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.