Has the money spent

Recently widowed and with a newborn baby, Pannha* left her home in Cambodia to work in Malaysia – where she was promised a job in a sewing factory. When she arrived, however, she was given an umbrella, a bag and a metal bowl, and brought to the market. The job she was promised, never materialised. Instead, she was told to beg for money or be sent to jail with her baby. Each day, Pannha asked strangers for a few coins. While she made a significant amount from begging, she was unable to keep the money as her broker ordered her to pay back the cost of transportation to markets, housing, electricity, food, bowl, umbrella, bag, water supply and the rest for paying debt. When she was able to escape, eventually, she returned to Cambodia. But her life did not improve. She was a victim of human trafficking, and her life is in no better condition than when she left two years earlier. Over the last 15 years, this type of story has been repeated over and over. Young people continue to be persuaded to work in richer countries. When they arrive, the jobs promised to them never materialise. Instead, they are forced into jobs they didn’t want or didn’t sign up for. In these jobs, they face violence, extremely difficult working conditions and exploitation. It’s a sad admission that the problem hasn’t ended, despite the millions of dollars that have been poured into anti-trafficking work in the Greater Mekong Sub-region for well over a decade. So what has been working?