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Cambodia is a little known country to most Americans. It’s beautiful, lush nation in Southeast Asia, filled with ancient culture and deep history. If you read our blog much, you also know that it’s a hotbed of trafficking and that our partner organization, Hagar International, works there. Over the next several weeks leading up to RESTORE, we’ll be taking a closer look at Cambodia, examining its present problems, its history, and the hope that’s growing there. We’ll also hear from several people who’ve visited or work fighting trafficking there. The immense problems of the past and present can be overwhelming, but as we take a closer look, we’ll see reason for hope—and ways that everyday abolitionists can change the course of Cambodia’s history.

To begin, here’s some of what the Trafficking In Persons Report from this year has to say about Cambodia.

• • It’s a destination for trafficked people and people are trafficked from Cambodia to other places.
• • “In 2010, licensed Cambodian labor recruitment agencies trained and sent 16,395 workers to Malaysia, of which 11,918 were females trained as domestic workers. This was an increase from 9,982 Cambodians who migrated to Malaysia in 2009, and 2,654 in 2008. Some Cambodian migrants become victims of labor trafficking when they pursue what they believe to be legitimate employment opportunities abroad, but are then forced or coerced to work through debt bondage.”
• • Traffickers use labor contracts to set up insurmountable debts that trap workers. “Some workers do not understand their obligations or cannot read the contracts, which note $800 to $1,200 in placement and processing fees deducted from the worker’s expected wages in destination countries, amounting to four months’ to one year’s wages. Other workers agree to the terms because, even with the risk and required salary deductions, they see no other viable opportunities to pull themselves out of poverty. Workers are sometimes not given copies of their employment contracts, and typically have their passports confiscated. Recruitment agencies also reportedly engaged in the falsification of legal identification and age verification documents to allow for the illegal recruitment of children.”
• • “Within the country, Cambodian and ethnic Vietnamese women and children are trafficked from rural areas to Phnom Penh, Siem Reap, Poipet, Koh Kong, Sihanoukville, and Svay Pak for commercial sexual exploitation. Some large entertainment establishments each may exploit between 100-200 women and children on premises on a given night. In an effort to evade prosecution, many of these establishments have stopped offering sex on premises in favor of having customers pay to take the women and girls off-site. … Children are also subjected to forced labor, including being forced to beg, scavenge refuse, work in quarries, as domestic servants, or in the production and processing of bricks, rubber, salt, and shrimp.”
• • It’s ranked as a Tier 2 country, which means, “The Government of Cambodia does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so.”

In many ways, Cambodia is much like many countries struggling in the grips of the culture of trafficking: high poverty rates, limited education, and located near countries with similar problems. HumanTrafficking.org points out a unique challenge for Cambodia: “With well over half the population below the age of 20, Cambodia faces a growing problem of providing decent work for its young population, further increasing the drive toward cross-border migration for employment, and perpetuating the cycle of vulnerability to human trafficking.”

Cambodia also has a devastating scar in its history that has created a culture ripe for exploitation. Next week, we’ll look at the Khmer Rouge, the bloody regime led by Pol Pot that ruled Cambodia in the 1970s, and how the country is still reeling from the damage Pol Pot’s vision caused.

Stay tuned for more about Cambodia, Hagar International, and RESTORE.

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