How to understand our action against child trafficking in Cambodia

How to understand our action against child trafficking in Cambodia

These widows or abandoned women must find a way of survival and then live in conditions we could not endure for one single week… Patrik Roux founder NGO AVEC.
Agriculture has been recently mechanised in Cambodia; consequently many rural jobs have disappeared. As people have no forests or land left to work on, a lot of men go off to look for work  in towns, especially in Thailand.
Patrik et Theavy parlementent avec une personne qui a recueilli une fillette, ils tentent de la scolariser et de l'intégrer dans l'école la plus proche.

Patrik and Theavy talk to a person who has taken in a girl, they try to get her into school and integrate her into the nearest school.

Women stay alone with their children and are able to survive thanks to the money their husband brings back home. Polygamy being rather common here, a husband sometimes marries a young Khmer woman he has met in Thailand. These widows or abandoned women must find a way of survival and then live in conditions we could not endure for one single week…and this is how children end up in a world no child should ever see and run a great risk of being exploited in one way or another.
Une grand-mère élève seule huit enfants dans un petit village d'anciens réfugiés internes au Cambodge. Scolariser ces enfants est une priorité et nous permet de suivre les enfants sur le long terme

A grandmother is single-handedly raising eight children in a small village of former internal refugees in Cambodia. Schooling these children is a priority and allows us to follow the children in the long term.

When mothers work in town, or in Thailand, children are taken care of by elderly local people who are usually not family. The child has then to help at home and gets neither education nor payment; or worse, little girls have to go and work as prostitutes too. Danger factors for a little girl
  • Very poor family sometimes living on less than 30 dollars a month
  • Abandoned girl or orphan being taken care of by an unscrupulous relative
  • Prostitute’s daughter
  • Parents suffering from alcohol or psychological problems
  • Abandoned mother with many dependent children : she can be tempted to give away her oldest children in orphanages that take them in instead of providing help to the mother. In our shelter we never separate a child from a good father or mother, but we provide help to give a good schooling to the child.
 
Petit garçon dans une grande souffrance localisé par nos volontaires au Cambodge. Dans les cas les plus difficiles, nous accueillons les enfants dans notre centre de protection de l’enfance de Battambang

Little boy in great suffering located by our volunteers in Cambodia. In the most difficult cases, we welcome the children in our child protection centre in Battambang.

Likewise we don’t separate kids from their siblings; our shelter is mainly intended for tortured, raped or abandoned little girls, but their siblings are taken in too.

What we will remember about this refuge is the joy and the laughter of the children: these children who all come back from far away, have all lived through very difficult things, have found their childhood here…

Nicole and Michel

Going as a couple as a volunteer in Cambodia...

Emergency intervention at the source of child trafficking and abuse in Cambodia

Emergency intervention at the source of child trafficking and abuse in Cambodia

In those extreme cases we try to take these children into our shelter.

The ngo has developed a very efficient network in order to be quick to react. In very poor villages, hundreds of people are ready to report any awkward situation. The network is then essential to locate and take care of vulnerable children, especially when nobody will look after them.
Petit garçon dans une grande souffrance localisé par nos volontaires au Cambodge. Dans les cas les plus difficiles, nous accueillons les enfants dans notre centre de protection de l’enfance de Battambang.

Little boy in great suffering located by our volunteers in Cambodia. In the most difficult cases, we welcome the children in our child protection centre in Battambang.

Integration in the AVEC shelter Some children live in such terrible conditions that it is impossible for them to have normal psychological or physical development. In those extreme cases we try to take these children into our shelter. We work with the local authorities so that everything is done according to the law. To take a child in, we have to get several signatures: the child’s representative, the neighbours, the village headman and the county headman. The child is then under our full responsibility until he comes of age.

What we will remember about this refuge is the joy and the laughter of the children: these children who all come back from far away, have all lived through very difficult things, have found their childhood here…

Nicole and Michel

Going as a couple as a volunteer in Cambodia...

The humanitarian main lines of intervention of the NGO AVEC

The humanitarian main lines of intervention of the NGO AVEC

AVEC works on the long term with little financial means

As a child protection NGO, AVEC fights against illiteracy, and works towards a change of local ways of thinking by working in four directions : 1. Establishing a local information network trying to locate children at risk. 2. Trying to locate children who are out of school with the collaboration of local Cambodian schools 3. Helping very vulnerable children by giving them education for as long as possible. 4. Caring for the children in the shelter, a long-term and patient work endeavouring to restore hope, respect and confidence.
Action humanitaire dans des petits villages très pauvres au Cambodge auprès d'enfants en situation de maltraitance

Humanitarian action in small, very poor villages in Cambodia with children in abusive situations.

AVEC works in the long term with few financial means. By the power of patience and stamina, it has finally become a reference in Cambodia ; it has a close relationship with local authorities and other NGOs in the country; it even advises them as far as education problems are concerned. Local authorities often ask for its help.  

What we will remember about this refuge is the joy and the laughter of the children: these children who all come back from far away, have all lived through very difficult things, have found their childhood here…

Nicole and Michel

Going as a couple as a volunteer in Cambodia...