Nary was born into a poor and unstable family; she was the last of her mother’s children before her father left to marry again, taking Nary with him. When she was 13, Nary left school and started to look for work. She gave all her earnings to her stepmother, who beat her. One day, a “windblower”, one of many migration recruiters who earn their living in Cambodia visiting poor communities with offers of better work, came to her village. Some of them have legitimate paid jobs to offer, but many of them make their money feeding the illegal but lucrative industry of human trafficking. Nary, unhappy at home, ambitious for a better life and money for the future, believed the promises of a job in the city, and went with her.Forced into a life of abuse in a brothel, Nary endured it for a time. The final straw came when she was tricked by a friend into visiting her “grandfather”, only to be drugged and raped. Tired of her trust being abused, Nary moved to a shelter for trafficked or sexually abused girls, determined to learn every skill she could to avoid future situations of dependency and poverty.
Life can be especially hard for women and children living in Cambodia. Cambodia is ranked as one of the worst countries for gender empowerment, meaning women are under represented, uneducated, and very vulnerable. Poverty and desperation cause families to sell young children or send them to work. Some children see the desperation of their family’s situation and leave for the city to look for work to help their family. Many naively fall into trafficking situations, believing in the promises and friendship of traffickers with malignant intentions. Poverty and desperation alternatively drives friends, relatives, or neighbors of children, adults trusted and part of their daily lives, to sell them into human trafficking situations.
Trafficking victims are plagued by a constant sense of shame, though they faced injustices and trauma through no fault of their own. Nary attempted to return home, but met only scorn from her family, driving her back to her brothel life. She was trafficked or sexually abused five times before she found refuge at 17 in Neavea Thmey, a Trauma Recovery Center operated by World Vision. Many children rescued from forced labor return to the streets to live in them or fall prey to traffickers repeatedly, as they find acceptance and assistance no where else. Outside they are looked down upon and devalued, rejected and shunned. Women especially feel that once their virginity is lost, so is their value as a woman to their family, community, society, and future husband.To eradicate the issues of trafficking and child labor, World Vision is working on the root causes of poverty and injustice, combating what creates economic and physical vulnerability through micro enterprise development.
Micro enterprise development in Cambodia allows a poor woman to start a small business. As her income increases, more money will be spent on her family and within the community, stimulating existing businesses and increasing the income of those entrepreneurs. As these businesses grow, more money is spent on their families, more employees will be hired, and family welfare improves and incomes increase throughout the community. As the community resources increase, children will be able to attend school and will not be expected to work locally or in the city to help support their families. By creating jobs and opportunities in rural communities, MED not only enables economic development, but improves the situations of women and children who are forced into compromising situations by the extreme destitution of their families.
In addition to its preventative power, micro finance comes alongside Neavea Thmey, which teaches rescued trafficking victims vocational skills, and provides the needed start up capital for their new enterprises. This allows these victims to prove their worth to the community, and, more importantly, to themselves, by contributing to the economy and providing goods, services, and jobs for its members, as well as hope for a normal life after a poor and tragic childhood.
In Cambodia’s Prasath Ballang district, social services, infrastructure, and markets are poorly constructed or non existent. The poor are severely limited in their access to credit, markets, training, and new technology. Vision Fund Cambodia, a micro finance institution (MFI) affiliated with World Vision, seeks to deliver each of these services to hard working micro entrepreneurs in Prasath Ballang. But they need our help.
The average loan size for an entrepreneur in Prasath Ballang is just $150. Typical enterprises include agriculture, animal husbandry, fishing, and crafts. In order to successfully deliver credit and other services, badly needed by impoverished entrepreneurs in this district, World Vision intends to scale up the branch of their microfinance institution in the Prasath Ballang district. Currently, only 1700 clients are served by World Vision in this district. This lack of access to financial services is keeping the many poor women from achieving their potential and preventing the local economy from experiencing growth, exacerbating the poverty cycle. The scale up will provide loans and business training to approximately 607 additional clients waiting to be served, positively impacting the lives of more than 2,400 children and protecting them from trafficking situations, hard labor, and life in the streets.The South Puget Sound Chapter of Women of Vision is honored to raise funds for micro enterprise loans for women in Cambodia.
