BREAKING GROUND IN THE FIGHT

AGAINST TRAFFICKING IN WOMEN

AND CHILDREN
By OUNG CHANTOL
2001 Ramon Magsaysay Awardee for Emergent Leadership
Presented at the 43rd Ramon Magsaysay Awards Lecture Series
28 August 2001, Manila, Philippines

Ladies and Gentlemen!

I would like to deeply thank the Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation
for giving me the opportunity to be here to present my paper Breaking
Ground in the Fight Against Sex Trafficking. This gathering shows the
great cooperation of government and civil society in tackling the issue of
trafficking in women and children for the well being of all. It is a great
honor for me to exchange experiences and to learn from the groups
gathered here today.
My presentation will consist of three (3) parts: 1) A brief introduction of
trafficking in Cambodia, 2) Cambodian Womens Crisis Centers efforts
in countering the issue, and 3) Concluding recommendations which the
government and civil society might find of use in addressing the issues.
I. BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO TRAFFICKING IN CAMBODIA
One of the most pervasive and severe forms of violence against women
and girls in Cambodia is sex trafficking. The Cambodian Womens Crisis
Centers (CWCC) clients who have escaped from Cambodian brothels
relate harrowing tales of trafficking across the country and borders,
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abductions, deceptions, severe abuse and slave-like conditions. Their

courageous stories are tragic, and the epidemic scale on which these
stories are repeated daily, in Cambodia and around the globe, not only
demands attention but immediate action.
A. Women and children are trafficked from rural areas and
Vietnam into cities for prostitution
According to the Cambodian Womens Development Associations
(CWDA) findings, there are approximately 50,000-55,000 prostitutes in
Cambodia. The Cambodian Commission on Human Rights and Reception
of Complaints of the National Assembly estimates that there are over
14,000 women and children working as prostitutes in brothels, bars,
massage parlors, private rented accommodation and hotels in Phnom Penh
alone. Around 40% of prostitutes are Vietnamese and 35% are under the
age of 18 years old.
The Cambodian Womens Crisis Centers statistics from its client base
show that the majority of prostitutes, 64.5%, were forced into prostitution.
The remainder volunteered due to poverty. Among those forced into
prostitution, 53% were deceived through the offer of a high-paying job;
11% were sold by parents, relatives, or friends; and 0.6% were abducted.
These women and children were deceived by the offer of jobs as garment
factory workers, domestic helpers, or invitations to visit the city. Most
parents sold their children for debt bondage, which was usually to pay for
medical bills or food for the family. After being sold, they were usually
convinced to dress nicely to serve clients. If they resisted, they were
locked or confined in rooms, threatened, beaten, denied food, and
subjected to electric shocks until they agreed to service clients. The
brothel owners took all the income. The women and children received
only food and make-up. Most brothels were supported or owned by armed
men. This made it more difficult for the authorities to intervene.

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The working hours were grueling, brothels are open twenty-four hours a
day and the women and children usually worked from 9:00 am to 3:00
am. The average number of clients each day was to 3 to 4; however, some
attractive sex workers reported up to 20 clients a day.
In addition to the severe abuse endured from the brother clients, many of
the women and children interviewed stated that the brothel owner
repeatedly raped them. They described this aspect of the abuse as the most
degrading, because they were forced to live the abuser. Often, the woman
or child would finish her exhausting day of work only to be awakened by
the owner, relatives of the owner or a guard, climbing on top of her.
Around 90% of the clients are Cambodian. Some customers refuse to use
condoms, which potentially leads to the perpetuation of unsafe abortions,
and leads directly to the spread of STDs and HIV/AIDS. Approximately,
70,000-80,000 families in Cambodia currently have a family member who
is HIV+, according to a survey conducted by the National Committee
Against HIV/AIDS.
B. Women and children are trafficked to Thailand
Thousands of other Cambodian women and children are trafficked to
Thailand, Malaysia, and Taiwan to work in slave-like conditions as
prostitutes, beggars, servants, domestic workers, and other forms of
forced labor. Traffickers convince their prey that they can go to Thailand
make a lot of money. For this privilege, they must pay the trafficker
between $100-$200 for a guide and transportation to Bangkok. In order to
come up with this amount, the person will sell their rice fields, their land
and their property. However, if they are later caught and deported back to
Cambodia by the Thai authorities, they have nothing to return to, and
some of them join the ranks of Cambodias homeless. According to a 2001
report from the Cambodian Immigration Office, an estimated 1650
Cambodians were deported monthly from Thailand, after they were
rescued from such working places.
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C. Causes of Trafficking in Women and Children

A number of factors common to all the countries of the region can be
summarized as contributing to this phenomenon and its increase,
including:
1) Family violence or breakdown. Children see no other option but
to run away from home and are then trapped or deceived by
traffickers.
2) Lack of information in communities. As mentioned, 53% of
trafficked girls were deceived by the offer of a job, and were then
sold into prostitution once they had left the safety net of their
communities.
3) Poverty and privatization of state services. Social indicators
rank Cambodia among one of the poorest countries in the world,
ranking 156 out of 174 countries in 1996. The gross national product
(GNP) was $276 in 1999. The GNP growth rate held at a steady 7%
before the political crisis in July 1997. Since then, it has dropped to
less than 3%, although we have witnessed improvements since
1999. Approximately 40% of Cambodians live beneath the poverty
line and can seldom access free medial care or any form of social
security. The 1999 national budget allocation for the Ministry of
Womens and Veterans Affairs was 0.095%.
One out of every four households is headed by women. Families
headed by widows are reported to be the poorest members of rural
communities, according to the 1995 Asian Development Bank
Report.
4) The belief that It is O.K. for men to have sex during
marriage with women other than their wives. This encourages
men to have sex with prostitutes, which in turn leads to a high

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demand. The traffickers and brothel owners who benefit from this
exploitation use any means to trap women and children to supply
this demand. A double standard then exists, as a woman is required
to keep her virginity before marriage; if she does not do so, then she
is condemned by the society. Therefore, women are not potential
customers from the demand side of prostitution, and men are not
usually trafficked to work as prostitutes.
5) Tourism. The increase in tourism to Cambodia and its
reputation for impunity for customers has also contributed to the
rise in trafficking. Seim Reap and Phnom Penh are seeing rising
numbers of sex tourists, further fueling the demand for women and
girls.
6) Trafficked women and children remain unprotected because
of a lack of participation from law enforcement officers and
corruption. Perpetrators are rarely accountable for the crimes they
have committed. Thousands of women are trafficked for the
purpose of prostitution, and yet less than one hundred perpetrators
have been prosecuted. This means perpetrators feel free to go
about their business unimpeded by legal action.
II. THE CAMBODIAN WOMENS CRISIS CENTERS EFFORTS
AND CHALLENGES IN COUNTERING TRAFFICKING IN
WOMEN AND CHILDREN
In response to the seriousness of the issue and lack of services, the
Cambodian Womens Crisis Center (CWCC) was founded in Phnom Penh
in March 1997 with initial funds from TDH Germany and Netherlands. It
aims to eliminate violence against women for the sake of equality, peace,
development and happiness for all. Currently, CWCC has three regional
offices and 3 shelters with 52 full time-staff and almost 200 volunteers.
This has grown from five staff and only one office at its founding.

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CWCC has the following programs:

A. Monitoring and rescuing trafficked women and children
Staff usually receive information concerning trafficking through people
coming directly to CWCC, telephone contact, Icom, radio, newspapers,
NGO partners, CWCCs community-based network, police and motor
taxi-drivers. CWCC does not wait for victims to come to our office. Every
time we hear about a case, our monitoring staff go to the place of the
incident and seeks information.
As soon as information is received, we act immediately. If the case is an
emergency and the victim needs to be rescued, we contact police,
competent authorities or/and NGO partners to act as soon as possible. If
the victims are injured, we send them to hospitals or clinics for treatment.
For example, when we receive information that women/girls are confined
in a room and forced to serve the sex trade, we investigate on our own.
But if a rescue is needed, we contact police and prosecutors whom we
have worked with before and trust, to raid the brothel, rescue victims and
arrest the perpetrators for prosecution. We only use the authorities that we
trust we have had a bad experience in contacting local police, who were
paid by the brothel owner, and informed him prior to the raid thus enabling
him to escape before the police arrived.
CWCC also provides a drop-in center, a centrally-located place of firstcontact for women who have been victims of violence, or where citizens
and government officials can report cases of gender-based abuse and
receive counseling and legal consultations. The drop-in center is based in
our office.

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B. Court Advocate and Legal Assistance

CWCCs lawyers provide legal assistance in order to inform women and
girls of their rights and legal options; to make them aware of the costs and
benefits of legal action; to help them with preparing complaints; to
pressure the court for speedy and fair trials; to accompany clients to court;
to ensure verdicts benefiting victims are enforced; to share comments in
reforming legislature; and to work with legal aid associations to create
innovative remedies for victims.
Our work with the judiciary is also improving. A few courts have now
become very helpful after five years of building trust and confidence with
them through friends and personal contacts. Judges and prosecutors have
begun treating women fairly and seriously by holding perpetrators
accountable for the crimes they commit. CWCC advocates are no longer
accused of interfering and disturbing court work.
However, CWCC did encounter a problem we did not have enough
lawyers to represent all our cases, approximately 200 a year. But we took
up this challenge and were successful in convincing the two available
legal aid organizations, which saw their role as only representing the
accused, to represent victims who were trafficked women and girls.
C. Confidential Shelter
The confidential crisis shelter provides women and their children with
safe accommodation and support to foster self-esteem through living in a
positive environment. Services include counseling, medical assistance,
24-hour security, clothing, toiletries, bedding, nutritional meals, social
activities, daily exercise classes, access to vocational training programs,
arts and drama activities, cooking, childrens activities, group educational
sessions, literacy training, hygiene and HIV/AIDS education and followup services.

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D. Vocational, Literacy, Life Skill Training

and Employment Assistance
CWCCs clients in the shelter receive vocational training such as sewing
and silk waiving if they wish. Each year, CWCC provides vocational
training for about 150 clients. CWCC networks with restaurants, factories,
shops and other workplaces to find appropriate employment for clients
after the training so that they can support themselves.
When CWCC helps a client to find employment, we pay their first month
of rent and food. The women usually receive a salary in the amount of
between $40 to $120 a month, which is compared to the average salary of
$20 for a government official. CWCC also makes follow up visits to their
workplaces and houses to continue supporting them emotionally until they
are fully self-confident.
E. Reintegration and Repatriation Program
The reintegration program aims to assist women who have been sexually
trafficked and who wish to return home and reintegrate with their families
and communities and to provide training on sex-trafficking and related
laws to the victims parents, local authorities and communities. We
encourage the villagers to be aware of deceivers who try to lure children
into prostitution. They are typically deceived or abducted and taken from
their home province or country of origin and brought to urban centers and
sold to a brothel. After such traumatic experiences, the victims need
assistance in returning to their place of origin.
This project helps sexually trafficked or exploited women to return to their
homes in Cambodia or repatriate to their country. The reintegration is
tailored to meet the individual needs of the woman, especially regarding
security, and to respect the clients self-determination and confidentiality.

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If appropriate, the reintegration process begins almost immediately. For

example, the client is asked if she wishes her family, friends or relatives
to be informed about her whereabouts. If she does, CWCC begins
contacting individuals in the particular province that can inform the
clients family or friends of her whereabouts. Those individuals that are
emotionally close to the client are encouraged to visit the client at
CWCCs office (the shelter is confidential). CWCC has helped poor
families with travel expenses so that they could visit with their
daughter/relative.
The majority of our clients have good relationships with their families.
Reunions are very moving. Generally, the family has searched for their
daughter for many months and has given up hope of being reunited. Many
families continue to visit the women until she is ready to return home.
These visits often assist the women to dispel their greatest fear that she
will be reviled or rejected by her family and community.
When the woman is ready to return home or to her community, the family
can come to accompany them from the shelter. If they do not have
transportation, reintegration staff or/and a police accompany her to her
hometown. Our staff usually stay in the womans village for three days to
ensure that the woman is not facing any problems with discrimination.
They also spend time with the family to facilitate the reintegration
process, and to make sure that the woman has enough security.
In some cases, the client does not want either her family or the community
to know about what has happened to her. In those cases, the reintegration
staff respect the clients wishes and assist her to maintain her privacy.
A follow-up visit is made after three months of reintegration to monitor
living conditions and, if necessary, to continue providing assistance. The
Ministry of Social Affairs, Labor, Vocational and Youth Rehabilitation
(MOSALVY) also agrees to follow up and continue to assist our clients
in the communities.
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If the client is a foreign woman/girl, CWCC provides translators and

contacts with the womans embassy through the International
Organization for Migration (IOM) for repatriation.
F. Community Organizing to Prevent and Deter Violence against
Women
The Community Organizing program is designed to prevention and deter
violence against women through popular education and intervention from
community volunteers. It aims:
.!

To raise awareness and educate villagers on trafficking

issues, the role of villagers in combating and preventing the issue,
and prosecuting perpetrators.

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To educate and train the police in the same villages about the
law, how to assist a victim with sensitivity, and how to work with
community coalitions.

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To train two selected members of each community in how to

conduct popular education sessions to further organize and educate
villages in the surrounding areas and to assist victims.

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To obtain statistics and uncover new cases of violence

against women from both community coalitions and from CWCCs
strengthened ties to the village police force. CWCCs monthly
follow-up visits to each village play an important role in this
process. CWCC has trained and organized 43 villages to prevent
and deter violence in their communities. These villages in turn can
mobilize the nearby villages, monitoring VAW, contacting local
police, arresting suspects, and assisting/referring the victims to
available services. They contact CWCC only when the women or
girls require legal representation. This is a big improvement from
when the program started, when all victims were referred to CWCC,

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which resulted in over loading of our office and staff. Each year,
since its founding, around 300 police officers and local authorities
have been trained by CWCC on laws about VAW and crisis
intervention. Police officers have now begun intervention by
arresting the abusers and traffickers. Upon rescuing victims, they
send them to our shelter, which is very unusual in Cambodia. There
used to be a time when it took several weeks in order to rescue
trafficked women or children from brothels, even when CWCC
provided all the necessary information to the police with repeated
visits. Most of victims were not assisted. But now, with the new
partnership between the police and CWCC, officers are ready to
help within few days. Last year, the Ministry of Interior created an
Office for Combating Child Trafficking, and this year, a telephone
hot line for victims or sex trafficking. To ensure the sustainable
intervention by communities, CWCCs staff regularly visit the
volunteers and continue to provide technical assistance to them. A
monthly meeting of volunteers is also organized in the CWCC office
to give an opportunity for them to share problems in their
communities and techniques in coping the issues. On-going skills
training, including facilitation, communication, monitoring, basic
counseling, and training methodology are also being provided to
them.
G. Awareness Raising through Mass Media, Drama, and Seminars
Our awareness raising and advocacy efforts include press statements,
publications, TV, radio, and drama to advocate for victims rights. CWCC
coordinates its efforts with local and international human rights advocates
and the government to educate and sensitize all members of the
community, and to help create informed policies and programs for victims
of trafficking.

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For instance, CWCC has published illustrated short stories on trafficking

for distribution to the public during national celebration ceremonies. 13
spots on trafficking have been produced and nationally broadcasted
through TV and radio. The television station charged us a very low price
with the endorsement letter from the Ministry of Women's and Veterans
Affairs and MOSALVY. CWCC coordinated with University of Fine Arts
and UNESCO in presenting a drama to the public. We also organized
workshops and seminars for lawmakers, judges, prosecutor and the other
members of civil society to sensitise them to the issue. We lobbied
political parties to put the issue in their platform of action during the
national electoral campaign.
After several years of great effort in approaching newspapers, TV and
radio to work with us, we are now actively and successfully working
together in disseminating information to the public and policy and
lawmakers. Now, the media and newspapers come to us for information,
rather than CWCC staff approaching them like it was in the beginning. It
is common to see CWCC work reported to the media.
H. Networking and Cooperation
We would not be able to carry out the important work we do without
assistance from the communities. CWCC networks with appropriate
agencies to supply the necessary services to eradicate trafficking. CWCC
has networked with over 150 local and international organizations and
government agencies to set up a referral system, widen the social service
network and develop training programs to build the capacity of service
providers and womens rights monitors and educators. Perhaps, most
importantly, CWCCs community networking allows us to provide our
clients with health care, legal assistance, vocational training and
transportation.

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I. Staff Capacity Building

To ensure sustainability, CWCC is committed to building the capacity of
its staff and staff of other local organizations with similar mandates.
Through capacity building projects, CWCC aims to provide quality
services to our clients and to build a stronger social services network.
III. CONSTRAINTS AND CHALLENGES
In carrying out activities, CWCC encounters obstacles such as threats
from perpetrators, a lack of participation from law enforcement officials,
corruption, and a lack of forensic reports for trials which leads to unfair
trials and the release of perpetrators. In addition, although the woman or
girl may have won the case, it is very difficult to enforce the verdict. The
court, as well as the police/authorities, always complain that they have no
money/means to carry out their activities. If a client has not money to pay
for police, they seldom attempt to enforce a verdict.
Another difficulty is the long delays in legal process. Some cases take
years to come to court, which makes our clients afraid and destroys their
commitment to solving the case through the legal system.
Overstaying in the shelter, where the maximum stay is six months, is also
a challenge. Some clients stay for longer when their case is pending, or
they feel unsafe to return home. Clients are also eager to learn skills as
fast as possible so they have jobs for support their families. But vocational
training often requires a much longer time than they had expected.
Another challenge is the time taken for repatriating women and girls back
to their own country. Often the Embassy does not want the women and
girls, whom they consider as bad persons, to return to the country. Women
and girls of ethnic minority groups have also been denied permission to
return home.

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CONCLUSION
Sex trafficking in women and children, under any and all circumstances,
deserves universal condemnation. It is cruel and inhuman and a violation
of human rights. Migrant women face a great deal of discrimination,
especially migrant women who work as domestic helpers and prostitutes.
There are no laws to protect domestic helpers and prostitutes. Instead,
existing laws penalize prostitutes as social evils for committing a social
evil or unacceptable act.
Immigration Law enforcement results in violation of rights to life,
freedom of movement, and self-determination which are set forth in the
UN convention and covenants. Therefore, all counter measures must be
aimed at protecting and promoting respect for the human rights of
individuals who have been victims of trafficking, including those who
have been subjected to involuntary servitude, forced labor and/or slaverylike practices. Standards must be implemented to protect the rights of
trafficked persons by providing them with effective legal remedies, legal
protection, non-discriminatory treatment, and restitution, compensation
and recovery.
There is also a need to improve the existing social net to upgrade the social
and economic status of women. Many actors such as NGOs,
Governments, and religious bodies can play roles in addressing the issue.
But they must bear in mind that their programs must respect the human
rights of women. Advocacy is greatly needed to change laws and the need
to participate in both public and official forums to address the problem.
We all come to this problem from different contexts and frames of
reference and our approaches may be different, but our overall goal and
objective must and can remain shared among us. It is only by working in
concert that we will be successful in our endeavors.
Thank you for your attention.
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