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[Music]
over the years Cambodia has become one
of the world's capitals of sex tourism
it's cheap and available prostitutes
attracting men from around the
world the sex industry has different
rungs to it there's the street Walkers
that do the the $5 blow job there are
brothel there's massage parlors and then
there are the bars where you go in you
get serve drinks and the girls will go
home with you there are tens of
thousands of women who are doing that
here in Cambodia the US government has
long worried that many of these women
were victims of human trafficking and
put pressure on Cambodia to crack down
and since Washington provides some $600
million a year in development Aid the
Cambodian government finally listened
in 2008 it launched an aggressive new
anti-trafficking and prostitution
campaign but there have been reports
that it was doing more harm than good so
we went to see for
ourselves so we're out on uh Patrol with
the anti-trafficking unit from the
ministry of the Interior we're going on
a raid to get some women who have been
illegally trafficked that's all we know
right now
they're taking their bones right now so
the girls won't call ahead to other
operations uh to other
bronos it's a very happy scene right now
[Music]
oh my God this is this is but as dark as
it gets right here G
where do they go now what do you do with
the
girls
speee spee
spee and this is the Crux of cambodia's
anti-trafficking program sex workers
brought into police custody are given a
simple choice except training for a new
career or remain in custody indefinitely
vulnerable to abuse and shakedowns by
corrupt police with these options most
women choose retraining almost always
for work in cambodia's booming garment
industry since the Cambodian government
started its Crackdown in 2008
authorities claim to have rescued and
retrained thousands of women from the
sex industry for what at first glance
seemed like better
jobs but we soon learned that many of
these women didn't want to be rescued at
all at the end of this long abandoned
train track is a makeshift squatter Camp
it's the home to one of the rescued sex
workers a mother named Paul
paully after Paulie's arrest police
released her into the custody of a local
NGO that would prepare her for her new
career spee fore speech
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fore
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foreign
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speech would train her for work in the
Garment industry which employs a half
million cambodians and makes up 80% of
the country's exports at first it
sounded like an opportunity for a fresh
start in cambodia's biggest industry the
reality was very different so were you
making any money while you were in the
training we spoke to several women with
similar stories and they told us that
life didn't get much better after they
finally entered the
workplace garment workers here get a
base salary of $8 a month the minimum
wage that's barely enough to feed a
family a diet of rice alone and pay rent
in a shack and P pan or live in Factory
Barracks like these s Raymond tries to
support her family working long hours in
a garment Factory but it's still not
enough to get by how much is your rent
for your
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for to make ends meet she now moonlights
as a prostitute every night earning just
$8 per
customer if you look around the world
where the Garment industry is
flourishing what attracts the Garment
industry it tends to be where the rule
of law is weakest and where people are
so desperately poor that on mass they're
almost willing to work under any
conditions David Welsh is an organizer
at the solidarity Center a labor Rights
group out of the United States that's
affiliated with the AFL CIO what's not
IND denture slavery or servitude but in
a way it is throughout the supply chain
an incredible amount of money is being
made by these Brands a significant
amount of money is being made by the
factories the workers are nowhere near a
living wage and that's where the margins
are desperate for jobs and fearful of
crackdowns by the authoritarian
Cambodian government garment workers
have for years stayed quiet but
conditions have gotten so bad that they
are now starting to push back we're just
outside the capital where dozens of
clothing manufacturers for Western
Brands sprawl out for Miles hundreds of
garment workers were picketing for a
second day and things were tense so
these women are protesting and striking
the basic gist is they want to be paid
more just that morning thugs had come
and beaten some of the strikers with
clubs and that pushed the women to their
boiling point
we wanted to see the factory conditions
that led these women to strike but these
factories are notoriously difficult to
get into especially with cameras can you
take me
inside
solidarity we are not allowed in this
Factory but if the workers all protect
us then we can go in so they're taking
us in stiring up the a little bit
security guy is making calls right
now before long someone from management
showed up to greet
us of them then follow me to see what
the to see inside the
[Applause]
factory normally it is 3 th000 women you
know NOS to the the grindstone sitting
here all day every day 6 days a week for
maybe $80 a month and they're supposed
to feed their families with that by all
definitions cambodia's garment factories
are sweat shops literally in some
factories there have been mass faintings
and women have been hospitalized by the
hundreds on the floor at Barry we saw
labels for H&M Old Navy beniton and
Russell Athletics over several weeks we
reached out to all of these Brands but
no one wanted to talk to us on
camera the management of the berry
Factory told us that none of this was a
problem at their shop but they treated
their workers well and even paid them
more than the minimum wage and then for
some reason they wanted me to be the one
to convince their workers of all that so
I I think I hope you can expend to the
work yeah it's it's not it's not
appropriate for me to get involved in
these contract negotiations I had no
intention of being a mouthpiece of the
factory management so I took this
opportunity to ask the workers directly
what they are actually
[Applause]
paid your bosses here are saying that
the minimum wage in this company is
about
$80 and that you are actually getting
paid $175 to 200 is that correct
[Applause]
this entire dispute which led to the
walk out and strike was all over what
amounted to a $4 per month raise and the
Very fact that Barry's management
actually invited us to see their Factory
strongly suggests that the conditions
there are far above average many others
in Cambodia and throughout Asia are far
worse like a factory making sneakers for
as6 where roof collapsed in 2013 and
killed two workers and injured seven
others the working conditions in the
Garment industry have gotten so bad that
strikes by workers and clashes with the
authorities are now almost routined the
government is starting to get worried
that all this unrest will hurt
business in January 2014 police opened
fire on demonstrating garment workers
killing at least four these riots
threatened to destabilize Cambodia in
all this so we can spend a few dollars
Less on our t-shirts it's crazy when you
go into a big retailer in America and
you can find a hoodie for like 10
bucks like if you think about it how
could it be that cheap the only way is
that the people who are making the
product are getting paid peanuts and
that's what's going on
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here many of the sex workers pushed into
garment jobs told us they didn't want to
be rescued at all the women we spoke to
said the pay and conditions are actually
better on the
streets if you quit being a sex worker
would you go back to the Garment
industry forign
spee
foreign speech fore
speeech here's a sad bit of irony about
cambodia's rescue program a number of
Studies have found that most of
cambodia's sex workers weren't victims
of trafficking after all for now women
are choosing prostitution over garment
work and that more than anything paints
a very Stark picture of what the reality
is for cambodia's girls and
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women
fore fore spe speech speeech
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