Saved from Slavery... by a Sandwich Cart

This is a recent blog post taken from the blog of Viva, the amazing children at risk charity Rob and I are working for in Hong Kong.

Veata’s family live in a village outside Phnom Penh. She’s 15 now, but she’s been working since she was 11. Veata, her mother, and her siblings work as trash collectors to earn money – three siblings work collecting trash while the other three attend school, and then they swap. Veata’s father is a construction worker.

A few years ago, Veata’s mother enrolled her in the Phnom Penh network’s ‘Get Ready’ programme, a project that keeps girls out of brothels by helping them develop skills that will help them get work. That way girls are educated but are still available to help their families earn money –a balance that is really necessary in poor Cambodian villages and families. (For those of you who don’t know, the network in Phnom Penh, called Chab Dai, is a group of projects that Viva helped bring together and continues to support, to prevent girls from being sold into sexual slavery in Cambodia.)

The staff of the network could see that Veata was a good student and a quick learner. She graduated from the Get Ready programme and was encouraged to continue with ‘Bright Girls’, through which she was given an allowance so she could take advanced English lessons. Veata spent two years in the ‘Bright Girls’ programme and became a skilled seamstress and tailor – even earning money above her allowance from the sales of her clothes!

Then the effects of the global financial crisis swept through Cambodia, and Veata’s father found his construction assignments growing fewer and farther between. Even with Veata’s sales and allowance and the hard work of her family collecting trash, there wasn’t enough money to cover the cost of living. They became prime targets for traffickers, who prey on families in financial straits.

A man approached Veata’s parents with an arrangement for her that could relieve them of the poverty that threatened: he said Veata would make a good candidate for a ‘second wife’. A wealthy Asian businessman was going to be spending time in Phnom Penh on business regularly through the year, and was looking for a young live-in mistress. The man offered Veata’s parents £125 up front, with monthly payments of £75 to follow. Although they hated the idea of parting with their daughter in this way, they were becoming desperate - that money could prevent the family from going hungry and possibly losing their home.

Veata went to one of the teachers from the Bright Girl programme for help. Because of the love and care the staff at Bright Girl had shown her, she knew she could trust them with this huge problem. She was immediately taken in to the weekly boarding programme supported by the network to be kept safe from the trafficker, while the network's social workers talked about alternatives with Veata’s family. They were able to arrange a £50 microbusiness loan for the family to set up a sandwich cart. This wasn’t as much as the trafficker was offering, but Veata’s parents were willing to take any option that would keep their daughter from becoming a ‘second wife’.

Veata stayed in the care of the network boarding programme until her family’s sandwich business was set up and she could safely return home. Within four months, she’d even paid off the microloan using her monthly allowance and the income from her sewing business!

Working together, we’ve seen Veata grow from a trash collector in tattered clothes, exposed to the dangers of child sexual exploitation, to a talented seamstress who can help support her family and earns more than most factory workers in Cambodia. And even better than that, her younger sisters are now safe from the danger posed by traffickers, as the microloan from the network has lifted their family out of poverty and created a business for all of them to benefit from.

If you enjoyed this post, do check out Viva's blog for other encouraging stories, and you may also enjoy Cambodia II: Rehab House and For the Love of Cupcakes.