Country: Cambodia

Organization: NGO Coalition to Address Sexual Exploitation of Children in Cambodia (COSECAM)

Innovation: The coalition brings together all different agencies working to address child exploitation, providing legal support, providing services to victims, and advocating for policy changes. This enables a holistic approach on community and national level whereby all components of society play a role, NGOs, IOs, gov. agencies, business, media, and survivors. Young women who once were victims are not only offered a chance to retake their lives but are strongly encouraged to partake in advocacy activities to influence policy-makers. These girls and young women form the basis of the coalition who legitimize the member organizations to act and plan on their behalf and push international and government agencies to listen to their voices. In that way these women are encouraged to let their voices hear and become an activist movement for putting an end of trafficking and child exploitation.

Impact: The combination of forming an activist movement, of collaboration among NGOs representing survivors and a holistic approach to advocacy and policy change has already shown the first signs of having an impact on society. The girls and young women find strength among each other, and the movement is gaining momentum. The NGOs see tangible results from working together, learning from each other and filling the gaps. Joint advocacy work, joint research, joint skill training and job creation programs and joint reintegration activities have now started and show that their potential exceeds what individual agencies might achieve. NGOs feeling and being legitimized by the activist movement of young women gained strength in pushing international organizations and government agencies towards effective and efficient measures to end child trafficking and exploitation.

Tipping Point: It is not easy to convince the formal structures of society and the population as a whole that real changes are needed to end child exploitation and abuse. However, bringing survivor activists, NGOs, international organizations and sponsors, and government agencies together to agree on a joint approach for generic child protection anchored in law and properly enforced will overcome the social inertia and self-interests. The coalition has embarked on a long-term program to create a national ‘child protection system’. A gap is still caused by selfish reasons not to join or lack of political will. However, the tipping point will be reached once the survivor movement and joint NGOs have convinced government agencies (including police) of the merits of the approach. Successive support from international organizations and sponsors, and law makers at that time would tip the balance.

Replication: Despite the unique context of Cambodia, where NGOs play a crucial role in society and are less restricted in their work by government agencies, replication elsewhere is feasible given a survivor movement and a strong coalition of NGOs.

Sustainability: The coalition consist of member organizations that have their own funding sources, while the coalition has a partnership agreement with international core sponsors for several years to come. The coalition has excellent relationships with the main international organizations working in the country, like IOM, ILO, UNICEF and has their support for the child protection initiative. Support is also given by several government agencies dealing with child abuse issues. The survivor movement is encouraged and supported by several sponsor organizations and recently also adopted by student groups in the Netherlands. This latter action will stimulate and enable survivors to continue and strengthen their activist efforts.

Position in the Human Trafficking Mosaic of Solutions:

Factor: Corruption and Inadequate Government Policy

Principle: Ensuring Law for All