Trafficking in Cambodia

Many of those who fell into the trafficking trap are women from rural villages jumping into a promised better income and brighter prospects only to find that they have been sold and forced to marry "wealthy men" and subjected to domestic servitude.

We are proud to be in partnership with Ratanak International. In the past two years, Mother's Heart and Ratanak International worked together to support women who have survived trafficking and helped them get back on their feet again.

*** The Trafficking Journey - Setting the Perfect Trap

Each year, in Cambodia, thousands of young women and men are trafficked and exploited. How does this happen?

When we talk to the trafficking survivors in our programs, the trafficking journey they describe often begins with meeting a trafficking broker. Sometimes this is a stranger, sometimes it is a village member, neighbour or even a family member that has been recruited into finding young men and women for labour, marriages abroad or sexual exploitation. Some brokers might not even fully understand what will happen to the young men or women they convince.

Trafficking brokers typically approach vulnerable Cambodians who are living in severe poverty, struggling with debt or family illness with few other options to remedy their economic situations. Brokers offer high paying "opportunities" for work abroad or in the city, or share of idyllic marriages with "kind, wealthy and generous men" in foreign countries that will support families back in Cambodia. Doesn't sound so bad, does it?The trap is set. Read more about Ratanak International's work and advocacy here.