the young man worked hard seven days a week, 16 hours a day. finally, the boat was close enough to shore one day for him to take a chance.
he jumped and swam to shore.
fortunately, he landed in malaysia, which has an agreement with cambodia that undocumented workers from there will be returned.
after his mandatory two-week, covid-19 quarantine in malaysia, the man was sent to phnom penh and a program run by a canadian-based charity, ratanak international.
brian mcconaghy, a former rcmp civilian forensics expert who took early retirement to further the work of ratanak, which he founded 36 years ago, read the man’s file and was certain there was a mistake. it said his age was 37. but it was no mistake.
the man was 20 years a slave. for privacy reasons, he is not being named.
for two decades, he maintained his sanity by dreaming about the smell of the soil after the spring rains came to his village.
last year, with help from ratanak, he was able to buy a small cashew farm.
the global pandemic hasn’t halted slavery and human trafficking. if anything, it’s only made it worse especially for the forced labourers at sea and those secreted away in brothels.
a few weeks ago, 10 young
cambodian
women were repatriated to phnom penh from china, where its years’ long, one-child policy has led to an insurmountable shortage of marriage-aged women. one arrived without shoes.