200th Girl Served at WHI-Cambodia Center

“Sopea”* is a smart, 15 year old Cambodian girl. In addition to Khmer, she speaks English, Thai, and Cantonese. But Sopea did not learn these languages in school. She learned them in a Thai brothel. When Sopea was 10 years old, her mother sold Sopea and her younger brother to traffickers. Sopea was separated from her brother and went to work as a domestic servant for a family. When she was 13 years old, her virginity was sold to a rich Cambodian man. After the man raped her, she was sold to a brothel in Battambang and forced into prostitution. A few months later she was sold to another trafficker who drugged her. When Sopea woke up she was told she was in Malaysia, owed the trafficker $3,000, and needed to prostitute in a brothel to pay off her debt.

In May, Sopea ran away from the brothel. She made it to Bangkok, Thailand, but had no passport or other identification papers. A brief investigation in Cambodia turned up no record of Sopea’s citizenship. Sopea was classified as stateless and place on a train to Cambodia with a chaperone. When she arrived at the Cambodian border, Sopea crossed over alone.

After returning to Phnom Penh, Sopea agreed to come and stay at the World Hope International (WHI) Assessment Center to receive counseling and medical care and to share her story with the Cambodian police. Sopea has a sharp mind and remembers many details of her ordeal, including information about her traffickers. Based on her account, the police have opened an investigation.

Sopea is the 200th girl to come to the WHI Assessment Center since it opened two year ago. Sopea is on the path to mental, physical, and spiritual recovery but many girls are still being held in brothels. Her story reveals many difficult issues surrounding the fight against human trafficking:

1. Parents who sell their children
2. Child domestic servants
3. Sale of a girl’s virginity
4. Cross-border / international human trafficking

5. Commercial sexual exploitation of children
6. Statelessness
7. Formal v. Informal Repatriation
8. Police Investigations

Learn more about World Hope International's Anti-Trafficking efforts

What is Stateless?

A stateless person is someone who is not recognized by any country as a citizen. Several million people globally are effectively trapped in this legal limbo, with only minimal access to national or international legal protection or to basic rights such as health and education. International conventions on statelessness were established in 1954 (Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons) and 1961 (Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness). United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

What is Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children (CSEC)?

CSEC is a form of modern-day slavery. As defined in the Declaration of the First World Congress against CSEC in Stockholm in 1996, CSEC is a violation of the fundamental rights of girls and boys involving sexual abuse by an adult accompanied by remuneration in cash or in kind to the child or third person(s). Victims of CSEC suffer tremendous physical and psychological damage including early pregnancies, HIV/AIDS, post traumatic stress disorder, and suicidal tendencies.

* Although Sopea’s story is true, some details have been changed to protect the innocent including the picture above.