Daughters implements "Safety First" program to protect clients

Two members of Daughters production staff received their certification in Basic Fire Safety and Extinguisher Use this September thanks to a generous donation, which enabled them to attend a course through local company FireSafe. 

As part of their education, the staff members learned techniques in fire prevention and extinguishing, including use of equipment to be purchased for use at the Daughters' Operations Centre. They also learned the proper method for safely evacuating a building — an essential skill for the pair, who are charged with ensuring the safety of the more than 100 clients employed in Daughters' sewing room, wood workshop and screen-printing press.

The course is part of a larger Safety First program being implemented at Daughters by funding from Ratanak International that includes purchase of fire extinguishers, alarms, hoses and other equipment, as well as improvements to wiring throughout the Daughters' Operations Centre and Social Work building.

Srey Pov's Story: "My Worst Nightmare"

For Daughters client, Srey Pov, it was her worst nightmare: After leaving the sex industry behind, she discovered she was pregnant by one of her former clients.

When the pregnancy test came back positive, Srey Pov became desperate. She contemplated suicide and told counselors she planned to take not only her own life, but those of her small boys as well. She talked of taking them to Phnom Penh’s tallest bridge and pushing them to their deaths before taking her own life.

Even as counselors worked with Srey Pov to find alternatives, they arranged for trustworthy people to monitor her outside of working hours to ensure the safety of her and her children. But alternatives proved difficult to find. Slowly, Srey Pov stopped talking of suicide and instead contemplated abandoning her children with her estranged husband — an unacceptable alternative, as her husband had previously considered selling their children to traffickers and had more recently expressed hope that Srey Pov’s unborn child would be a girl, who could fetch a high price.

But the social work team was finally able to find an answer in a partnering women’s shelter offering a yearlong program that would furnish a safe place for Srey Pov and her children while providing a family and group support structure. Within 24 hours of hearing about the shelter, Srey Pov agreed to go. She went home, gathered her boys and their belongings and, with the help of Daughters’ social workers, moved into the shelter right away.

Now, Srey Pov says she feels happy, and, for the first time since reading that pregnancy test, she says she has hope. Daughters’ social workers continue to work with Srey Pov to find a long-term solution for after she finishes the yearlong shelter program and are currently looking for families or permanent live-in centers outside the city and away from her husband that could provide her with work as well as a safe and stable environment for her children, whom she now says she wants to raise on her own and protect from traffickers.

Marika's Story: Trapped in a foreign brothel

Marika left Cambodia with high hopes that working as a domestic servant abroad would help her provide for her family. But once she arrived at the home of her new employer, it became clear this was not going to be the case. Marika became a virtual slave to her employer, who confiscated her passport and withheld her wages. One day, she worked up the courage to escape, only to fall into the hands of a trafficker -- a man who had promised to help her but instead raped her and sold her to a brothel.

She spent three years trapped in the brothel, where she was raped and beaten daily. Yet her spirit endured, and she was again able to orchestrate her escape. This time, she was successful in making it back to Cambodia. But even at home, she found she wasn’t free. Vivid nightmares haunted her dreams while all-too-real flashbacks tortured her waking hours. It was too much, and she turned to drugs to dull the pain.

But then, Marika found Daughters. With help from Daughters' social workers, Marika was able to overcome her trauma and beat her drug addiction, and the flashbacks stopped. She earned a good wage in the Daughters' sewing room, where she quickly advanced to fine hand-stitching work.

For the first time since she left Cambodia to work as a maid, Marika felt empowered, and this time, it lasted.

She was so excited about her transformation that she wanted others to feel the same. She started going on Daughters’ outreaches in Phnom Penh’s red-light districts, giving girls trapped in the life she once lived hope for the future. She dreams she will someday be able to locate and free the young women who remain trapped in the foreign brothel that once imprisoned her.