Pandemic brings new challenges for Canadians fighting child sex trade in Southeast Asia

BURNABY (NEWS 1130) — It’s been a year of some positives, along with hardship, for a Burnaby organization that is fighting the child sex trade in Southeast Asia.

Travel restrictions, for instance, have been a double-edged sword for Ratanak, which rescues and works to rehabilitate primarily the children and women caught up in the sex industry in and around Cambodia.

Founder Brian McConaghy says, on one hand, the pandemic has put a dent in sex tourism.

“The guys, tragically there are thousands of them, who fly from the West to abuse children as sex tourists, they are vastly reduced. The customer base is not flying into the country.”

On the other hand, the pandemic has dealt a blow to an important part of what Ratanak does — repatriating young people to Cambodia who have been sold to traffickers in neighbouring countries.

“When such lives are sold and they have an opportunity to escape, normally you can arrange flights to get them home, but during the first few months last year of COVID, not a chance. There were no flights out, and that was soul-destroying.”

Since then things have eased somewhat but travelling across borders to get home is still an onerous undertaking for victims.

“When a young person comes back completely traumatized, normally they would go right into trauma care. Now there is a quarantine phase. The last thing these young people need is isolation, so yeah, it’s really challenging.”

At the same time, the travel restrictions have prevented McConaghy and other Canadian team members from visiting sites in Cambodia.

“We have worked really hard to develop a strong, Indigenous team in the country who are highly skilled in dealing with trauma. But in terms of the closeness of relationship, of being aware of the day-to-day workings, that has been reduced because we are stuck here,” he notes. “We were in Cambodia last March and were evacuated when the borders were closing.”

And just because sex tourism has slowed, doesn’t mean the problem has been diminished. McConaughy says they just have a new set of challenges.

“The bad news is with COVID the clubs, the karaoke bars, the brothels have closed, so those young women are now out on the streets. They have no supports, like CERB or EI.”

The organization has decided to increase its budget at a time when a lot of non-profits are being hit hard by the pandemic and reduced revenues.

“We’ve not only maintained our operations, but in the middle of this pandemic, we have done some emergency food distribution for these people in Cambodia, because when their economy collapses, they have nothing.”

And like most non-profits, fundraising at Ratanak has evolved, because face-to-face events have had to be cancelled.

“Now, everything is Zoom and it’s really hard to build relationships that way. We have to work a lot harder and a lot longer to build that trust with donors.”

He suggests the recent controversy with the WE charity and the federal government has also impacted unrelated charities, creating an overall negative perception of donor-reliant organizations like his.

But he says overcoming the obstacles is worth it.

“It is still tremendously rewarding when we can take lives from slavery and see them set free to thrive and get educated and become self-sustaining. But there are hurdles to get over at the moment.”

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