Sopheap*, from Cambodia, was trafficked into a begging gang by her aunt when she was three or four years old.
She ended up on the streets of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, begging day and night, beaten or denied food and sleep if her takings were not good enough.
Her story is one of many that will finally be heard at next week’s Mekong Youth Forum on Human Trafficking.
This landmark event brings together children from the six countries of the Greater Mekong Sub-region to discuss trafficking issues and make recommendations to government on trafficking policy and children.
Children are most vulnerable to trafficking when they live in poor or marginalized communities, or in cultures where children’s rights are undervalued. In preparation for this event, hundreds of children from varied backgrounds gathered at national forums in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, China and Myanmar and were encouraged to have their voices heard.
The thirty participants at next week’s forum have been voted by their peers to act as national spokespeople for the issues raised at country level.
They will hear from trafficking survivors like Sopheap and use these stories, plus their own perspectives, to appeal to senior policy makers from their respective countries who will be in attendance.
The recommendations from this forum, and the stories of children like Sopheap, have an even greater opportunity to be heard when the children present them in December to the COMMIT Senior Officials’ Meeting in Beijing.
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The Mekong Youth Forum on Human Trafficking is a joint initiative of the ILO Mekong Project to Combat Trafficking in Children and Women, Save the Children UK’s Cross Border Project to Fight Trafficking, and World Vision International’s Regional Advocacy.
More about the forum
More about World Vision's work to combat human trafficking in Asia and the Pacific
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