The importance of youth empowerment.
“Modern day slavery” constitutes of individuals being bought, forced or coerced into exploitative labour under false premises. Cambodia is ranked 9th out of 167 countries on the Global Slavery Index. As you are reading this, approximately 260, 000 Cambodians that were living in poverty have recently been sold lies of a promising future by traffickers, before being trafficked both within and across borders. At this moment in time, approximately 260, 000 Cambodians are being forced to work in abhorrent environments for little to no pay or to debt bondages. At this exact second, thousands of them are trapped indefinitely at sea on fishing boats, working 20 hours a day, unknowing of the next time their feet will touch land. Even more shockingly, many of them are under the age of 16 years old.