Global Financial Crisis

Is the global financial crisis leading to increases in exploitation and trafficking in Cambodia?

Several organizations are coming together, from the policy level to the grassroots, to answer this important question and to mitigate increases in human trafficking as a result of the financial crisis. To monitor and understand the effects of global financial crisis in Cambodia, UNIAP is conducting research on whether and how unemployed ex-garment factory workers and other vulnerable populations are being lured into exploitative brokering, trafficking, sexual exploitation, or work in degrading workplaces. UNIAP partner, Emerging Markets Consulting, is conducting an industry analysis identifying labor sectors vulnerable to the financial crisis, and the populations made vulnerable by this instability in livelihoods. Joining hands with other partners, such as Chab Dai Coalition, World Vision, IOM, and ILO, the alliance is using the data to collectively implement a joint plan of action that links outreach and awareness raising to vulnerable people and those in need of assistance with advocacy to government and donors and direct assistance to exploited people affected by the financial crisis.

Initiated by UNIAP in April-May 2009, research on women in the entertainment sector (that is, working in karaokes, massage parlors, and brothels) in Cambodia will determine where these women have come from and when, their previous livelihoods, how they got into their current situation, and the levels of deception, debt, and exploitation that they have faced. Collecting and analyzing this data will help us to understand what sectors are being affected and the level of exploitation that entertainment sector workers face.