When a poor family in Cambodia fell afoul of loan
sharks, the mother asked her youngest daughter
to take a job, but not just any job.
The girl, Kieu, was taken to a hospital and examined
by a doctor, who issued her a "certificate of virginity."
She was then delivered to a hotel, where a man raped
her for two days. Kieu was 12 years old.
"I did not know what the job was," says Kieu, now 14
and living in a safehouse. She says she returned home
from the experience "very heartbroken." But her ordeal
was not over.
After the sale of her virginity, her mother had Kieu taken
to a brothel where, she says, "they held me like I was in
prison." She was kept there for three days, raped by three
to six men a day. When she returned home, her mother sent
her away for stints in two other brothels, including one
400 kilometers away on the Thai border. When she
learned her
400 kilometers away on the Thai border. When she
learned her
mother was planned to sell her again, this time for a
six-month stretch, she realized she needed to flee her home.
"Selling my daughter was heartbreaking, but what can I say?"
says Kieu's mother, Neoung, in an interview with a CNN crew
that travelled to Phnom Penh to hear her story.
Like other local mothers CNN spoke to, she blames poverty
for her decision to sell her daughter, saying a financial crisis
drove her into the clutches of the traffickers who
make their livelihoods preying on Cambodian children.
make their livelihoods preying on Cambodian children.
"It was because of the debt, that's why I had to sell her,"
she says. "I don't know what to do now, because we
cannot move back to the past."
It is this aspect of Cambodia's appalling child sex trade
that Don Brewster, a 59-year-old American resident of
the neighborhood, finds most difficult to countenance.
"I can't imagine what it feels like to have your mother
sell you, to have your mother waiting in the car while
she gets money for you to be raped," he says. "It's not
that she was stolen from her mother -- her mother gave
the keys to the people to rape her."
Brewster, a former pastor, moved from California to
Cambodia with wife Bridget in 2009, after a harrowing
investigative mission trip to the neighborhood where
Kieu grew up -- Svay Pak, the epicenter of child
trafficking in the Southeast Asian nation.
"Svay Pak is known around the world as a place
where pedophiles come to get little girls," says
Brewster, whose organization, Agape International
Missions (AIM), has girls as young as four in its care,
rescued from traffickers and undergoing rehabilitation
in its safe houses.
In recent decades, he says, this impoverished fishing
village – where a daughter's virginity is too often seen
as a valuable asset for the family – has become a
notorious child sex hotspot
"When we came here three years ago and began to live
here, 100% of the kids between 8 and 12 were being
trafficked," says Brewster. The local sex industry sweeps
up both children from the neighborhood -- sold, like Kieu,
by their parents – as well as children trafficked in from
the countryside, or across the border from Vietnam.
"We didn't believe it until we saw vanload after
vanload of kids."
Global center for pedophiles
Weak law enforcement, corruption, grinding
poverty and the fractured social institutions left
by the country's turbulent recent history have
helped earn Cambodia an unwelcome reputation
for child trafficking, say experts.
UNICEF estimates that children account for a third
of the 40,000-100,000 people in the country's sex
industry. Svay Pak, a dusty shantytown on the
outskirts of the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh,
is at the heart of this exploitative trade.
As one of the most disadvantaged neighborhoods
in one of Asia's poorest countries – nearly half the
population lives on less than $2 per day -- the
poverty in the settlement is overwhelming.
The residents are mostly undocumented
Vietnamese migrants, many of whom live in
ramshackle houseboats on the murky Tonle Sap
River, eking out a living farming fish in nets
tethered to their homes.
It's a precarious existence. The river is fickle,
the tarp-covered houseboats fragile. Most families
here scrape by on less than a dollar a day, leaving no
safety net for when things go wrong – such as when
Kieu's father fell seriously ill with tuberculosis, too sick
to maintain the nets that contained their livelihood.
The family fell behind on repayments of a debt.
In desperation, Kieu's mother, Neoung, sold her
virginity to a Cambodian man of "maybe more than
50," who had three children of his own, Kieu says.
The transaction netted the family only $500, more
than the $200 they had initially borrowed but a lot
less than the thousands of dollars they now owed a
loan shark. So Neoung sent her daughter to a brothel
to earn more.
"They told me when the client is there, I have to wear short shorts and a skimpy top,"
says Kieu.
says Kieu.
"But I didn't want to wear them and then
I got blamed." Her clients were Thai and
Cambodian men, who, she says, knew she
was very young. "When they sleep with me,
they feel very happy," she says. "But for me,
I feel very bad." The men who abuse the
children of Svay Pak fit a number of profiles.
They include pedophile sex tourists, who
actively seek out sex with prepubescent
children, and more opportunistic "situational"
offenders, who take advantage of opportunities
in brothels to have sex with adolescents.
Sex tourists tend to hail from affluent countries,
including the West, South Korea, Japan and
China, but research suggests Cambodian
men remain the main exploiters of child
prostitutes in their country.
Mark Capaldi is a senior researcher for
Ecpat International, an organization committed
to combating the sexual exploitation of children.
"In most cases when we talk about child sexual
exploitation, it's taking place within the adult
sex industry," says Capaldi. "We tend to often
hear reports in the media about pedophilia,
exploitation of very young children. But the
majority of sexual exploitation of children is
of adolescents, and that's taking place in
commercial sex venues."
The abusers would often be local, situational
offenders, he says. Research suggests some
of the Asian perpetrators are "virginity seekers,"
for whom health-related beliefs around the
supposedly restorative or protective qualities
of virgins factor into their interest in child sex.
Whatever the profile of the perpetrator, the
abuse they inflict on their victims, both girls
and boys, is horrific. Trafficked children in
Cambodia have been subjected to rape by
multiple offenders, filmed performing sex
acts and left with physical injuries -- not to
mention psychological trauma -- from their
ordeals, according to research.
In recent years, various crackdowns in Svay
Pak have dented the trade, but also pushed it
underground. Today, Brewster says, there are
more than a dozen karaoke bars operating as
brothels along the road to the neighborhood,
where two years ago there was none. Even
today, he estimates a majority of girls in Svay
Park are being trafficked.
Virgins for sale
Kieu's relative, Sephak, who lives nearby,
is another survivor. (CNN is naming the
victims in this case at the request of the
girls themselves, as they want to speak out
against the practice of child sex trafficking.)
Sephak was 13 when she was taken to a
hospital, issued a certificate confirming her
virginity, and delivered to a Chinese man in
a Phnom Penh hotel room. She was returned
after three nights. Sephak says her mother
was paid $800.
"When I had sex with him, I felt empty inside.
I hurt and I felt very weak," she says. "It was
very difficult. I thought about why I was doing
this and why my mom did this to me." After her
return, her mother began pressuring her daughter
to work in a brothel.
Not far away from Sephak's family home,
connected to the shore via a haphazard
walkway of planks that dip beneath the
water with each footfall, is the houseboat
where Toha grew up.
The second of eight children, none of whom
attend school, Toha was sold for sex by her
mother when she was 14. The transaction
followed the same routine: medical certificate,
hotel, rape.
About two weeks after she returned to Svay Pak,
she says, the man who had bought her virginity
began calling, requesting to see her again. Her
mother urged her to go. The pressure drove her
to despair.
"I went to the bathroom and cut my arms.
I cut my wrists because I wanted to kill myself,"
Toha says. A friend broke down the door to
the bathroom and came to her aid.
Mothers as sex traffickers
CNN met with the mothers of Kieu,
Sephak and Toha in Svay Pak to hear
their accounts of why they chose to
expose their daughters to sexual
exploitation. Kieu's mother, Neoung,
had come to Svay Pak from the south
of the country in search of a better life
when Kieu was just a baby. But life in
Svay Pak, she would learn, wasn't easy.
When her husband's tuberculosis
rendered him too sick to properly
maintain the nets on the family's fish
pond, the family took on a $200 loan at
extortionate rates from a loan shark.
It has now ballooned to more than $9,000.
"The debt that my husband and I have is too
big, we can't pay it off," she says. "What can
you do in a situation like this?"
"Virginity selling" was widespread in the
community, and Neoung saw it as a
legitimate option to make some income.
"They think it is normal," she says.
"I told her, 'Kieu, your dad is sick and
can't work… Do you agree to do that
job to contribute to your parents?'"
"I know that I did wrong so I feel regret
about it, but what can I do?" she says.
"We cannot move back to the past."
But she adds she would never do it again.
Sephak's mother, Ann, has a similar story.
Ann moved to Svay Pak when her father
came to work as a fish farmer. She and
her husband have serious health problems.
"We are very poor, so I must work hard,"
she says. "It's still not enough to live by
and we're sick all the time."
The family fell on hard times.
When a storm roared through the region,
their house was badly damaged, their fish
got away, and they could no longer afford to
eat. In crisis, the family took out a loan that
eventually spiraled to about $6000 in debt,
she says.
With money-lenders coming to her home
and threatening her, Ann made the decision
to take up an offer from a woman who
approached her promising big money for
her daughter's virginity.
"I saw other people doing it and I didn't
think it through," she says. "If I knew
then what I know now, I wouldn't do
that to my daughter."
On her houseboat, as squalls of rain
lash the river, Toha's mother Ngao
sits barefoot before the television
taking pride of place in the main living
area, and expresses similar regrets.
On the wall hangs a row of digitally
enhanced portraits of her husband
and eight children. They are dressed
in smart suits and dresses, superimposed
before an array of fantasy backdrops: an
expensive motorcycle, a tropical beach,
an American-style McMansion.
Life with so many children is hard,
she says, so she asked her daughter
to go with the men.
She would not do the same again,
she says, as she now has access
to better support; Agape International
Missions offers interest-free loan
refinancing to get families out of the
debt trap, and factory jobs for rescued
daughters and their mothers.
The news of Ngao's betrayal of her
daughter has drawn mixed responses
from others in the neighborhood, she says.
Some mock her for offering up her daughter,
others sympathize with her plight. Some see
nothing wrong with she did at all.
"Some people say 'It's OK -- just bring your
daughter (to the traffickers) so you can pay
off the debt and feel better,'" says Ngao.
A new future
Not long after her suicide attempt,
Toha was sent to a brothel in southern
Cambodia. She endured more than
20 days there, before she managed
to get access to a phone, and called
a friend. She told the friend to contact
Brewster's group, who arranged for a
raid on the establishment.
Although children can be found in many
brothels across Cambodia -- a 2009
survey of 80 Cambodian commercial
sex premises found three-quarters
offering children for sex – raids to
free them are infrequent.
The country's child protection infrastructure
is weak, with government institutions
riven with corruption. Cambodia's
anti-trafficking law does not even
permit police to conduct undercover
surveillance on suspected traffickers.
General Pol Phie They, the head of
Cambodia's anti-trafficking taskforce
set up in 2007 to address the issue,
says this puts his unit at a disadvantage
against traffickers.
"We are still limited in prosecuting these
violations because first, we lack the
expertise and second, we lack the
technical equipment," he says.
"Sometimes, we see a violation
but we can't collect the evidence
we need to prosecute the offender."
He admits that police corruption in
his country, ranked 160 of 175
countries on Transparency International's
Corruption Perceptions Index, is
hampering efforts to tackle the trade
in Svay Pak. "Police in that area probably
do have connections with the brothel
owners," he concedes.
Brewster believes that corruption
was to blame for nearly thwarting
Toha's rescue. In October 2012,
after Toha's call for help, AIM
formulated plans with another
organization to rescue the teen,
and involved police.
"We get a warrant to shut the place
down," recalls Brewster. "Fifteen minutes
later, Toha calls and says, 'I don't know
what happened, the police just came
with the owner and took us to a new
place. I'm locked inside and don't
know where I am.'"
Fortunately the rescue team were
able to establish Toha's new location,
and she and other victims were freed
and the brothel managers arrested –
although not before the owners fled to
Vietnam.
Toha's testimony against the brothel
managers, however, resulted in their
prosecutions.
Last month, at the Phnom Penh Municipal
Courthouse, husband and wife Heng Vy
and Nguyeng Thi Hong were found guilty
of procuring prostitution and sentenced to
three years in jail. Both were ordered to
pay $1,250 to the court, $5,000 to Toha,
and smaller sums to three other victims.
Brewster was in court to watch the
sentencing; a small victory in the context
of Cambodia's child trafficking problem,
but a victory nonetheless.
"Toha's an amazingly brave girl,"
he says on the courthouse steps,
shortly after the brothel managers
were led down to the cells.
"Getting a telephone when she's
trapped in a brothel to call for help,
to saying she would be a witness in
front of the police…. She stood up
and now people are going to pay
the price and girls will be protected.
What it will do is bring more Tohas,
more girls who are willing to speak,
places shut down, bad guys put away."
Like the other victims, Toha now lives
in an AIM safehouse, attending school
and supporting herself by weaving
bracelets, which are sold in stores
in the West as a way of providing a
livelihood to formerly trafficked children.
In the eyes of the community, having
a job has helped restore to the girls
some of the dignity that was stripped
from them by having been sold into
trafficking, says Brewster.
It has also given them independence
from their families -- and with that,
the opportunity to build for themselves
a better reality than the one that was
thrust on them. Now Sephak has plans
to become a teacher, Kieu a hairdresser.
For her part, Toha still has contact with
her mother – even providing financial
support to the family through her
earnings – but has become self-reliant.
She wants to be a social worker,
she says, helping girls who have
endured the same hell she has.
"(Toha)'s earning a good living and
she has a dream beyond that, you know,
to become a counselor and to be able to
help other girls," says Brewster.
"You see the transformation that's happened to her."
Source: Phnom Penh, Cambodia (CNN)
