The Hackman-Cohanpour School for Girls in Rural Cambodia

http://open.salon.com/

via CAAI News Media

FEBRUARY 19, 2010

Human trafficking is one of the most repulsive crimes known to humanity. A modern-day slavery, trafficking has developed over the past decades into an established economic institution that exploits thousands of young women every year all over the world.

Perhaps the country most rampant with human trafficking, Cambodia was also the most vulnerable to it. After the Khmer Rouge’s horrifying genocidal rule in the 1970s and years of civil strife as a result, it was only a matter of time until countless girls were lured, tricked or sold into sexual slavery, an industry whose shocking abuses we cannot even begin to describe.

We believe that education is the key to enfranchising these girls, that it will push them as far away as possible from the trafficking trade, and that it will open their world to opportunities that many Cambodians were never exposed to. The Asian Development Bank will match the $13000 donation that the Hackman-Cohanpour School aims to amass, and the sum total of $26000 will go into building a coeducational secondary school in rural Cambodia.