Mira’s Cambodia Journal – Day One: Arrival in Cambodia

Editor’s note: Mira Sorvino, a human rights activist and Academy Award winning actress, went to Cambodia with the CNN Freedom Project to expose child sexual exploitation. This is an edited journal from her week in the country.

We have just landed in Phnom Penh, to begin one of the most important journeys I have ever embarked upon.

I have been an activist on the issue of human trafficking since 2004, the year I was expecting my first of four children. I was spokeswoman for Amnesty International’s Stop Violence Against Women campaign, which brought the issue of modern-day slavery to light for me. Before this, I was blissfully unaware that slavery was alive and well – it had just gone underground. Meeting survivors of human trafficking changed my life, and deepened my commitment to fighting this terrible scourge that affects most every country around the world.

Since 2009 I have been a United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) Goodwill Ambassador Against Human Trafficking, one of the greatest honors and challenges of my life. I have interviewed scores of survivors in many countries, as well as government officials, NGO workers, law enforcement and even a man responsible for sex trafficking about 4,000 girls from Latin America to European club-brothels.

I’ve also partnered with the CNN Freedom Project several times; this time I’m taking off my UN hat and joining forces with CNN to present this documentary. We are here to see why Cambodia continues be a hub of child sex trafficking and virgin sales, and what we can do to help expose the problem and suggest solutions.
I’ve never been to Cambodia, though I made a fictional movie, “Trade of Innocents,” about child sex trafficking in Cambodia (shot in nearby Thailand). I am excited to discover this new place, but feel trepidation over delving into our heartbreaking topic.

After driving to our Phnom Penh hotel amidst a swarm of mopeds – or “motos” as they’re called here, some with families of five crowded on top – we decided to beat the jet lag by doing a little tourism.

As we boarded a boat for a river tour, we immediately noticed the long, narrow, covered boat homes of ethnic Vietnamese. They live in Cambodia without official status, and spend most of their lives on their boats –families living and working in these small vessels, children swimming and bathing in dirty-looking water. We pass floating houses, with netted fish holding areas underneath.

Corruption is endemic at every level of society here, an expert tells me – adding that every brothel here operates with the help of the police or military.
I have a deep sense of foreboding of the world we are about to enter, the suffering of children being used by men in unspeakably cruel manners. We may meet a few survivors, but knowledge that hundreds or thousands of others still endure the misery of repeated rape in dank, fetid rooms in neighborhoods nearby – and we would not be able to save them.

I have met child survivors before, and been haunted by them, unable to sleep as their faces and deep stares burned themselves into my memory.

I am afraid. But those memories are what drive me to fight for an end to this sexual slavery. I feel ready to face tomorrow’s challenges, whatever they may be.

Lim, one of the girls working at the artisan space in Rahab's House, and Mira wearing a bracelet Lim made.

Today we drove out to Svay Pak, a slum notorious as a hub of child sex trafficking.  There we met Don Brewster, a white haired, blue-eyed bespectacled man in flip-flops with a pleasant face and high energy. He runs Agape International Missions (AIM), a non-profit for trafficked and at risk children and teenagers. The residence, Rahab’s House, is filled with bustling energy with a school and a children’s center. It takes its name from an Old Testament prostitute who provided sanctuary and was blessed. He says this and every other building used by AIM is a former brothel.”

Don takes me on a walking tour of Svay Pak; we pass “The Lord’s Gym,” a center Don started, filled with local guys—human traffickers-turned-kickboxers. How he did it: He invited a “power team” of U.S. bodybuilders to display their might through the streets, leading the young men to the gym to work out, where they are inspired by a coach who teaches them respect for women and children.  They have traded the high money (they used to make U.S. $200 or more a month bringing girls in from Vietnam and selling them to brothels) for the prestige of being known pro-fighters. I’m very impressed by Don’s outside-the-box methodology, proving transformation is possible in this generation of young men.

As we continue our walk, Don points out a group, mostly men, sitting around a couple of tables at the end of road.  They are all traffickers, he says: They sell not only other people’s children, but their own.

As we approach with the cameras, they start to disperse, like roaches exposed to the light.  A feeling of utter revulsion and ire rises in me. I finally burst out: “It’s not ok to sell children! It’s not ok to sell children to pedophiles … The world is watching.”

I felt so impotent with a rage that could do nothing in the moment. I felt a little ridiculous but I couldn’t walk away saying nothing.

Don felt we should move out of there quickly. Then we looked at each other and both started crying. I just can’t stand it, that little children and teenagers are being hurt a stone’s throw away and we can’t get to them, can’t swoop in like guardian angels and pluck them out of harm’s way; that those men and shifty-eyed women are using children for profit and going through with their ipso facto destruction without a shred of empathy or humanity.  I’m crying again thinking about it.

Then we enter the artisan space where Don has created jobs for the girls; downstairs there is sewing and upstairs there is bracelet weaving and beading.  It’s like hell is outside and this is a haven. The girls are generally happy-looking if shy, and there is lots of hugging going around.

I meet this cool girl, Lim, whom I want to help get a scholarship in the U.S. for studying kickboxing. My positivity is creeping back in. The girls are not just following patterns but coming up with their own beautiful designs; after I picked out a special one my kickboxing friend Lim proudly indicated she had designed and made it!

Later we went up to the top floor of Rahab’s House to interview two very young survivors, Sephak and Toha, both of whom had repeatedly asked Don for the chance to tell their story to us on camera.  I frequently interview survivors around the globe, but never with them on camera. The air was heavy with the questions about to be asked and what we knew would be impossibly painful answers. We had not one but two translators: one to translate from the girls’ Vietnamese into Khmer and one into English, which was challenging.

I remember reaching out a few times to hold their hands because they were overcome with emotion.  I tried hard to stick to the bare minimums of the stories of their abuse, so as not to re-traumatize them through harrowing details.  We had to get the facts of their trafficking straight, and hopefully share with the wider audience the tremendous pain and suffering they had been through, but still respect their dignity.

It must be stated that there is no such thing as “voluntary” entry into a virginity sale or prostitution for a minor, because they do not have the  legal, mental, psychological capacity to consent to their own exploitation.  The UN Palermo protocol makes very clear that no force, fraud or coercion needs be proven in the case of minors (under 18) for it to be deemed trafficking.  These girls are trafficked, whether they say they agreed or not; their parents, recruiters, brothel owners and buyers (johns) are the complicit criminals.

At the end of it we were all hugging and crying, and I worried about both of them: Toha because I was afraid she might attempt a second suicide attempt (she had described having tried to cut her wrists in the bathroom after her mother had made her sell her virginity and was pressuring her to go back out again with men); and Sephak, because she seemed very withdrawn into herself.  Don and his wife Bridget assured me they would look after them especially and a survivor/counselor would be with them all night.

Now it was time for some joy: we joined a procession of some 15 girls marching down the main street in front of the center carrying big plastic tubs of their belongings to a clean renovated building on the corner with an open air terrace on the top.  This was a former brothel, and is now the newest residential center for members of the program; tonight was the grand opening.

The girls were ecstatic, whooping and jumping up and down. They ran up to the roof, formed a circle and began calling out their thanks, singing, laughing and praying. It was a sight to behold, and a privilege to witness the happy, self-empowering sanctuary they experienced. After delving into the darkest parts of the life of Svay Pak, here was light, human and pure and joyful; all the faces of the girls beaming out, one saying in gratitude she never thought in her life she would get a chance to live in such a place, in such a way.

We were honored to get to be a part of it, and now it was time to go back to the hotel, and crash into much-needed sleep.

Mira’s Cambodia Journal – Day Three: The Front Lines

This morning Don Brewster takes us to the Agape Restoration Center, a secure facility in Phnom Penh for the protection and development of the most-at-risk girls. We are brought through gates into a lush courtyard with pools and a gaggle of smiling young girls, awaiting our arrival.

I’m experiencing déjà vu ; the very first time I met young survivors of sex trafficking was when I pulled into a secret shelter deep in the heart of Mexico City, and hoped desperately that the smallest kids I saw were the sisters or daughters of victims. This time I know better: At least three girls I met today were just six years old and had been rescued from sex trafficking.

In the courtyard, we interviewed another young virgin sale victim.  Kieu was probably somewhere between 13 and 14 (they have few birth records).  She was very lovely with the shy expression of a young doe. She wore an intricate braid plaited in her hair, and a pretty green dress.  She told of how she had been sold by her mother to a Khmer man of “maybe more than 50” who had three children of his own. The price set in advance for her virginity: $1,500, though she was ultimately only given $1,000, of which she had to give $400 to the woman who brought her to the man. Her mother used the money to pay down a debt and for food for the fish they raise under their floating house-their primary income source.

Beforehand, Kieu said, “I did not know what the job was and whether it was good for me.  I had no idea what to expect.  But now I know the job was not good for me.”  After she lost her virginity to the man, she felt “very heartbroken.” Her mother supposedly felt bad too, but still sent her to work in a brothel.  Kieu said she did not want to go, but had to.  She said, “They held me like I was in prison.”

I asked “When you were at the brothel, were there ever any policemen who came in that knew about the brothel or were working somehow with the brothel owner?”

“There were, so the young girls in the brothel were not allowed to come out.  They only allowed the older girls to be seen,” she said. “They young girls had to stay inside the brothel, they were not allowed to go downstairs.”

“So how did that make you feel, that the police were helping them?” I asked.

“I feel very bad,” she said. She told me that on her first day there, the brothel owners yelled at her and her friend for trying to go downstairs, “because if the police see us, the owners will get in trouble.”  She wanted to ask them for help but then was afraid that they might not help her.  I then asked if the police saw them they would “catch you but not help you, is that right?” She responded yes.

She was contemplating begging them to help her escape but the police were the ones who would actually fetch the girls who were trying to run away and put them back in. Not only were the police in tacit collusion, tipping the traffickers off to help them evade justice, but actively enforcing the girls’ continued enslavement. Unbelievable. That brought me back to what we heard the first day, that corruption is endemic and that no brothel or trafficking operation can conduct business without the support of the police or military officers.  It is estimated that the child sex trade in Cambodia makes $500 million annually; this means a lot of high-level investment in this lucrative business.

In the brothel, she was told to dress provocatively: “They told me when the client is there, I have to wear short shorts and a skimpy top, but I didn’t want to wear them and then I got blamed.” Her clients were Thai and Khmer men.  They knew she was very young.

I never want to press for details on these rape cases, but I did have one question that stymies me that I thought she could handle: “Can men really enjoy what they are doing when they know they are raping these young girls, that they are not there willingly?”

“When they sleep with me, they feel very happy,” she said. “But for me, I feel very bad.”

I had asked all three girls that we interviewed what they would want to tell the Prime Minister. Kieu’s answer was: “I would like to help the younger generation not to be sold, like me.  I don’t want them to be like me.”  I hope the Prime Minister hears their answers because I don’t know a heart that couldn’t be melted by hearing their sweet, innocent voices plead for the government to protect and save these girls and to stop this practice.

Before leaving the center, we watched as Kieu packed her bags and moved out. Today she moved into the same new residence in Svay Pak that opened the night before!  She really missed her friends and wanted to move home to Svay Pak, but Don had to first make sure her mother was not going to try to re-traffick her.

“They (the people at AIM) help me, I feel very happy… I never have to go there (to the brothel) again.  I live in a good place and I have good food to eat and have a nice, happy place to sleep,” she said. “There I will get a job…  I feel very happy.”

After this visit to the very on-the-ground level rehab and protection center, it was off to a high level meeting with General Pol Pie They, the man in charge of the national police anti-trafficking unit. We got to the police station early, (which with its crème-colored halls and decorated uniformed staff seemed very far away from the world the girls had come from and landed in) but the General immediately came out to greet us.

Initially, his party line was that they had made many improvements; he cited the fact that the brothels that sell young girls no longer had open storefronts visible everywhere in the streets.  To my mind this was not necessarily an improvement for the girls; more of a clandestine atmosphere made them harder to find, harder to rescue.

Svay Pak, an impoverished neighborhood on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, is the epicenter of Cambodia's child sex trade.

Mira’s Cambodia Journal – Day Four: Holding Feet to the Fire

Today we scored a last-minute interview with Chou Ben Eng, the head of Cambodia’s Human Trafficking Task force: the Secretary of State of the Ministry of the Interior, and a woman to boot.

As I sat down I was impressed with her elegance (she wore a traditional floor-length silk-satin dress) and her forthrightness; she shook a firm hand and spoke excellent English. This interview would not need an interpreter.

I think it also allowed me to be a little more aggressive.  I was tired of getting the pat answers, of the party lines. I had seen the reality of the victims’ pain and was not going to be so polite this time.  She began by presenting the achievements of her working group. We then brought up the issue of the undercover authority for police in human trafficking cases. I had begun to realize that anything that was going to cost a big infusion of money might not be a realistic goal for us to press for in the here and now, but this bit of legislation, the explicit authorization for the use of undercover investigative methods and techniques, was something we could press for that might seriously change the equation in the pursuit of justice for this crime.

She started basically with “all in good time,” that they must study the possible negative effects and do this carefully, that they needed partnerships with other countries with experience in these matters. I became very impatient with this, again bringing up that that argument doesn’t hold water because undercover surveillance is allowed in drug cases. She said yes, but it is very difficult because trafficking occurs within families, that daughters don’t want to testify against their own mothers, that you can’t tell the trafficker from the trafficked person.

I said yes you can, in the case of child sex trafficking it is very clear who the victim is.  She went back to the need for committees, discussions, and I said something similar to what I said once at the UN – “Please forgive me for my lack of diplomacy, but the victims need these things right now, they needed them last week , they needed them two years ago.”  These kids are being bought and sold all over the city, the tragedy of virgin sales is ongoing, right now, and this is no time for long deliberations.

She talked about how something has gone wrong in the minds of Cambodian people, that poverty cannot be blamed for the fact that families sell their children: “We did not see this kind of thing before.” I concurred, because not all poor people do or would sell their children.

They are working on awareness campaigns, and the demand side must be addressed, with men, but overall I did not buy that her commitment was as actively engaged as it should be, given the direness of the situation.

I pointed to a USAID sign on her office wall, and asked her if she was at all worried that Cambodia’s status on the U.S. Government’s annual Trafficking in Persons Report would move down to Tier 2 Watchlist or Tier 3, potentially cutting off financial support from the U.S. because of the slackening response to trafficking (convictions are going down, among all the other issues I have been raising, and corruption is endemic) and she got a little hot under the collar.

She said other countries just want to tell Cambodia what they are doing wrong. I assured her that I am tougher on my own country in my private individual advocacy role in the U.S., trying to ameliorate states’ laws on trafficking to serve justice to victims and perpetrators.  I emphasized that this is a worldwide problem: that we are all in this together, and that we are doing it for the victims.

I hit her with my belief that enforced universal, mandatory education for every child in Cambodia, not only those with papers, might be the key to ending this scourge in one generation.  It would provide literacy and skills to children with otherwise bleak futures (strengthening the entire country and its developing infrastructure and economy in the process), give them a safe place, where authority figures could look for signs of exploitation and protect them, and educate them not to fall prey to being trafficked for either sex or labor.

I should have talked about the need for sex education in all schools, but I forgot.  This is a very bifurcated society when it comes to sex; men are allowed a colorful extracurricular life of visiting brothels while women are expected to be virgins till married or are deemed worthless; neither gender is given a fair chance to change the playing field without the proper information delivered at an early enough age.

As we parted, I told her she is a very strong, influential lady, and if she went to the Prime Minister (who is the bottom line on absolutely everything in this country) and asked him to infuse all her programs with more money, that she could achieve that. We spoke of instituting more human trafficking training, not only for members of law enforcement and the court system, but across the board in civil society, so that everyone becomes a watchdog, protecting the nation’s children, rather than being silent witnesses or complicit partners in their exploitation.

If she felt under attack (which she may have) I hope it shook her up. I am here in Cambodia wearing the CNN Freedom Project hat, and I hope we might pinch them enough to get the ouch, the reaction that sparks action.

Later in the afternoon, we flew off to Siem Reap where the famed Angkor Wat temples are located. I almost passed out on a couch in the café next to the airport gate; this is really taking it out of me.

When we arrived I was struck by what seemed like miles of gigantic luxury hotels; a highway of booming tourist industry spawned by the majestic presence of the Angkor Wat temples. I am blown away by our hotel’s anachronistic beauty. It must have been built in the French colonial period, and I feel guilty for being a foreigner enjoying its Orientalist luxury, even as I delight in its delicious food.  This country has been batted about by powers greater than itself for millennia it seems, and the Cambodian people have been the ones to suffer.

Mira’s Cambodia Journal – Day Five: The Future

Today we drove two hours north in rural Cambodia to meet with a group of student activists. As we arrived at the school, we saw a group of bright green t-shirted teenagers at a picnic table under a tree. Our youth leader, Han Hunlida (nickname: Lyly), was instructing her peers on their plan of action for the day: split into groups of four and go door-to-door in the community to share information about human trafficking and how not to become its victims.

This region, Banteay Meanchey, is a crossroads for Cambodians migrating for work into Thailand and Malaysia. They are all at great risk for being trafficked by wily recruiters, who prey on impoverished people desperate for work, without local savvy or support.

Lida, 16, is a tiny powerhouse. Inspired by a Somaly Mam Foundation visiting lecturer at her school two years ago, she is a Cambodian girl taking stewardship of her country and its future. I was stirred by her palpable compassion for the vulnerable and victimized.  She emanated a kind of unstoppable positivity; her compatriots looked up to her, sharing in a powerful movement towards change.  They were humble and excited at the same time and – very encouragingly – there were teenaged boys with them, not only girls.

Back at the hotel, I sat down with Haley Welgus, a women’s studies expert from the Somaly Mam Foundation, to piece together my understanding of the situation. She said many in the generation of the aftermath of the terrible Khmer Rouge regime (which in the 1970s killed up to 2 million people) grew up without families.  There is a need to teach boys how to treat and value women in a healthy sexual relationship – and teach girls they have rights.  This would combat the relatively low societal status of women and girls.  She also felt an infusion of more female police officers would really help victims who are uncomfortable relating their trauma to a male officer.

We talked about the enormous challenges education-wise; my belief that the enforcement of a universal mandatory education would help solve things will have to go hand-in-hand with the establishment of an education not predicated on bribery. it is not enough that schools are currently being built, but teachers must be paid enough and vetted so they do not charge students for the honor of being taught; currently if many do not receive payoffs they will withhold some of the syllabus so students cannot pass their exams, or a child will go to school only to sit in an empty classroom.

I wondered how she and others can stay positive in the face of all this (she said they have recently seen victims as young as THREE YEARS OLD).  Patience is required, she said, and also respect for different treatment methods (the West favors talk therapy, where some of the therapeutic solutions here are non-verbal).  Inspiration mainly comes from the success stories of survivors and youth leaders like Lida.

The seeds being planted here could be profound – with the right support, teen activists could lead a national movement that wouldn’t require much financial backing. The wildfire spread of student abolitionism and awareness could make a big dent in trafficking in just a few years.  It is a big hope, especially if social media is more vigorously developed to go along with it (a Facebook page could be next for the official program – Lida already has one!)

She mentioned that Somaly Mam has the support of the First Lady. I suggested that maybe Somaly’s influence with the prime minister’s wife could lead to the endorsement of the SDG (Student Development Group that Lida is a part of) as a nationwide movement; every secondary school could have a chapter. I am looking for innovative ideas that don’t demand large checks being written that I am afraid won’t be.

That night we went on a walkabout of downtown Siem Reap.  During that time I asked an experienced Cambodian man if he thought government officials at high levels are invested in the business of human trafficking, if that’s why it’s not stopping.

“It may be true what you say… we are hearing things,” he told me. “You see, in Cambodia today, the honest people get put in jail but the bad people exist in freedom.”

He also explained our failure to find the kind of KTVs where you see the girls on display out in the open, is because this is the big tourist town, and they don’t want tourists to see this kind of thing. “The old grandmas might be offended,” he said.  However when we decided to test the waters to see if we could find “very young girls” for sale our cameraman was propositioned by a shifty looking man in the middle of Pub Street. A tuk-tuk driver was at the ready to take him to fulfill that search.   Not out in the open, but easily accessed.

Mira’s Cambodia Journal – Day Six: Hope and Healing

This morning we got up bright and early to go to the temples of Angkor Wat. It was a boiling hot day, and by 7 a.m. it was already beginning to swelter.  We entered the long walkway across water and grass to the main temple complex.

This is the remnant of a very powerful, accomplished kingdom, and a source of great pride for the Cambodian people. The grey stone structures are slightly discolored from erosion, but their grandeur, imposing stature, and artistic accomplishment remain intact.

I chuckle to think that in the fictional feature film I made about child sex trafficking in Cambodia, “Trade of Innocents,” (all filmed in Thailand) we shot our climactic action scene in a replica set of Angkor Wat; the temple structures were made of wood and Styrofoam. Yet I have to hand it to our director Christopher Bessette and our art department; it really did look like the real thing, if only a small section of it.

The real thing is vast; the steps I climbed in the movie are much more steeply daunting in real life. Inside is a sense of haunted abandonment, the feeling that critters make their homes here now alongside the ghosts. In the central temple section, however, are active Buddhist sites where intact icons are venerated alongside beheaded torsos, and colorful silk festoons the grey stone.

I was struck by all the unique depictions of the Apsara dancing women. They all had individualized faces and expressions, their breasts were bare as they swayed dancing, and phallic, snakelike sashes were tucked in at their waistbands. One of the guards said, “You see, in the past we had the more sexy ladies here!” And I was struck by the roots of feminine beauty and sexuality as a Cambodian cultural inheritance. How long has society here thought of women as submissive vessels of pleasure for men?  Somehow, though, these images looked more self-empowered than the smiling girls at the karaoke bars. Maybe they were…

I got to see Don and his wife Bridget for lunch before we left Siem Reap for Phnom Penh. I was struck by how they personally are responsible not only for saving all the girls and boys under their care and in their outreach programs, but for the transformation in Sway Pak itself. Individual heroes make a difference in fighting slavery and saving lives.  They are the answer to those who say, “What can you do?” and “You can’t change the world…”

He is working on a pilot program as an alternative to sentencing parents to prison that have sold their children into trafficking. He envisions a one-year session where they will be trained and monitored so as not to traffic their kids again; if they engage in any criminal activity or endanger the child they will be prosecuted. Don thinks this might solve the problem of daughters not wanting to testify because they don’t want to put their own mothers in jail. This could go a long way towards addressing Secretary of State Chou Ben Eng’s complaint that victims don’t want to testify against their own families.  He is a brave, humane innovator.

Mira’s Cambodia Journal – Final Thoughts

My time in Cambodia is over.  On the plane and beyond, it is time for me to reflect.

One journalist told me that Khmer people smile all the time, no matter how unhappy they are. It made me think of some of the smiles I saw, like that of the sweet-faced general.  Behind it does he really possess the will to step up the police response to this situation, and press for the authorization for undercover authority?  I hope so.

At least one of our young heroines has seen her day in court and succeeded!  Even though the perpetrators were charged on lesser crimes than trafficking and were only given three years as opposed to a stiffer sentence commensurate with the most serious offenses, it is a victory.  Toha’s bravery has paid off – and if they receive the payments due them from their traffickers they will feel even more vindicated. Hopefully this case a harbinger of more justice to come, and will reverse the trend of dwindling human trafficking arrests and convictions. This should send a message out that Cambodia is willing to try to convict those who exploit young girls, followed by vigorous law enforcement and legal action that can truly end the impunity the criminals now enjoy.

The problem remains: how do you teach someone not to sell their child?  The interviews with the mothers of our three young survivors were eye-opening.  Don admits they may not be successful at reaching this generation, athough Toha’s mother openly acknowledged Don’s assistance stopping her from selling another child. “If it gets worse again, this time I know I can ask for help.”

All three mothers interviewed described crushing, insurmountable debt as the reason for their choice to sell their daughters’ virginity. The Secretary of State in charge of anti-trafficking efforts, Chou Ben Eng, says people’s mentality has changed for the worse, that “we have not seen this kind of thing before.” Still, one can question her rejection of desperate poverty being the root cause; as if that stance lets the government off the hook for having to address this massive problem.  Certainly more vigorously enforcing a corruption-free educational environment for every child in Cambodia would be an important step to lifting the poorest out of such dire vulnerability.   And having student-led groups like Lida’s build awareness on how not to sell daughters, but also not to borrow from such usurious loaners in communities such as the floating village could help too.  But something needs to be done to alleviate the great poverty.

Another equally important question: how do you teach a man not to buy a child for sexual services?  Much more attention has to be paid to the demand side: a recent ECPAT- Harvard University study finds that more than 60% of the customers for underaged commercial sex were Cambodian men, not just foreign pedophiles, the popular misconception.  It provides a combination of reasons: “The enabling environments of corruption and weak law enforcement, gender inequality and sexual norms, and lack of sexual education in schools and communities facilitate the sexual exploitation of children under 18.”

Hayley Welgus stressed trying to teach young boys, beginning in fourth and fifth grade, on how to view women, and what a healthy sexual relationship with a woman looks like.  In addressing the men who locally buy women, not only must a law and order response be stepped up (as in most countries, the local johns who buy girls’ services are almost never arrested) but a community based, ground roots re-education be given to adult men, who may not understand the terrible harm they are inflicting on children and teenagers in the popular pursuit of male pleasure.

Sephak’s broken hearted mother Ann said of the men who buy virginity: “Those people don’t have a brain to think. They use their money to trick others… Somehow, we need to get those people so that in this world there would be no selling children, poor people won’t have to sell their children.” Empathy must somehow be inculcated. Maybe our brave girls’ breaking the silence can help do that.

I broke down crying when I returned to my husband and children. The pain I have been holding in (partially unsuccessfully, as I cried a few times during our interviews) has just overwhelmed me, knowing the terrible, terrible suffering these children and teens are enduring, the mass industry of perverse pleasure based on their rape, beatings, torture and enslavement. I know those who are rescued need years of treatment and love to build them back up, to recreate their fragile hope and give them a sense of self-worth; I cried nearly uncontrollably over all those we are failing, that are not being discovered and saved, and that almost none of us, save the Don Brewsters of the world, are doing enough to end this atrocious, disgusting destruction of lives.

But I have to return to hope, and the question I posed to Hayley about love, which was really more of an affirmation of my gut faith in the only meaningful way to approach this: “It seems the most successful ingredient of any NGO that I have worked with around the world that works with victims and survivors is love. I was struck by one survivor’s statement, “you must love people and they will eventually love you back.” Love seems to be the healer as survivors make it through rehab to believe in themselves and others again.

Maybe we must find a way even to understand the people who are trafficking their own and others’ children, through love and compassion, as Don does with the neighborhood youth he transforms into kickboxing anti-trafficking advocates. That may be too much for me to swallow emotionally, but it might be the only way to come up with the best ways to eradicate this for good. Certainly our fight must not only be fueled by hatred for the act but immense love for its victims and survivors. And whenever we feel we are pushing too far, that we should be more circumspect and diplomatic, we must remember those sweet eyes and hearts opening to us, imploring us to stop this for them and all others under this cursed crime, and we must raise our voices and the fight to the highest level.