The Greater Mekong Sub-region is one of the concentrated areas where human trafficking is particularly rampant. In Cambodia, poverty, geographical location, poor law enforcement, lack of economic opportunity, poor infrastructure, and deeply rooted corruption provide an ideal environment for traffickers. As the second largest city in Cambodia, Battambang is located near four highly transited border towns that lead to Thailand. Poverty drives families to migrate in a desperate search for a better life. It also compels children to leave school and work in risky conditions, increasing their vulnerability to human traffickers and sexual predators.

In Battambang, a small community of street children exists. These street children are among the groups most at-risk of abuse, exploitation, and trafficking. They are addicted to sniffing glue and spend most of their time begging from tourists or collecting plastic and metal from the city’s garbage dump which they sell to middlemen and local recycling companies. Many of these children are the sole bread winners for their families.

Child trafficking adversely affects individual children and their communities. It deprives them of an education and a normal childhood, stunting their human potential. It reduces them to a commodity to be used and exploited, in the process disempowering them. It exposes them to conditions that are detrimental to their well-being, sometimes endangering their lives.

Basic interventions such as formal and non-formal education, vocational skills training, alternative and sustainable livelihoods for families could help keep these children safe in their communities and offer a way out of the vicious cycle of poverty.

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