Greyman Blog

Grey Man has been quietly sending people into Cambodia for the past 6 months in order to understand the child trafficking situation there and to see which NGO’s and police Grey Man could work with in Phnom Penh and other cities. We like to know what we are up against before we commit Grey Man operatives to any theatre of operations. As a final exercise we sent our Director of Operations from Australia to discuss our involvement with likely partners in Cambodia. He spent some time investigating the red light areas and liaising with local NGO’s (especially International Justice Mission-IJM) and the police to determine the best way for Grey Man to operate in country.

Last Sunday night our Director of Operations, ‘Tony’ approached a moto driver (motorcycle taxi) to discuss the possibility of accessing some young girls. The moto driver said he could supply the girls and took ‘Tony’ to a brothel in the countryside outside Phnom Penh. The results were inconclusive as the girls did not appear to be underage but with Asian girls it is often difficult to tell. ‘Tony’ declined the offer of being a client and was returned to the city. A few days later the moto driver contacted him and said he had two girls available who were young, so ‘Tony’ arranged to meet with him and immediately informed the local office of International Justice Mission (IJM) who arranged for the police to assist.

The Moto driver took ‘Tony’ to a nearby hotel where he met with a young Cambodian pimp who took ‘Tony’ to one of the hotel rooms. There were no girls visible but when the Cambodian was asked how old the girls were he opened the bathroom door and a 14 year old and ten year old (yes, 10!!) came out. They were Vietnamese girls who had been trafficked into Cambodia.

!4 and 10 year old Vietnamese girls rescued from Cambodian pimp

A price was negotiated but ‘Tony’ said he would have to get extra cash from his hotel room. This was in order to extricate himself from the room in order to confirm to the police that the girls were actually present and that they were underage.

The Cambodian agreed and as soon as ‘Tony’ left he signalled the police and IJM.  He returned to the room on the pretext of paying the money and as per arrangements the police knocked on the door of the hotel room soon after ‘Tony’ had re-entered it. The police arrested the pimp and the moto driver. The children were taken into custody and placed with a shelter run by a British NGO.  Grey Man will fund their ongoing recovery and education and investigations are continuing to snare other traffickers.

This is our first operation in Cambodia and by all accounts a great success. It received widespread coverage in the Australian media and resulted in an overwhelming response from the Australian public. Grey Man would like to thank our Director of Operations (‘Tony’), IJM, the Cambodian Police and Grey Man supporters everywhere for allowing us to do what we do best.   What’s more with Australia Day happening the day after I can think of no greater tribute to our country on our national day than that Australians put themselves in harms way to rescue kids in South East Asia.  We should all be proud. Well done

John Curtis

Grey Man received intelligence in March, 2006 about a pimp (a lady boy, trans-sexual called Nom) who was offering underage girls.  A sting operation was put in place and he turned up with a number of under-aged girls but unfortunately got cold feet and left before the operation was concluded. 

Two years later after receiving intelligence from a reliable source we again came across the pimp and again attempted a sting.  It took our operatives 6 months to build trust and we had to accept over-aged (over 18) girls during this time (no sex was involved) and found that all of them had become sex workers because they were in debt to the pimp.  Even when some of them had paid off their debt they were too frightened to leave and many showed us the signs of physical abuse from Nom that kept them working for him.

In October, last year, Nom finally offered us a young girl.  He said she was a grade 8 school girl (aged 14) and asked for 3500 Thai baht ($US100) for short-term sex (1 hour) with her.  Grey Man authorised our operatives to conduct a sting operation in conjunction with local police.  Unfortunately, Nom turned up with a girl who was not a school-girl at all.  We were sick of dealing with him by this stage and decided to get him off the streets once and for all and to protect the girls that were indebted to him and whom he had abused.

The sting went ahead and Nom was arrested.  From her Thai ID card the girl turned out to be 21 years old. She stated the reason she ended up as a sex worker was because she owed Nom money that she borrowed to pay for her education.  We asked a social worker to contact her parents and she was taken back to her family.

Police and Grey Man personnel arresting Nom the pimp

Although our brief is the rescue of children from the sex trade, we will also rescue adult women from sex work if they have been trafficked or forced into it.  We will also rescue those trafficked into other abusive forms of labour if the situation presents itself.  This case took some time but in the end we got an abusive pimp off the streets (he is awaiting trial), rescued a woman from prostitution and also freed her and her friends from debt bondage and the abuse of Nom.  This case took up a lot of Grey Man resources but demonstrates that we will pursue the perpetrators and rescue the victims wherever the opportunity presents itself.

John

I want to introduce you today to one of the heroes of anti-trafficking.  Her name is Somaly Mam.  She was trafficked into a brothel around the age of 11 and was beaten, raped and tortured but she survived.  She went on to become a champion of children and has rescued over 4000 children from the sex trade.  Grey Man operatives have worked with her organisation AFESIP in Thailand and we hope to work with her people even more in the future, but for now I’d like you to view the video of Somaly and realise what one person can do against overwhelming odds.