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.
The Pink Room is a documentary about the child sex trade in Cambodia and Agape International Mission’s (AIM) part in fighting human trafficking.
I am volunteering with AIM this summer, August 1-15, 2014, in Cambodia. See AIM’s trailer to get a deeper understanding of what’s happening to these children in Cambodia.
If you would like to donate and help send me and my team to Cambodia, please click the below link to learn how:
