Antislavery Usable Past

Bella

2017 (Narrative date)

There are an estimated 261,000 people living in modern slavery in Cambodia (GSI 2018). All of Cambodia's 25 provinces are sources for human trafficking. Cambodian women and girls move from rural areas to cities and tourist destinations where they are subjected to sex trafficking in brothels, beer gardens, massage parlours and salons. Cambodian men form the largest source of demand for children exploited in prostitution, although men from across the world travel to the country to engage in child sex tourism.

Bella is from Phnom Penh, Cambodia. She was trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation at the age of 12. Bella was able to find refuge in a faith-based organization.

My name is Bella and I’m 21. I was born in Phnom Penh. When I was young, a woman tricked me and told me to clean her house or prepare her clothes…Then after one or two months, she sold me. When I was 12 years old, I was trafficked. They forced me to have sex with guys and I always don’t want to go… and she always hit me and blame me. I worked there about one month and I really hurt. I want to go away from the place but I cannot go. She sent me there, to the house and then have the guy come in… maybe like five a day. They pay like $20 and then he do something bad to me. I say no and I cry and I said, ‘please let me go.’ She told me that if I escape from her place, she will do something to my family. I felt like I was hopeless… I had nothing, no one care about me. No one thinks I’m special.”

[…]

If still I work like that, I will get a disease, and I will die with nothing.

Narrative source Youth Underground, a non-profit organization dedicated to preventing human trafficking through youth education, awareness-raising and advocacy.

Original narrative can be found here:

https://www.facebook.com/YouthUnderground.CH/posts/1473901859311951

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VOICES: Narratives by Survivors of Modern Slavery

This is the world's largest archive of modern slavery survivor narratives. Across more than a million words spoken or written by survivors of modern slavery, we can see why slavery persists in particular hotspots, analyse patterns in trafficking routes, identify vulnerabilities, understand more about the challenges survivors face in liberation, and discover new antislavery solutions. These narratives offer the chance to systematically design new antislavery strategies based on the experiences, ideas and solutions of enslaved people themselves.

The database is searchable by country, name, theme, and narrative date. Narratives can be viewed in list or map form. A short introduction provides context to each narrative. Narrative provenance appears after the main narrative text.

For ideas on how to use this database, please see our accompanying guide.

Project Lead: Zoe Trodd. Team Members: Andrea Nicholson, Lauren Eglen, Rosemary Pearce, Olivia Wright.

Project Funders: AHRC Antislavery Usable Past grant (2014-19), ESRC/AHRC PaCCS Modern Slavery: Meaning and Measurement grant (2016-19), and AHRC-GCRF Antislavery Knowledge Network grant (2017-2021).

For any queries about the collection please contact: [email protected]. If you wish to cite a particular narrative, please acknowledge the survivor’s name, the provenance of the narrative and cite: Voices Database, the Rights Lab, University of Nottingham.

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