Rutiger wrote:When they run out of illegal underage sex-trafficking brothels to storm, maybe they could start breaking into the garment factory sweat-shops and rescuing the women working inside them.

Ha no, that's where the real money is.

I'm totally convinced now after watching their undercover video of the outside of some hostess bars. Some bargirl stands in front of a tourist strolling down the street and entices him inside. Then it says "End the Slavery." It's sad to think of that tourist now, no doubt slaving away on a fishing boat out in the Gulf of Thailand.
Those guys have been doing these rescue missions for a long time, the video from India has a 2009 timecode on it.

One can spend an instructive hour or two looking through the Exodus Road material the OP links to.

What will come as a surprise to some is that the U.S.A. is amply supplied with clueless High School kids, invariably from Christian-belief families,
ready and willing to raise $2,000 - $3,000 from starry-eyed and gullible Christian believers to enable them to spend 2 or 3 or 4 weeks in Haiti or
wherever singing songs about Jesus and playing, usually quite ineffectually, at doing something useful.

There's a charity here in Cambodia - Volunteer Building Cambodia - which does all sorts of really useful work for the Cambodian poor, as well as
encouraging retired school librarians from Cleveland (for example) to come and work, briefly, in the construction trade.

Of course, it would make far more sense for the retired librarian to hold a tupperware party and send the money, but that isn't at all the same thing.

Returning home with a joyful sense of accomplishment and a few dozen insect bites and a few cuts and callouses is a far more fulfilling experience
than merely raising and sending the dollars.

This is the excellent organisation to which I was referring:

http://www.volunteerbuildingcambodia.org/

Surprise, surprise. At first I found some stuff about how The exodus road had arranged for 4 US bloggers to fly out to Cambodia for a week to watch the search and rescue team in action. Blog example: http://dooce.com/2014/06/18/meet-the-exodus-road/

Monday morning I left my house at 6:30AM and landed three planes later on the other side of the world ... a total of almost 30 straight hours of travel... I mention this only because every single person I have met in the last day and a half who works with The Exodus Road, every partner and team member has repeatedly expressed gratitude to those of us on this trip that we’d travel this far to witness what they do...

Already , but then I checked out another one of the bloggers, and despite all the spiel about this being a non-religious organisation, this blog is called "The Very Worst Missionary", and guess what, it's about missionaries going to Cambodia to support The Exodus Road:
http://www.theveryworstmissionary.com/2 ... .html#more

... Anyway.

This weekend? My church is sending a short-term team to Cambodia.

I'm dead serious, you guys.

We're sending seven upper-middle class suburbanites half way across the world to do like four days of work with a ministry focused on the prevention, rescue, and restoration of victims of sex-trafficking. And, oh, it's going to cost around $30,000.

THIRTY. THOUSAND. DOLLARS.

I don't know about you, but I think that's more than a hell of a lot of money. That's like ten hells of a lot of money. Honestly, that is so much freaking money to send seven freaking people overseas for a freaking handful of days to work in an area and a culture and language they don't know a freaking thing about...

Triple facepalm.

Then there's the extra double quadruple facepalm for this one: http://semiproper.com/privileged-sort-of-white-woman/

I read a friend’s blog post and the string of comments underneath. One stuck out in particular. Privileged white women, one person wrote, are going on expensive trips to gawk at the poor and feel good about themselves...
But I’m a privileged sort-of white woman going with a purpose. I would not leave my family, put a pause on work, and give up potential income to fly across the world to gawk at prostitutes for my own entertainment and self-aggrandizement and then do absolutely nothing about it. That would be abhorrent...

Words fail me. Just send money...

Fucking Hell. these people.

Mercenaries of Hope?

There is another thread where everyone is praising 15 year old Cambodian sex-trafficking victims for escaping forced confinement and running for help to police, which shows that some sex trafficking does take place (which we all pretty much knew already) and that some of those trafficked victims are in immediate need of outside assistance. Why continue to criticize NGOs, religious or otherwise, for attempting to do just that? If people voluntarily donate their own money to such a cause then that's their right. Why all the CEO bitching and moaning about that? Rightfully criticize and condemn these NGOs all you want if they force any "rescued" girls to do anything the girls don't want to do after the high-profile door kicking, or if they mistreat the girls in any way, or if they lie about their actions and results to gain donations, but I'm all in favor of some NGOs making attempts to free such people if there is any possibility that some are being held against their will. Those 15 years old girls who "saved themselves" might have appreciated their locked confines being kicked in a few weeks ago.

Rutiger wrote:There is another thread where everyone is praising 15 year old Cambodian sex-trafficking victims for escaping forced confinement and running for help to police, which shows that some sex trafficking does take place (which we all pretty much knew already) and that some of those trafficked victims are in immediate need of outside assistance. Why continue to criticize NGOs, religious or otherwise, for attempting to do just that? If people voluntarily donate their own money to such a cause then that's their right. Why all the CEO bitching and moaning about that? Rightfully criticize and condemn these NGOs all you want if they force any "rescued" girls to do anything the girls don't want to do after the high-profile door kicking, or if they mistreat the girls in any way, or if they lie about their actions and results to gain donations, but I'm all in favor of some NGOs making attempts to free such people if there is any possibility that some are being held against their will. Those 15 years old girls who "saved themselves" might have appreciated their locked confines being kicked in a few weeks ago.

Because I'm almost 100% sure both the KT and the local Khmer papers didn't report that story correctly. I wish Felgergarb were here.

juansweetpotato wrote:

Rutiger wrote:There is another thread where everyone is praising 15 year old Cambodian sex-trafficking victims for escaping forced confinement and running for help to police, which shows that some sex trafficking does take place (which we all pretty much knew already) and that some of those trafficked victims are in immediate need of outside assistance. Why continue to criticize NGOs, religious or otherwise, for attempting to do just that? If people voluntarily donate their own money to such a cause then that's their right. Why all the CEO bitching and moaning about that? Rightfully criticize and condemn these NGOs all you want if they force any "rescued" girls to do anything the girls don't want to do after the high-profile door kicking, or if they mistreat the girls in any way, or if they lie about their actions and results to gain donations, but I'm all in favor of some NGOs making attempts to free such people if there is any possibility that some are being held against their will. Those 15 years old girls who "saved themselves" might have appreciated their locked confines being kicked in a few weeks ago.

Because I'm almost 100% sure both the KT and the local Khmer papers didn't report that story correctly. I wish Felgergarb were here.

Regardless if the story was reported incorrectly, the thread comments by CEO posters were based on the OP as written. On that thread it's all "hooray, possibly sex-trafficked girls are heroes for saving themselves from captivity!". On this thread it's "Boooo, useless f*cking NGOs wasting time and donated money by attempting to save girls from possible sex trafficking!"