Every year, many Cambodian women are being sold a dream.
It’s a dream of a better life in China: a rich husband, a comfortable office
job, a world away from their provincial, and often poor, villages. In reality,
brokers are working on both sides of the border to sell these women into
marriages they find are far below their expectations, and into a life in rural
China strikingly similar to the one they were trying to escape.
This
issue is now being reported in the mainstream and international news, but
Chab Dai have been dealing with cases such as these since early 2014. So how can
we respond effectively to this growing problem?
A market for marriage
Reports blame China’s one-child policy for reducing
the number of women in the country and creating a ‘market’ for men seeking
a bride from overseas, wherein men often pay huge sums for a Cambodian wife.
Across the border, prospective brides are approached by locals, even people
they know and trust and are told that the money will go to their family.
But after the deal is done, the families rarely see the
amount they were promised, and the women often end up trapped in an abusive
marriage, in a foreign country where they may speak little of the native
tongue. Passports are usually taken from them, posing a problem in itself,
since train travel in China – a potential means of escape - requires valid ID.
How we help
Cases usually reach Chab Dai’s Case Support team via our
helpline number, either from the women, the Cambodian Embassy in China or
referrals from our partners. Chab Dai have managed to help repatriate 13 women
from China, but coordination remains a problem. Even if the women make it to
the Cambodian Embassy, they can end up stranded there for months or placed in a
government shelter under sometimes unliveable conditions.
On a visit to China, Justice
and Client Care Senior Manager Chan Saron commented:
“What we need is someone working on the ground, directly
with the survivors. There is a gap for a coordinating organization between the
survivors, the local Chinese authority, Cambodian embassy in China and
government institutions and NGOs in Cambodia.”
Commitment to collaboration
Aware that this is an issue experienced by many of our
partners and stakeholders, Chab Dai recently held a Round Table discussion
aimed at sharing information and forming a collaborative response. World
Vision, AIM, IOM and others were at the table with us, relating lessons learned
and suggestions for the future.
We discussed the need for a centralised, Chinese hotline
number that women can more easily access and shared ways we can better advise
women on their escape routes, including how to get back their passports for the
train journey, or travelling by alternate transport.
Together, we identified the most common areas these women
usually come from, suggesting we could geographically target our prevention programmes
to ensure key communities are informed about this issue.
The meeting closed with a series of positive action points, including
working towards an MOU with the relevant government departments, as well as
tackling the lack of funding by creating a basket fund between NGOs.
But the most important take-away was an ongoing commitment
to collaboration. Only an organised effort between NGOs, the government and
other key institutions will effectively handle, resolve and even prevent these
cases from happening. Let’s hope the next few months and years will see those
gaps on the ground in China filled, a more proactive and cohesive response from
both sides of the border and more Cambodian women returned home safely.
Key source:
‘Trafficked for Marriage to China’ Case Support Project report, by Kristina
Novak.
Images by Stephen Durham and Brad Collis, used under Creative Commons licence.
