Foreword
With this third report in a
series of studies on trafficking in women and children in Cambodia, our
institutions try to raise the understanding of reintegration process of victims
of trafficking in Cambodia.
The first two studies conducted
by our institutions, "Trafficking of Cambodian Women and Children to
Thailand" and "Trafficking of Vietnamese Women and Children to
Cambodia", focused predominantly on the recruitment process in order to
find viable options on how to improve the prevention of such deplorable
processes. This third study tackles questions which occur when all preventive
measures have failed and society is confronted with the task of assisting
survivors of the trade in human beings.
It is our conviction that the
phenomenon of trafficking of migrants and more specifically the trafficking of
women and children can only be successfully addressed when different measures
are taken to deal with the various challenges of the trafficking problem:
·further
research in order to advance the understanding of the complex factors involved;
·prevention
and awareness-raising measures;
·capacity-building
activities for government workers and colleagues from NGOs and other support
organizations;
·cooperation
on a policy level leading to formulation of consistent policies and increased
international cooperation;
·economic
support for the poor in order to alleviate poverty, which was identified as one
of the root causes of trafficking (though not the only cause); and lastly
·voluntary
repatriation, rehabilitation and reintegration of victims of trafficking.
Only when all of these measures
are addressed can one hope for an improvement from which both concerned
individuals and societies will benefit. The mostly repressive measures to deal
with the criminal aspects of the trafficking problem are important tools, yet
alone will not change the situation or reduce the risks involved.
The
study was financed by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), World
Vision International (W.V.) and Catholic Relief Services (CRS). It was
implemented by the Center for Advanced Study (CAS) and coordinated by Ms.
Annuska Derks, an anthropologist and United Nations Volunteer seconded to the
CAS.
It is planned to discuss the findings of
this study at a seminar in Phnom Penh in early 1999, in an effort to further
improve the support services for survivors of trafficking in Cambodia.
Phnom Penh, October 15, 1998
Dr. Maria Nenette Motus Dr.
William Collins
Chief of Mission, IOM Phnom Penh Acting President,
CAS
Chapter one
introduction
In past years, increasing attention has been
paid to issues related to the phenomenon of trafficking in Cambodia. Several
reports have been written in order to describe the different purposes of
trafficking, the recruitment processes, and the working and living conditions
of victims of trafficking. Our two former studies
tried to gain more insight into the in-country and cross-border trafficking
processes in Cambodia, as this country is a sending as well as receiving
country. However, so far not much attention has been paid to what happens after
victims leave their trafficked situation.
In this study, the focus is on issues related
to the returning and reintegration of victims of trafficking. This study
strives to contribute to a better understanding of the consequences of
reintegration for women and children who have been trafficked. Furthermore, it
tries to give some insight into the trafficking issue from the point of view of
the social environment from which the trafficked person came and/or into which
the person was reintegrated. Attention is paid to different factors that
contribute to a successful return for victims of trafficking, as well as to
factors that lead some of them back to the situation they had escaped.
Not much information is available about
reintegration processes of victims of trafficking in general, nor of
reintegration processes in Cambodia in particular. Some information about the
processes and consequences of reintegration could be obtained through
counsellors and supervisors of reintegration working in the different
organisations in Cambodia. In order to gain first-hand insight into
reintegration processes, interviews were conducted with victims of trafficking
who were reintegrated, as well as with members of their social environment,
i.e. family, neighbours, village chiefs, religious authorities and others.
Although the research tried to pay attention to reintegration of women and
children who had been trafficked for different purposes, a majority of the
cases had been trafficked for the purpose of commercial sex work. Reintegration
efforts for women and girls who have been trafficked into commercial sex work
are viewed as most problematic by most of the organisations which have focused
on this problem.
The research team consisted of Mrs Lim
Sidedine, Ms Chan Kanha and was led by Ms Annuska Derks. Through the former
studies, the researchers were well-experienced in the field of research on
trafficking, which made it possible to establish the kind of rapport necessary
to elicit the sometimes sensitive information on reintegration of victims of
trafficking from the different informants. The fieldwork for this study started
in May and continued through August, while in the month of July (during the
country's national elections) time was spend in Phnom Penh, processing and
analysing data.
The fieldwork was conducted in and around
Phnom Penh, and in different villages in Prey Veng, Svay Rieng, Kampong Cham
and Battambang. We followed up on cases with which we had become acquainted in
former studies, as well as a lot of other cases of victims of trafficking that
reintegrated with or without assistance. As the study was meant to gather
qualitative data on reintegration of victims of trafficking, information was
gathered mainly through in-depth interviews and, where possible, participant
observation of the social, spiritual and work environment of the victims of trafficking.
Because of the set-up of Cambodian-style houses and village life, it was not
always easy to create a private space where interviews could take place. In
some cases we had to overcome this by placing ourselves out of sight, by taking
an informant away for a walk around the rice fields or, if possible, through
arranging an interview at another time and place, often with help of an
organisation. In other cases the input of visiting neighbours or family members
proved to be a very valuable source of information with regard to their
perceptions on reintegration of victims of trafficking.
Many of the contacts for this study were
established with the help of several organisations, especially Agir pour les
Femmes en Situation Précaire (Afesip), Cambodian Center for the Protection of
Children's Rights (CCPCR), Cambodia Migration and Development Committee (CMDC),
Cambodian Women's Crisis Center (CWCC), Krousar Thmey and World Vision. Their
willingness to share their experiences, doubts and contacts has contributed in
a major way to this study. Moreover, this study could not have been conducted
without the kind cooperation of the reintegrated women and children as well as
members of their social environment, for which we are very grateful. In order
to be able to make the data obtained through these informants available for
analysis, our research team received additional assistance from Ms Kin Tep Moly
and Mrs. Tean Sophorn, who worked on transcription and translation of the
interviews. To conclude, the intellectual and editorial input of Dr. William
Collins has been a great contribution to the finalisation of this report.
Factors, processes and consequences of
reintegration that were identified in the study will be discussed in the next
chapters of this report. In chapter two the different kinds of reintegration
are explained. Distinctions are made between the kinds of victims of
trafficking, the different reintegration environments and the various support
mechanisms available. These are important to keep in mind when trying to
understand the factors that are involved in reintegration of victims of
trafficking. Some of these factors, such as economic situation, health and
religion, are discussed in chapter three. Chapter four elaborates on the social
factors, especially stigmatisation, related to reintegration of victims of
trafficking. Attention is paid to the impact of these and other social factors
on level of the individual, the family, the village and the broader society.
After the conclusion in chapter five, recommendations are made on the basis of
insights that were gained through this study.
Chapter two
Distinctions in reintegration
Before going into the details of reintegration
processes, it is necessary to consider what, in this study, is understood by
the term "reintegration". Reintegration of victims of trafficking is
more than just a geographic movement of a child or woman back home or to any
other selected place. To integrate means to unify, or to put or to incorporate
(parts) together in a whole;
re-integration assumes that this unification or incorporation has to be
renewed. In this study we will take a closer look at women and children who
have been trafficked and who have been re-unified with a former life, a family,
and village, or re-incorporated into a another place in society.
Victims of trafficking were forced, deceived
or bonded to leave their familial and social environment in order to perform
work or services for others. Most have experienced abusive working and living
conditions which they were able to leave by running away, through rescue
operations of police and/or non-governmental organisations (NGOs), because
debts were paid off or by reason of diminishing returns of their work or
service. Sheltering, counselling, training and reintegrating these victims of
trafficking is a time-consuming and difficult undertaking. Several NGOs are
presently working on a case-by-case basis to provide support for the
reunification of women and children with their family or their incorporation
within other social environments. However, considering the extent and
invisibility of the trafficking problem, the capacity of NGOs and the
time-consuming efforts that are necessary for individual reintegration, only a
limited number of the victims of trafficking are returning through these
channels of assisted reintegration. It
is recognised that most victims of trafficking attempt reintegration without
assistance.
A study on the reintegration of victims of
trafficking has to include a broad range of factors and situations. After all,
there are different kinds of victims of trafficking, different environments in
which victims of trafficking are being reintegrated and different support
mechanisms for reintegrating these victims. In order to be able to assess the
issues related to reintegration processes it is helpful to make distinctions
between these different kinds of reintegration.
Victims of Trafficking
The phenomenon of trafficking, as has been
discussed in former studies,
is not limited to one group, sex or ethnicity only. Children, elderly women,
middle-aged men and young women are recruited for different kinds of work and
services within and across national boundaries by means of violence, abuse of
authority, debt bondage, deception or other means of coercion.
Although these different kinds of victims could all be defined as "victims
of trafficking", there are major differences in the kind and degree of
choice the individuals could express before trafficking and, for this study
especially important, upon reintegration. On the one extreme end, there are
women and children who were physically abducted or drugged. On the other
extreme are the calculating persons who consider options of going to Thailand
or working in commercial sex work as legitimate ways of earning a good income.
In between are women and children who have always been considered to be
intellectually weak or to behave in a deviant way and therefore were easy
victims for trafficking, but also women and children who were forced by
circumstances, such as poverty or family situation, and those who were tricked
by recruiters with nice promises of high income. These elements of degree and
kind of choice as well as the purpose of trafficking have a major impact on the
processes and consequences of reintegration.
Commercial sex
workers
The victims of trafficking for the purpose
of commercial sex work are predominantly young women or girls. The nature of
the work they did as well as their age and gender are guiding factors within
the reintegration process. There is a Khmer saying: kom put sroleuw, kom prodeuw srey kouc; don't bend the sroleuw tree,
don't advise a bad woman.
It refers to the uselessness of trying to convert a prostitute into a
"respectable" woman. Prostitutes are as intractable as the sroleuw tree. In relation to this, an
NGO worker distinguished three kinds of commercial sex workers. First there are
women whose nature, saa rociet, it is
to be a commercial sex worker. They have, so to say, essential characteristics
that make them become a commercial sex worker. Second, there are those who are
forced, against their will, to become a commercial sex worker and are therefore
considered to be victims of trafficking. Third, among these trafficked
commercial sex workers, there are those who stay or return into commercial sex
work because they view it as a way to earn money quickly. According to this
NGO-worker, only the second group is willing to change and can be educated
successfully to return to her former life, while the other two groups cannot be
educated to change their profession. Whatever education or counselling these
women receive, they will go back into commercial sex work.
A girl who had been trafficked in commercial
sex work commented on her ability to change and invoked another proverb that
suggests the struggle with common opinion that she faces in attempting
successful transformation and reintegration:
"I know they say skae kantui kwien, wie neuw tae kwien [a dog with a curled up tail
will always have a curl in its tail].
But I have changed. Before I was a bad woman, but now I have arrived home and I
am not like before."
In many cases the women and girls try to
keep the nature of their former work secret from the social environment into
which they were reintegrated, although this is not always easy. Moreover, the
fact that a young woman or girl has left her protective environment for a
certain amount of time makes people suspicious that she had done "such
work". This can make reintegration more complicated, although the impact
of this kind of stigmatisation differs widely between cases and is related to
age, social background, economic situation and personality of the victim.
Beggars
Victims of trafficking for the purpose of
begging vary from (street) children and handicapped people to elderly women. A
common characteristic is, however, their vulnerability and dependency.
Children, handicapped or elderly people are usually not considered to bear
major responsibility for the economic situation at home, although most were
trafficked with the idea that they would come back with considerable funds to
contribute. An elderly woman in Battambang commented:
"Now I want to forget about the bad
things that happened to me. I am sorry that I begged so much money, but they
didn't give me one baht. If they had
given me some, my children could have bought a pair of cows. My house is small
and the roof is leaking. I pity my children, but I could not help them."
As victims of trafficking children as well
as elderly women were not only economically exploited, but they also were
placed out of their (family) environment. Often they suffered similar
experiences, but with regard to the reintegration of children another approach
is used as it is related to issues of child labour, parental care and
education. Their trafficking experiences might have negative consequences for
the child's education, health, physical and social development. In order to attain
a healthy development of the child and to prevent repeated trafficking of the
child, special protection and assistance is required to assure them a
protective environment.
Workers
Abusive recruitment and brokerage practices
for domestic service, construction, factory or other kinds of work affects
various categories of people in Cambodian society. Victims are young and old,
male and female. Even though migration, including illegal and abusive forms of
migration, from rural to urban areas within Cambodia and to neighbouring
countries is becoming a more common feature, the reintegration of migrants does
not get much attention from organisations. Nevertheless, these victims of
trafficking face similar problems during processes of reintegration with regard
to their health or economic situation as well as their social environment
Ethnicity
The ethnicity of victims of trafficking, for
whichever purpose, should not be neglected when trying to understand
reintegration processes. The ethnic background can influence the way individual
victims themselves, as well as their social environment react to reintegration.
Cultural factors as well as settlement patterns and economic activities are
important in reintegration processes.
The research for this survey was conducted
in Cambodia. Therefore, most information was collected from and about Khmer
victims of trafficking. However, some attention was paid to Vietnamese living
in Cambodia, although cases of Vietnamese victims of trafficking that were
reintegrated back to Vietnam could not be assessed. In general it has been
difficult, also for organisations, to follow up on Vietnamese victims of
trafficking who have returned to Vietnam to their families or to government
institutions and we are not aware of any Vietnamese studies which may have been
conducted on the subject. With regard to Vietnamese victims of trafficking with
family living in Cambodia, their specific social and ethnic environment
appeared to play an important role in the reintegration process.
Reintegration Environment
The term reintegration refers to renewed
reunion or incorporation with a social unity. In many cases reintegration into
the family is considered to be most desirable. This means that women or children
are re-unified with the family and will go back to live in the village or town
in which they used to live. As such, this is also a re-unification with
friends, neighbours and other villagers. For many, it has a consoling effect to
be back in the trusting environment in which they have lived before with the
people they have known all their life.
There are, however, many reasons why a
victim of trafficking does not want to be re-united with his or her family or
village. In the case of women or girls who come out of commercial sex work,
some anticipate that the stigmatisation would make their life too difficult
once they returned. An NGO-worker commented:
"The stigmatisation of the society
increases the problem. People back in the village judge victims of trafficking
on the basis of assumptions. They cause them to become isolated from society
and return to their former job. When we ask the victims, they say that if the
people in the village don't accept them, they will go to another place. Their
reputation is too bad to be able to go back home."
In the case where her own family member was
involved in the trafficking of a victim, reintegration in the family might only
increase the chances of becoming victim of trafficking again. Also, parents
might not want to accept the victim back, as their daughter's experience could
put shame on the whole family. Others might have no family to go back to. Those
who are old enough to take care of themselves might decide that village life is
not what they want to go back to. For these women, reintegration means setting
up a new life in a new environment and as such creating a new place for
themselves in society. In this case reintegration means re-incorporation into
respectable social pursuits.
In the case of children, similar problems
can arise with reintegration into the family.
In some cases, the child might not want to go back home, because of problems in
the family or because the child prefers to live on the street. There are also
families who do not want to accept their child back, because they feel it would
cause too many problems. Reintegration is not at all possible when there is no
family to go back to and no extended family willing to take care of the child
or when the family of the child cannot be found. An organisation might also
decide that the family situation is not suitable and therefore an alternative
solution must be sought.
Most important for successful reintegration,
in whichever environment, is that the child or woman has a place - physically,
emotionally and economically - in which risk factors
for repeated trafficking are sufficiently under control. However, considering
the numbers of victims of trafficking returning into their former trafficked
situation, this is not always easily achieved, be it with or without external
support.
Support for Reintegration
Although there are several organisations trying to guide reintegration
processes of victims of trafficking, there remains a majority of victims who
return to their village or reintegrate into a new environment without any
support from outside. These cases are, of course, more difficult to
investigate. In our research we relied heavily on organisations that could
introduce us to cases they have helped reintegrate. However, we also have been able
to follow up on cases where reintegration happened without any support. This
makes it possible to draw comparisons and identify factors that may influence
the success or failure of reintegration processes.
Support for the reintegration of victims of
trafficking differs by the kind of victim as well as by organisation.
Assistance can vary between some financial support for the trip back home for
those who are left at the border after deportation by Thai authorities, to
extensive counselling, skills training, guidance in seeking employment and
re-establishing relations with family and village. In most cases, this
assistance is part of a larger assistance scheme that provides the means,
physically and mentally, to re-enter "society" after a brief stay in
the relatively safe and isolated environment of the shelter in which women and
children could initially "recover" from their trafficking
experiences. Obviously, the purpose of this kind of assistance programme is to
prevent them from becoming again victims of trafficking.
As there are different kinds of victims of
trafficking, support mechanisms have to be adapted to the individual case.
Assistance for children is usually not limited to the children themselves, but
includes the whole family in order to create an environment in which risk
factors for repeated trafficking are reduced.
While children are supported with the necessary means to attend school, parents
of the trafficked child are provided with credit or other means that can help
them earn an income for the family. Before actual reintegration several visits
to the family are made in order to assess the needs and the attitudes of the
family. In some cases local authorities are informed in order to assure
physical and social safety of the returned child. Follow-up visits are made to
make sure money is appropriately spent and children are not again falling
victim to abuse.
Support for victims of trafficking who have
reached an age that allows them to generate their own income is usually
directed at improving their ability to contribute to family income or to become
self-supporting. Therefore skills training, credit provision or sometimes just
a gift of rice or medicine is provided. Preparatory visits, counselling and
follow-up visits are made to assure that factors leading to repeated
trafficking are sufficiently under control. However, organisations do not
always have the funds or time to pay thorough attention to any particular case.
Especially when the person has been integrated in remote areas, regular
follow-up visits and counselling are difficult to maintain.
Support for the reintegration of trafficked
men or elderly women is, at best, limited to some money for the trip home. We
did not find any organisation that provides shelter, counselling or other kind
of support for the reintegration of this group of adult male or elderly victims
of trafficking. This shows that the impact of trafficking on this group of
people or their needs regarding family survival has so far been disregarded by
organisations that work on the issue of trafficking.
Probably most victims of trafficking will
find their way back to their family or to a new environment by themselves. This
is true for workers as well as beggars who have been trafficked to Thailand and
deported by the Thai police, but also for commercial sex workers who have
managed to quit the brothel on their own. Besides, there are victims of
trafficking who have been offered help, but decided to reintegrate on their
own, without any support.
On the other hand, reintegration efforts can
also have opposite effects than intended. A young woman decided to go back into
commercial sex work after she found that the organisation was reluctant to help
her. She recounted:
"They insulted me and said that I was
from a bad family. They said that although I was young, I was romoah.
They said that I would never correct myself and that I would go back to my old
place. I was very angry and I left… I went back to Svay Pak."
This example shows the kind of assumptions a
victim of trafficking for commercial sex faces in society, including in
organisations that aim to assist with reintegration. The example also suggests
the kind of psychological wisdom that must be employed when dealing with these
victims of trafficking.
Other reasons for denying support are
related to the unwillingness of a person to spend too much time learning
skills, being counselled, and staying in the shelter, because the person does
not see the value of this and wants to be with her family as soon as possible
without any interference. Receiving support means also that special attention
is paid to the person and often the family. Not everyone wants this special
attention, as it might give rise to gossip and jealousy among neighbouring
families and could therefore hinder the reintegration process.
The distinctions made between victims of
trafficking, social environment and support mechanisms represent also the three
distinctive perspectives on reintegration. First, there are the individual
victims of trafficking who are reintegrated and have to deal with their
trafficking experiences as well as with other economic, social and
psychological factors. The way these individual victims of trafficking view
their reintegration is often strongly related to the way the second and third
dominant parties view their reintegration. The second party consists of the
social environment into which a victim of trafficking is reintegrated. The
different layers within the social environment, i.e. family, village and society,
also represent different interests and values, which in turn have an impact on
the reintegration process. Third, there is the perspective of the organisations
working on reintegration of victims of trafficking. Although organisations
might be working on the basis of different philosophies, they do work within a
similar framework and use similar strategies to reintegrate victims of
trafficking. In order to understand the various, and sometimes contradictory,
approaches or opinions regarding reintegration, it will be important to keep
these different aspects of reintegration in mind.
Chapter
Three
factors influencing reintegration
While the trafficking problem is found to be
complicated because of the many different factors involved, such as the age and
gender of the victim and purposes of trafficking, the reintegration of victims
of trafficking is likewise a very complex process. For, when factors leading to
trafficking in the first place have not been resolved or even new factors have
come up, the risk of repeated trafficking or a voluntary return to the
dependent situation to which a victim had initially been trafficked is high.
Even where assistance is provided to reduce certain risk factors, other factors
out of the influence sphere of assistance providers might be too strong to
prevent victims of trafficking becoming again involved in their old job or
situation.
In this chapter special attention will be
paid to factors influencing the reintegration of victims of trafficking. The
focus will be on economic situation, health and religion. These factors are
again related to the social situation of individual victims of trafficking, as
will be discussed in more detail in the next chapter. All these factors are
very much interrelated and the distinctions made are aimed to help create a
clear picture of how these factors influence reintegration processes against
the background of the different victims of trafficking, the different social
environments and the different kinds and use of support mechanisms.
Economic Situation
As poverty is an important, though not sole,
factor leading to trafficking, the economic situation in which a victim of
trafficking is reintegrated has a huge impact on the success or failure of the
reintegration process. This is not only a question of sheer economic survival,
it is also a question of accepting the fact that the living they earn will not
reach a level as high as the promises made before being trafficked. For
psychological as well as economic reasons, establishing some kind of economic
stability plays an important role in the reintegration process.
Although almost none of the informants of
our survey benefited economically from their trafficked situation, one should
recognise that in a minority of cases, victims of trafficking did manage to
acquire enough funds to be used for renovating the family's house, buying a
motorbike or draft animals.
In such cases, their economic contribution might facilitate reintegration.
Still, in a majority of the cases the economic situation of the victims of
trafficking and their family has, at best, remained the same, at worst,
deteriorated. Organisations working in the area of reintegration have
recognised the importance of economic stability for these victims of
trafficking and have provided assistance to attend these needs.
Economic stability in cases where children
were the victims of trafficking is not so much directed at the children
themselves, but at the family as a whole, and the parents in particular. According
to the ideology of most organisations, children are by definition dependent on
their parents. The parents are responsible for an economic situation to which
children may not be main contributors. Therefore, assistance is directed at
parents' ability to increase family income while children are supported to
attend school. However, the reality of Cambodian life shows that for many
families children are important contributors to family income as the examples
of several cases of reintegrated children can also illustrate.
A handicapped boy in Battambang expressed
his optimism for the future after returning from Thailand. He was taken to
Thailand with the promise that he could earn money to treat his leg, but was
forced to go begging. After about one year he was arrested and brought back to
Cambodia, where he was reintegrated into his family with assistance from an
organisation. His family receives financial support to do some small business,
while he is provided with the necessary school materials to continue his study.
He said:
"Life now is much easier compared to
before I went [to Thailand]… The angka supports me with
school materials. I can share some with my brothers and sisters, the rest I
keep for myself. The money that they gave me is kept by my parents so that they
can spend money easier than before."
Similar kind of support was provided to a
mother of two children, 10 and 11 years old. The children had been trafficked to
Thailand where they had to beg and sell candy. The mother used the financial
reintegration support for her little house and for her travel to Poipet where
she wanted to do some small business. When she fell sick, she had to use all
her money for medicine. As there was no more support funds left, the two sons
had to help her find money. She said:
"When the angka came to visit our house, they saw that I was very poor and
that my children were working by helping me collect et chai. So they took
them back to the angka… They want
them to study. [They said] if they stay with their mother they can't
study."
When children become older it is well
recognised among the organisations working on reintegration that they become
important contributors in household activities and family income. Promises of
well-paying job opportunities in Phnom Penh or Thailand are appealing as they
could relieve the financial situation of the family, and this leads often to a
trafficking situation. Where these promises have proven to be false, nothing is
left but to return home where their help is still badly needed. A 16-year-old
girl in Svay Rieng explained why she wanted to go back home as soon as possible
after she was released from a brothel with help from an organisation:
"I stayed perhaps two months in the angka. Then I asked them permission to
go back home, because it coincided with the rainy season. We must transplant
rice… I would have liked to stay a long time with them, but I know that my parents
faced difficulties at home. They are old and my brothers and sisters are young.
There is no one to take care and help them, so I wanted to return."
A 17-year-old handicapped boy, who was
trafficked to Thailand as a beggar, resumed his begging activities almost
immediately after he left the organisation's care:
"I told the angka that I needed to go back to my parents. I want to stay in the
angka, but I had to find money for my
mother, because she had nothing to eat. In one day I can beg 1,000 or 2,000
riel, but on some days I don't get anything… If I don't get anything I don't
come back home [a place under the trees in Phnom Penh]. I don't want to come
back without anything for my mother. Then I rather stay at another place [on
the street] and go back when I have some money."
When organisations focus on the
reintegration of more adult victims of trafficking, they often try to make the
former victims economically self-sufficient in the reintegration situation.
This is done in many different ways.
Victims of trafficking who come from an
organisation are often brought back home with some financial assistance that
will help them buy rice for the family, raise pigs or chickens, or set up some
small business that allows the former victims to earn a little money selling
vegetables or spices. This is, however, not always a successful undertaking.
Several informants complained how the money was lost, because the piglets or
chickens died or while setting up a small business did not bring the profit
they had expected. A mother in Svay Rieng explained why her daughter, who had
been trafficked into commercial sex work, returned to Phnom Penh to earn money:
"She had never studied and therefore she
was not clever. The organisation offered her to set up a small business in her
own village. They provided her money to buy something to sell and to buy thatch
to build a hut for selling. But she was not successful… She could not get
benefit from her business. She sold cigarettes, prahoc and salt, but
many people bought on credit. By the time she had finished all her goods, there
were still a lot of people who owed her money, but she didn't dare to ask them
for the money. So she left again to earn money in Phnom Penh. If she stayed at
home, we would have nothing to eat."
In this case, the girl did not succeed in
becoming self-sufficient with her small-business in the village. Although her
mother and also the organisation blamed this failure on her lack of capacity,
part of the problem might also be related to her perceived circumstances within
the village as a reintegrated young woman. It was apparently difficult for her
to ask impertinently for the money back that she extended in credit to her
neighbours. As a result, the material means meant to support reintegration of
the girl were lost because of her vulnerable social situation in the village.
The most typical kind of support for victims
of trafficking, especially those coming out of commercial sex work, is skills
training. The idea that many organisations and agencies promote is that
learning specific skills enables the young women to earn their own living and
at the same time helps build up self-esteem. The skills which organisations
have concentrated on in training young women are hairdressing, sewing and
cooking. However, not all girls and women are able or persistent enough to
complete the training. It takes a long time before one knows how to cut and sew
clothes, especially for those who cannot read and write. Some women or girls
cannot afford to stay away from home for such a long time without contributing
to family income. Others are already too used to earning more money in much
less time and go back into commercial sex work.
For those who complete the training, it is
not always easy to earn a living with these skills. Marketability is a major
problem. In most of the villages people are too poor to have their hair dressed
so often that a hairdresser would be able to earn enough for survival.
Likewise, because of poverty most villagers buy cheap second-hand clothing, as
they cannot afford to have new "modern-style" clothes made at a
tailor.
In a village in Battambang two women who had
been trafficked in commercial sex work had received training in hairdressing.
The meephum
commented:
"The angka
sent them home to live with their families and gave them materials for
hairdressing to earn some money. But in the countryside it is not like in the
city. In the countryside they can earn only 500 or 1,000 riel with
hairdressing. If many people needed their hair to be cut, it is maybe possible.
But now nobody needs it. Only during Pchum
Ben or New Year they
can earn some money."
In these cases, the skills in which the
young women were trained were not of much use in their village and could certainly
not provide them enough income to be self-sufficient.
However, there are young women who
successfully put into practice the skills they learn, very often with
assistance of the organisation. For girls who have learned to cook and clean,
jobs are found in restaurants or individual households. More commonly, young
women who got training in sewing can, through contacts of the organisation, get
a job in a garment factory. The garment factories are typically found near the
city, so this is a reintegration option that is quite different than attempting
to provide skills to enable reintegration into a village. Within the garment
industry these young women who have been victims of trafficking have found a
respectable job that gave them the opportunity to be economically independent.
Often they share a room or small house with other young women, which is
important, as some might not be able or willing to return back to the village
from which they originated.
Working in a garment factory does not bring
in a lot of money and requires having to work under unfavourable conditions.
These bad working conditions and low pay induce some young women who have been
provided a job in a garment factory by an organisation to go back into
commercial sex work. Other women, however, do well, as in the case of a young
woman who managed to be promoted after several months. She is now supervising a
group of women in the factory and earns more than twice what a beginning woman
earns in a garment factory. Another young woman working in a garment factory
commented:
"I do not like so much to work in the
factory… I have to sew pullovers from 6:30 in the morning till 3:00 in the
afternoon. I earn $40 per month. Sometimes I can save some money to send home…I
hope that if I work in the factory, I can earn enough money to find another job
in the future."
While some women have found a new place in
the emerging industrial society that allows them to support themselves by
working in a garment factory, others did so through marriage combined with
skills training. For example, a young woman who was trafficked in commercial
sex work found her husband in one of the bars she was working. He helped her
get out and brought her to an organisation that offered skills training. She
said:
" I can't earn enough with sewing. I
tried to sew in the market, but it didn't work. Now I sew at home… I also
depend on my husband. He and I earn the money to support our family."
As has been illustrated by the several
examples discussed, the assistance provided to help victims of trafficking
and/or their family become economic self-sufficient is not always successful to
prevent repeated trafficking. Whereas the organisations might consider
hairdressing, sewing or setting up a small business as desirable and respectable
activities for former victims of trafficking, after reintegration these skills
become in many cases irrelevant, as they are not adapted to the circumstances
in which victims of trafficking have to live.
In addition to the problem of marketability
there is also a matter of moral and practical dilemmas over income and working
conditions in different work areas, such as the factory or the brothel. This is
also related to the degree and kind of choice woman and girls have within the
decision-making process regarding income earning activities in Cambodia's
slowly modernising urban sector. Calculating women and girls might deliberately
choose to go back into commercial sex work, as it is most lucrative. Those with
low capacity for learning or training might not have much choice to find other
ways of becoming self-sufficient. And for those forced by family members, there
might be no other choice at all, regardless of the assistance provided. But for
others, wage earning in the factories is an attractive alternative to the
situation of commercial sex work, so the investment in reintegration efforts
for this group will have the desired results.
We can see that a focus on purely the
economic factor in the reintegration process disregards the importance of social,
psychological, health, religious and other factors that influence the
reintegration process. These factors are often more difficult to control by
organisations or even completely outside their influence. An example of a
relatively well-off and educated family in Svay Rieng shows that economic
factors are sometimes not the main cause for young women being trafficked into
commercial sex work, nor would a poor economic situation be the reason for an
unsuccessful reintegration. In some cases it may be the personality of the
woman that has made her susceptible to becoming a victim of trafficking and,
after she was reintegrated, volunteering to go back into commercial sex work.
The question is whether, in such cases, it was indeed the personality or the
social environment that caused the so-considered inappropriate behaviour and
subsequent trafficking of the girl. In this case, the stepmother commented:
"It is not the money she needed. I gave
her always lots of money. She could not even spend it all. Her father also gave
her money. I gave her 500 riel every day to buy dessert or cake. She didn't
need to buy food or clothes, because that we provided already. She didn't know
how to use the money properly. She distributed it among the children on the
street. She could not be educated, she just wanted to have pleasure."
Even though this research focussed
predominantly on victims of trafficking who returned through an organisation,
most victims of trafficking return on their own without any kind of assistance.
Some might have been able to bring back a little money, while others have lost
more than they earned. In such cases, an accumulated debt burden driven by a
feeling of responsibility for one's dependents is another factor that causes
repeated trafficking. A meephum in
Battambang was complaining about the misery that was caused in his village
because men who were once tricked to work in Thailand could not easily get out
of a debt-trap:
"They were told they could earn a lot of
money. They had to pay the meekcol a recruitment
fee. But when they were in Thailand, they could not earn anything. They had to
sell their cow, rice field, to repay their debt. Now they are poorer than
before… Therefore they go back again to try to earn money. I want to prohibit
them from going there. They can earn some money here. If they still go, they
will lose all. They should make an effort to earn money here."
The meephum
was referring to a vicious circle in which villagers find themselves when an
accumulated debt burden was hoped to be solved by migration, but instead led to
more debt, impoverishment, migration, debt, etc. A 70-year-old woman in the
same village also became trapped in this vicious circle. She had been taken to
Thailand for begging and had been rescued and returned to the border. But she
decided to go back once more because she did not bring any money home with her
when she came back the first time, and she had to support four orphaned
grandchildren:
"I went to Thailand because my
grandchildren cannot yet earn money. I went [the second time] with a recruiter
who got the first 5,000 baht that I begged. After that we could divide the
money in half. I begged maybe 6,000 or 7,000 baht. This I had to split with the
boss and the guide who brought me back also gets 1,000… It is miserable to have
to earn money like this. Some people can earn some money, others can't. I went
because of poverty… From what I earned [this second time], I could buy food for
my grandchildren and me… Now I don't want to go again. I am old, I'm afraid to
die in Thailand."
With regard to reintegration there are
several economic and social currents outside the influence of the individual or
organisation which are mixed with personal factors of capability, choice and responsibility
and as such create a complex context for reintegration. Only with great
sensitivity to each case can success be achieved. Programmatic answers that do
not take all these factors into consideration are bound to be unsuccessful.
Health
Many women and children who are reintegrated
have to deal with health problems that are related to the fact that they were
victims of trafficking. The kind and seriousness of the health problems vary,
just as the influence these health problems have on the life of the person
being reintegrated. Diseases vary from easily curable skin diseases to HIV/AIDS
and mental health problems. Those who come back through organisations usually
get some medical treatment before reintegration. Where treatment has to
continue after reintegration, modern and/or traditional medicines are sought,
involving the victims as well as their families in high expenditures. These
expenses as well as the (temporary) loss of labour weigh hard on the economic
situation of the family or household in which the person was reintegrated.
Skin diseases are often contracted in places
that house beggars, brothels, but also IDCs
in Thailand where hygiene is not adequate for the many people they have to
accommodate. In most cases these are rather easy to treat. For others, the
health consequences of trafficking are more serious. Children who are
trafficked to Thailand for begging purposes are reported to have been injected
with certain drugs that made them crippled, in order to make them more pitiable.
These children are maimed for life. Many children or elderly women who were
handicapped already have on purpose or due to the circumstances in which they
had to live become weaker and therefore more dependent.
Girls and women who were trafficked in commercial
sex work have been exposed to various sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and
complications caused by abortions. Girls or women who are taken care of by an
organisation usually get medical treatment in the shelter and when necessary
after reintegration. For others such diseases can cause a high financial
burden, as they are (temporarily) unfit to work while expenses for medicines
have to be made. A young woman in Phnom Penh, who herself had been trafficked
in commercial sex work, recounted how her sister became again indebted with a
brothel owner because of her disease:
"First they sold her, but she earned
money to return to the brothel owner [and buy her freedom]. Afterwards she fell
sick in the brothel. I brought her home to take care of her, but she did not
get better so I brought her to the hospital… She had dirt in her vagina. The
doctor said she had broken intestines, her uterus was scratched, because she
had an abortion. The doctor could not cure her… She went to a krou khmer He said she fell
sick because of magic. She spent $200 to pay the krou khmer. When she was cured she went back to the brothel,
because she had debts again."
As in this case, for treatment of diseases
often a mixture of modern and traditional medicine is used.