traffick Archives - Humanitarian Aid & Relief

This boy walking along the Cambodia border is at risk. The UN estimates 1.2 million children are trafficked annually.

It’s as if the boys and girls were set out to roam on a six-lane highway. Their lives are at risk. Over the last two days I have watched hundreds of children walk around the roads near Cambodia’s border with Thailand. Some sell trinkets to strangers, others just wander through the crowds for hours. Left alone, these children are in great danger of being trafficked to other countries, then becoming laborers or sex slaves.

I am writing this blog entry from Poi Pet, Cambodia, as I visit our humanitarian projects to prevent child trafficking. What I see here around the border is alarming.

Around here, men and women try to convince children to travel with them across the border in hopes of a job that may bring money back to their families. Instead, children trade their childhoods for months or years in misery. According to the UN, as many as 1.2 million children are trafficked every year. That’s more than 3,200 kids every day.

Public school is out of reach for many poor children near Poi Pet. They may not have a ride to school, or they may not be able to afford the required uniform. Without school, the kids do nothing all day. Parents may be at work, or gone entirely. So the children kill time by wandering near the border.

Humanitarian organization World Concern‘s working to stop the trafficking. Our work with a local non-profit agency, Cambodia Hope Organization, brings classrooms to villages.

Our 25 “School on a Mat” classrooms teach children the curriculum recommended by the government. It gives kids a chance a good education and a much better future. Beyond that, we teach children how to spot the lies of traffickers.

Because a lack of income often sparks risky behavior, we’re also giving young people opportunities for jobs. World Concern’s sewing and motorcycle repair programs give people real skills that they can use to find work or begin their own business. A stable family life often leads to better decisions.

So many children here have yet to find direction. They need the opportunity to attend a “School on a Mat” class, or need to learn life skills. I hope people you recognize the danger these children face, and are willing to do something to stop it.

Join World Concern’s “Free Them” 5K fun run to end human trafficking. It’s Saturday, May 7, 2011 at 9:30 am at World Concern’s headquarters in Seattle.

If you can’t attend, forward or re-post this story, and here’s where to give.

World Concern works with Cambodian Hope Organization to provide "School on a Mat," an education and child trafficking prevention class brought to villages.

"School on a Mat" helps villagers know the dangers of child trafficking, while providing children with an education that incudes health, language, science and math. — "School on a Mat" helps villagers know the dangers of child trafficking, while providing children with an education that includes health, language, science and math.

Young men learn how to repair motorbikes in Poi Pet, Cambodia, a border community at risk for Child Trafficking.

Girls learn how to sew in Poi Pet, Cambodia. Child Trafficking prevention must include opportunities for income.

Girls play with each other along the Cambodia/Thailand border, an area popular among those who traffick children.

Humanitarian organization World Concern helps stop human trafficking at the border of Cambodia and Thailand.

She’s 13 years old and badly disfigured. Her eye has been gouged from her face, ripped out with a metal shard by a woman holding her captive in a Cambodian sex trafficking operation. The story of Long Pross is a difficult one to stomach, but as described in a recent New York Times OpEd piece by Nicholas Kristof, it is the kind of story westerners must hear.

It doesn’t matter the gender, and sadly it doesn’t matter the age. Trafficking children for indentured servitude, prostitution or sex slavery is an enormous industry. More than 1 million children are trafficked every year, sometimes for as little as $20. World Concern and partner agency CHO see it all the time at the Poi Pet border crossing between Cambodia and Thailand. The photos that you see with this story are all from that crossing.

The classic scenario is that predators will approach a poor family in Cambodia, telling children, or even their parents, that they have work for them in Thailand. Once the children say goodbye, they often never return. If they are one of the lucky ones to escape with their lives, they are often dumped in a park just inside the Cambodian border, near the gate.

Humanitarian Organization World Concern works to educate children and families to prevent this from ever happening. We do this with our School on a Mat program. An instructor gathers children in a shady area to hear an urgent message: do not believe the lies of work and opportunity. They learn how the scam works – and how to say no. Separate from that, we offer children a chance to learn and find opportunities in legitimate business. Some children learn how to sew; other teen-agers may learn how to repair motorcycle engines. We offer real, sustainable solutions, far from the horrors of trafficking.

Young men learn how to repair motorcycles as part of the World Concern program to stop human trafficking.

My background is as a reporter in broadcast news. I have covered dozens and dozens of murders. After a while, even the awful seems to run together with the basic statistics of the story; how many bullets were fired, the status of the investigation, the time of the crime.

But I recall a situation where a news director specifically wanted to reveal graphic details in the heartbreaking murder of a young woman killed in a nightclub. I will always remember this case. The teenage girl went into an all-ages show at a nightclub, but no one remembered her coming out. There was a massive search across the city. She was only found days later buried in debris inside a storage closet. The accused murderer had a history of aggression and sexual deviance. All of this and more came out in the police investigation, and a great deal of it actually made air.

The news director’s rationale for disclosing these details: to cause outrage. To let the community know that this crime is something out of the ordinary, something heinous, something to not forget. And as I followed the criminal case of the sex offending murderer, I believe he was held accountable because the community knew the gravity of the crime.

This is why child trafficking stories like that of Long Pross need to be told. Life really can be horrible for vulnerable people like her. Though these stories may be difficult to hear, those of us with resources can and should act to protect the innocent.

Learn more about how World Concern protects children.

Teach one child how to be safe from trafficking for $35.