have a government official who owns the plantation where the people are being made to cut down the palm oil and things like that. It totally undercuts what we're trying to accomplish, so not just in Cambodia, but in other areas of the region we see corruption as being an anchor that drags behind the effort.

Each year the US State Department puts out a report detailing the human trafficking situation around the world and grading countries on how well they are addressing the problem.

The report separates nations into categories or tiers, and the rankings can cause diplomatic friction. For example Singapore was furious last year when it was placed on the Tier Two Watch List for countries that don't meet the standards of a US law, the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, and are not doing enough in the eyes of the State Department to reform.

US Senator Jim Webb has recently criticised the rankings, saying the method for compiling it lacked clarity and that it caused "confusion and resentment" among Asian nations. Tier One lists countries that meet the standards of US legislation called the Trafficking Victims Protection Act. Tier Two is for countries that don't meet the US standards but are trying. The Tier Two Watch List is for those that aren't considered to be trying hard enough. In Asia that includes Bangladesh, China, India, the Philippines and Sri Lanka plus newcomers Afghanistan, Brunei, Laos, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam. And Tier Three, the worst perfomers on combating human trafficking, includes Papua New Guinea, North Korea and Burma.

Presenter: Liam Cochrane

Speaker: Luis CdeBaca, Ambassador-at-Large, State Department's Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking In Persons

CDEBACA: Well the United States has been issuing the anti-trafficking report now for ten years, the passage of how anti-trafficking law in the year 2000. Our anti-trafficking law passed about a month before the United Nations acted in Palermo in the modern updating of the slavery conventions and what that did was it focused not on the movement of people around the world, but rather on the slavery and exploitation. And so the United States rather than waiting for the United Nations or any other multilateral organisations to an assessment or an evaluation, again 200 taken evaluation. It guides our diplomacy, it guides our programs and it guides the training and technical assistance that we're able to give countries around the world to fight modern slavery.

COCHRANE: And that diplomacy is ruffled at times with the release of the report and the various tiers of the list. Do you think that the trafficking report should be balanced against wider diplomatic sensitivities?

Former sex slave speaks

Monday, March 28, 2011
By Kelsey Wells
Staff Writer

A person's past does not necessarily determine their future, Cambodian human rights activist Somaly Mam said in a lecture Friday afternoon in the State Farm Room of the Business and Aerospace Building.

As the keynote speaker for the annual Global Discourses in Women's and Gender Studies conference, Mam discussed how she spent much of her early life as a sex slave but has dedicated the rest of it to helping others escape the abuse and illness she grew up with.

Mam said she was sold in slavery when she was a young teenager by a man posing as her grandfather. Even today, she said she does not know exactly how old she is or who her parents were. She also does not know her real name.

Her owner forced her to live in a snake and scorpion infested brothel with other young slaves, she said.

Bi-partisan US Congress Resolution 820 Condemning the pervasive corruption of the Kingdom of Cambodia

Left to right: Rep. Ed Royce (R-California), Rep. Frank Wolf (R-Virginia), Rep. Jim Moran (D-Virginia), Rep. Joseph Cao (R-Louisiana)

Click here for the original Resolution (PDF)

[Congressional Bills 111th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office]
[H. Res. 820 Introduced in House (IH)]

111th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. RES. 820

Condemning the pervasive corruption of the Kingdom of Cambodia.

________________


IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

October 8, 2009

Mr. Royce (for himself, Mr. Wolf, Mr. Moran of Virginia, and Mr. Cao)
submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on Foreign Affairs

________________

RESOLUTION

Condemning the pervasive corruption of the Kingdom of Cambodia.

Whereas the Government of the Kingdom of Cambodia temploys threatening tactics, including the murder of opposition candidates, to curb political dissent;

Whereas according to Human Rights Watch, Khim Sambo, a reporter for Moneaksekar Khmer, a newspaper affiliated with the opposition Sam Rainsy Party, was shot and killed and his son was fired upon numerous times in a drive by shooting in central Phnom Penh on July 11, 2008;

Whereas according to Human Rights Watch, ``this killing appears to be intended to send a message not to engage in opposition politics'';

Whereas the Cambodian judicial system is fraught with corruption and is used as a tool by the ruling party to silence opposition;

Whereas Freedom House has consistently rated Cambodia as ``Not Free'', in its rankings of world freedom;

Whereas according to the NGO Global Witness, ``Cambodia is run by a kleptocratic elite that generates much of its wealth via the seizure of public assets, particularly natural resources'';

Whereas, Yash Ghai, Special Representative of the United Nations Secretary-General on Human Rights in Cambodia issued the following statement to the United Nations Human Rights Council, ``One does not need expertise in human rights to recognize that many policies of the government have subverted the essential principles of democracy and due process, deprived people of their economic resources and means of livelihood, and denied them their dignity'';

Whereas Parliamentarian Mu Sochua, a member of the opposition Sam Rainsy Party, was stripped of her parliamentary immunity and given a criminal conviction for openly criticizing Prime Minister Hun Sen;

Whereas Ms. Sochua testified before the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission on September 10, 2009, ``I am one of thousands of innocent journalists, trade union leaders, teachers, and villagers who are tried by a judicial system that is well know for corruption, for incompetence and for acting under the control of the government and those who have political influence and money'';

Whereas the Cambodian Government is often complicit in the sex trade industry and endemic corruption has exacerbated the problem of human trafficking;

Whereas according to the U.S. Department of State 2009 Trafficking in Persons Report, ``Corruption is pervasive in Cambodia and it is widely believed that many individuals, including police and judicial officials, are both directly and indirectly involved in trafficking''; and

Whereas local police and governmental officials commonly accept bribes and extort money to allow brothels to stay in business: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the House of Representatives--

1. condemns the repression of opposition candidates by the ruling Cambodian People's Party in Cambodia; and
2. calls on the Government of the Kingdom of Cambodia and international organizations to take concrete steps to combat the worsening problem of human trafficking in Cambodia.

The child sex trade in Cambodia

Wednesday, September 2, 2009
By Cassandra Clifford
ForeignPolicyBlogs.com

Children around the world are forced into the sex trade, very often by their own families, mislead by promises of economic opportunity or pushed by desperation. The commercial sex industry is fueled by poverty, but driven by demand and while the issue of poverty must be addressed, so must the those who prey on women and children such as through the sex tourism industry.

One of the many countries ravished by sex trafficking is Cambodia. Organizations such , as UNICEF, ECPAT and Save the Children, estimate that there are anywhere from from 50,000 to 100,000 women and girls in the sex trade in Cambodia. Of those in the commercial sex industry in the country many are children, some as young as only a few years old. According to the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) “the majority (52.2%) of female sex trafficking survivors identified were under the age of 17 at the time of trafficking”.

As the global recession continues, children are increasingly vulnerable to sex trafficking. In Phnom Penh, which has about a quarter of the countries sex industry, children who are begging and peddling are increasingly at risk. Many children roam around the city’s Riverside were pedophiles and human traffickers are also known to prey on their innocence.

Little girls who should be giggling and playing with dolls are offering sex in child like terms with happy smiles, “yum-yum, boom-boom”. The normality of it all what is more shocking as children, some as young as four or six, who know nothing other than a life of sex and exploitation. A child who knows more about sex than toys, who think that grown men everywhere desire little girls as their play things…this is the sad reality that is life for many children in Cambodia and across the globe.

In February 2008 the Cambodian government enacted a “Law on Suppression of Human Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation”, which was done mostly after years of pressure from the United States. One such form of pressure coming from the US was the country’s low ratings on the State Departments notorious TIP Report, the 2009 Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report, placed Cambodia on the Tier 2 Watch List. Following the country’s first step to use legal means to impact and deter trafficking, they imposed ban on foreign marriages, in March 2008. The ban was enacted largely in response to a sharp increase in marriages between South Korean men and poor Cambodian women, many who were not destined to newly wedded bliss, but a life forced into sexual slavery. Since the law was enacted Cambodian authorities have conducted numerous raids and cracked down on street prostitution, however the crack down according to many non-profits, has done little to help the actual situation, let alone the victims.

For more eye opening incite into the Cambodian sex trade and those whom it takes as its victims in its unrelenting path, see the video above.

Women and girls are not the only victims of trafficking and slavery in Cambodia, nor is the sex industry the only exploitative industry the country has to a great deal of work to do in order to combat. One such area is labor, such as seen in the recent SIREN case analysis: Cambodian men and boys exploited on long-haul fishing boats, English PDF