Kompong Speu: Under the high temperature of the sun in a large paddy, the female child, Reaksmey, and her younger sister Somaly, with red kramas with white stripes around their heads, held sickles to bend down to harvest rice, sweating profusely, behind their house in Leak Anloung village, Rolaing Chek commune, Samraong Torng district, Kompong Speu province. But the two siblings did not complain about this hard work compared with the work they did when they were children.

Reaksmey, 16 years old, with the same dark complexion as her younger sister, said that the two of them were permitted by their mother to work as servants and were subjected to physical abuse for many years from when she was about 10 years old. She has six brothers and sisters, but they were not lucky enough to be reunited with their parents, grandparents and siblings since, one by one, they were sent to work as servants.

Reaksmey said that one day at the beginning of 2007, she was sent by her mother and an organizer living in the same village to work in the house of a wealthy family near Phsar Deumkor Market, Phnom Penh; as a result, she dropped out of school when she was only in grade 3 at Voar Sar Primary School in another village near the village where she lived.

She continued her story, [saying] that at that time her mother did not tell her how much she would be paid or for how many years she would be a servant, to pay for the amount her mother had received, she only knew that “she had to stay in the house and she was paid and [that she had] to wait for (her mother) to come to visit her sometimes”.

Like other servants, she said that she was ordered to do everything, such as cleaning the house, washing clothes, cooking rice and babysitting, from dawn till dusk, seven days per week, without any holiday. Since she could not endure so much difficult housework, she was subjected to physical and verbal abuse every day from the day she was employed as a servant.

Reaksmey shed tears and said that “She (the house owner) pulled her hair, slapped her face and hit (her) with a broom… she shouted for help, but no one dared help her”.

At the end of 2007, an unfortunate thing happened in Reaksmey’s family: her father in his hometown died from a mysterious disease. However, she said that the house owner did not allow her to attend her father’s funeral.

Following the death of Reaksmey’s father, the family livelihood faced more hardship, her family got poorer and poorer, while the family debt was increasing so that Reaksmey’s mother had no effective means to address their problems.

At the beginning of 2008, Reaksmey said that the house owner relocated to Phsar Dey Huy and the housework in the new house was even more since the other two servants stopped working for this family.

Hearing this news, Reaksmey said that her mother expected her younger sister, named Somaly, who was living in the countryside with her three other small younger brothers to be employed.

No more than one week after the death of her father, she saw her mother bring her younger sister [to work as a servant] and said, “I need money to pay our debts because your father can no longer support the family”.

It was that time she realized that she and her younger sister were being exploited by her mother and the organizer who received an amount of 1,700 US dollars in return for the two siblings as evidenced by a letter of acceptance of money with signature.

When her younger sister, Somaly, became a servant the same as her, she was only 12 years old and she had to live a new life that was harder than when she worked pulling seedlings.

Somaly told us with a sad face that at first she tried to work hard and endure the verbal abuse by the house owner because she felt sorry for her mother and her poor family. She also said that she hoped that some day her mother could save money and buy her back to be reunited with the family in the countryside.

Unfortunately, what she thought was completely wrong. Somaly said that after she was sent to work as a servant, her mother didn’t visited her for eight months during which time she was subjected to stronger and stronger physical, mental and verbal abuse by the house owner.

Somaly said that while living and working as a servant, the house owner subjected her to physical abuse, throwing her so she hit the bathroom wall until her head swelled and her nose was bloody, accusing her of stealing the money.

She said that she had no hope of being bought back by her mother to be reunited with her family in the country side.

From that time, she had the idea of persuading her older sister to run to her house, but her older sister told her that they could not do this easily since, her older sister, had attempted to escape many times but had failed and was subjected to even stronger physical abuse. However, Somaly still harbored her [wish to] attempt to escape because she could no longer bear working as a servant.

One day, a good opportunity presented itself to her when the house owner took the family to receive injections at the hospital, when coincidentally the two siblings were jointly paid a “salary” of 10 US dollars from the house owner in the evening.

At about six in the morning, Somaly said that once the house owner and family went to receive the injections, she persuaded her older sister to run away from the house through the rear door and to get on a motor-taxi to Chaom Chao intersection. After that they paid 16,000 riel (approximately four dollars) for the motor-taxi and then paid 10,000 for a taxi to get to their house.

After about one-and-a-half hours of worried travel, Reaksmey and Solamy arrived at their hometown in Kompong Speu province.

However, Somaly said that neither of them dared to go to their house for fear that the house owner would find them and they would be sent back by their mother. They therefore decided to go to their grandparents’ house to temporarily stay and told their grandparents about all the things that had happened to t hem.

After learning of these things, their grandparents felt sorry and hurt for them since they had pity for them. Reaksmey and Maly’s grandfather was not reluctant to inform the commune authorities to address this matter. One day after, the commune authorities and the officials of a human rights organization conducted an inquiry and research.

The chief of Leak Anloung commune, AOM Sam Ang, said that many families out of 107 families earned their living as servants. However, the commune chief said that only Reaksmey and Somaly were sent by their mother to work as servants in return for money.

Mr. Sam Ang added that this family was the poorest and constantly indebted; also, despite the fact that this family had tried to work hard, the income generated from the employment of pulling seedlings was only enough for their daily livelihood.

In spite of this, the commune chief said that this family had suffered from ill health so that they had to borrow money from others to get treatment; as a result, both debt and interest had increased. Mr. Sam Ang said, “She may have no choice but to send her daughters to [work as servants].

No specific study has been conducted on the number of young girls who work as servants. A number of studies have been conducted only in large-scale businesses, while children having to work as servants is a private matter.

A report of the Department of Labor of the United States of America in September 2009 revealed that four types of businesses use child labor: brickyards, shrimp field, salt fields and rubber plantations.

A study jointly conducted in 2007 by LICADHO and WORLD VISION FUND [found that] approximated that around 31,000 children were working in Phnom Penh, Kompong Cham province, Battambang province and Siem Reap province.

But the actual figure of the children is many times greater than the above figure. Another study jointly conducted in 2003 by the National Institute of Statistics and International Labor Organization revealed that nearly 28,000 children were working in Phnom Penh alone.

A study conducted by IOM revealed that 51% of sex workers are children who formerly worked as servants.

Mr. SAM Sokong, the attorney-at-law of the legal group for the protection of human rights in Cambodia, stressed that the use of force with the aim of child labor exploitation, such as causing unhappy separations from their families to work as servants is an illegal act which leads to the loss of the four rights of children: the right to survival, the right to participate in development and the right to protection. He added that such human trafficking is a serious social issue to be prevented and addressed by the Royal Government and the whole nation in order to avoid a serious situation.

However, while waiting for effective resolution, it will take a long time for the female children Reaksmey and Somaly to receive justice for their previous hardship, while many other children are being subjected to the same physical abuse as them while working as servants.

To date, Reaksmey and Somaly and their siblings are living without their mother who escaped and disappeared and some villagers said that she is afraid that she will be arrested by the authorities and some said that she had run away with her new spouse, while the organizer, the same villager is living without a care as if she/he does not know anything.

 (Rasmei Kampuchea Newspaper, January 12^th, 2010)