Shocking Sex Trade Scandals in Cambodia

Cambodia: The Sex Trade Industry 

• ·         Cambodia acts as a transit destination for victims being shipped from Vietnam and China. A total of 80% of these victims are Vietnamese women and children.
• ·         Cambodia ships its victims to Thailand, Malaysia, Macao, and Taiwan.  Some of these victims are men who are forced to become labor slaves.
• ·         76% of the victims returning from Thailand were exploited by their own families, 47% of them claim their own mothers arranged the trafficking.
• ·         Cambodia is also a holding area for victims from Vietnam on their way to Thailand.
• ·         ECPAT Cambodia reports that 1/3 of the forced prostitutes are children.
• ·         Many of the victims are led to believe they will be working as house servants, and are then forced to prostitute themselves.
• ·         Government organizations in Cambodia have concluded that a contributing factor to the sex trafficking epidemic is the economy. Over half of Cambodia’s population is under the age of 20 making jobs difficult to provide.
• ·         The Cambodian Government was placed in the Tier 2 Watch List in 2007 U.S. Department of State’s Trafficking in Persons Report because they made no efforts to fight or prevent sex trafficking since the year 2005.
• ·         Law enforcement and government officials have also accepted bribes to ensure that the trafficking can continue.
• ·         In the year 2006 65 people were arrested and only 53 were convicted with sentencing ranging from 5-24 years.
• ·         The Deputy Director of the Police Anti-Human Trafficking was convicted for complicity in trafficking and only sentenced 5 years in prison.
• ·         Cambodia only has 2 temporary shelters for victims.

Most of these facts are shocking to say the least, but they are also infuriating to hear. It seems to me like there can never be an end to this vicious circle of the sex trading industry when government official are working to facilitate these injustices. There is currently no legislation strict or definitive enough to end or prevent sex trafficking in Cambodia. There are also only 2 shelters in the entire country, that’s not nearly enough for the thousands of victims each year. Another huge flaw in the attempt to end sex trafficking lies in the prosecution process itself. The penalty for those prosecuted is practically laughable and therefore not intimidating or threatening to anyone who is at risk for getting caught.