Cambodia II: Rehab's House

This blog post is part of a series where I'll be sharing about what we've seen and experienced in terms of the anti human trafficking work in Cambodia.

Another project just outside Phnom Penh, Cambodia, which really moved us was Rehab's House.

Until several years ago, Rehab's House used to be a brothel where scores of under 18 girls were kept to service the sexual needs of customers. Men typically paid US$10 to 20 to sleep with a girl if she wasn’t a virgin. In a culture where (at least for some sections of society) sleeping with a virgin is believed to bring good luck or, on the extreme end, able to purge one’s HIV, a virgin at this brothel was priced at US$300 and her price can go up to $700 if she was pretty.

I say her “price”, but she would not have received a single penny of what was paid as all the money went to the brothel owners.

At the brothel, children were kept in individual “rooms” (which was no more than a 5 feet x 7 feet cell) with a wooden bed where the sexual acts would be performed. On the wall outside each room was painted, in red, a number. The children were known as the numbers outside their rooms. Two rows of rooms ran parallel to each other, with a tiny corridor in the middle. The children were not allowed to go out of their rooms except for using the toilet etc, and if they tried to escape they would suffer grave punishment, and in the few cases of children who tried to run away they were brought back by gangsters in the vicinity who were connected with the brothel.

In 2002, International Justice Mission, working with the local police, raided the brothel, rescuing all the children who had been held in captivity, and went on to persecute the perpetrators. The children, who finally saw the light of day after living in what could only be described as hell, were then placed in an aftercare shelter operated by Agape (who also runs Rehab's House), where they could be counseled, cared for and educated so that they might have another chance at life.

The building where the brothel used to operate was subsequently majorly restructured, with the cold, dingy cells demolished (except for Room no. 9), and turned into a community centre providing supplementary schooling to children, vocational training (sewing lessons!) to women and girls, and healthcare to all in the community. The women and girls taking the sewing lessons are now able to make pillowcases as a livelihood to provide for themselves and their families. Livelihood is an extremely important key to preventing trafficking in the first place, as many who are poor and desperate to survive are often extremely vulnerable to traffickers coming along to entice/trick/persuade them into so-called “employment opportunities”.

The community where Rehab's House is located is not without lingering problems – 70% of its inhabitants are Vietnamese (and hence stateless and illegal, according to the Cambodian government, despite the fact that they have lived in the country for many years and their children were born in Cambodia; they are particularly at risk as the state does not protect them at all), most people living there are still very poor and uneducated, gangs still operate in the area and pedophiles still travel from Phnom Penh daily to transact with children.

Walking through the streets and seeing people not having or doing much, it’s tempting to get all despondent about the state of things in this community. But we’re reminded again of the progress that has been already made as a result of the immense hard work by amazing organisations such as IJM and Agape, and that widespread, long lasting change always takes time.

As we were leaving those dusty roads that evening, through the back window of the window I looked at Rehab's House again, painted in orange and yellow, and the women working on their sewing projects. What used to be a dungeon where cries of children were muffled, Rehab's House is now a lighthouse in its community, giving hope and a future to many.

If you enjoyed this post, you may also like Human Trafficking or For the Love of Cupcakes.