Hope For The Silent Voices Cambodia Impact Trip

Hope For The Silent Voices: Cambodia Impact Trip “Love Comes To Life” Dec. 27, 2012 - Jan. 11, 2013. By: Cassandra Atwood of Brunswick Coastal Rotary, Brunswick Maine www. hopeforthesilentvoices. org cassandra. m. atwood@gmail. com

Background of Hope For The Silent Voices -Founded in by Eric Lyons after visiting Sri Lanka and assessing the need to address extreme situations of exploitation and supporting vulnerable children. -Works in Cambodia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Columbia and Malaysia. - Work consists of impact trips, assessments, providing needs and developing programs based in country. www. hopeforthesilentvoices. org cassandra. m. atwood@gmail. com

Hope For The Silent Voices “Love Come To Life” Impact Trip (December 27, 2012 – January 11, 2013) 13 professionals from the medical, dental and. social services fields volunteered for 2 weeks in Cambodia to service the vulnerable & neglected children in SE Asia. www. hopeforthesilentvoices. org cassandra. m. atwood@gmail. com

Areas we worked -Light House Orphanage. Phnom Penh, Cambodia -Stung Meachey- Phnom Penh, Cambodia -SSF- Sao Sary Foundation. Orphanage in poor rural community outside of Phnom Penh - Safehouses- Outside of Phnom Penh www. hopeforthesilentvoices. org cassandra. m. atwood@gmail. com

History/ Background Tuol Sleng Prison: The Killing Fields. 2 -3 million people were killed and buried by the Khmer Rouge regime, during its rule of the country from 1975 to 1979, immediately after the end of the Cambodian Civil War (1969 -1975). www. hopeforthesilentvoices. org cassandra. m. atwood@gmail. com

Child Sex Trafficking Children as young as 5 years old, are being sold as slaves for sex. Each year, by some estimates, hundreds of thousands of girls and boys are bought, sold or kidnapped and then forced to have sex with men. ECPAT Cambodia reports that as many as one third of the trafficking victims in prostitution are children. www. hopeforthesilentvoices. org cassandra. m. atwood@gmail. com

35 % of Cambodia's 15, 000 prostitutes are children under the age of 16. (UNICEF) www. hopeforthesilentvoices. org cassandra. m. atwood@gmail. com

Almost all of Cambodian brothels are Vietnamese-owned with most of its voluntary sex slaves being of Vietnamese descent and its captured sex slaves being of another ethnic group. (UNICEF) www. hopeforthesilentvoices. org cassandra. m. atwood@gmail. com