Trafficking victim awarded for human rights work

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BOYLE: Vann Sina was 13 years old when she was drugged, taken from Vietnam and sold into a brothel in Cambodia.

There she was forced to have sex with 20 to 30 men every day. Any resistance was met with the most appalling punishments.

Her tormenters exacted sadistic cruelty on her, shocking her with electric wires and locking her in a coffin full of vicious ants for days at a time.

In 1999 Vann was freed by a police raid, after three years of working in the brothel. Since recovering she has devoted her life to helping others through the Somaly Mam foundation. Her efforts have now been acknowledged after she was awarded the 2009 Douglass Freidman award.

VANN SINA: "When I go to another country and meet with the media, I can talk to them about all those victims, their needs and what they wish to tell everyone - about how much they have been suffering. They want us to understand their plight and, particularly, give them a chance to reintegrate into the society. When the people know they are sex workers, they never ask them why but regard them as bad people, the most abhorred in the community. But we should understand that we don't know what has happened to them and there are many reasons as to why they have ended up here."

Nothing can erase the horrific memories that Vann and so many others have endured, but Steve Morrish, executive director of South East Asia Investigations into Social and Humanitarian Activities, says that forms of advocacy such as Vann's award raise important awareness about human trafficking.

MORRISH:"It's very important because human trafficking and sexual slavery are massive problems all around the world, especially in South East Asian countries at the present time and statistics and intelligence that we recieve are saying that it's getting worse and there's a lot of reasons why that's happening. It's very, very important that advocates, especially local people like Cambodians come out and tell their stories so people aroud the world hear about the atrocities and get an understanding of how bad it is here."

BOYLE: Mr Morrish is a former police detective and works in direct interventions, shutting down brothels and bringing perpetrators to justice. And he says what he's seen firsthand disgusts him.

MORRISH: "Trafficking for sexual slavery is probably one of the worst forms of crimes against humanity anyone could ever imagine and unless you've actually seen the victims and seen the conditions they're kept in it's quite hard to imagine that people could do this to someone. Ages can vary anywhere from four years old through to, even younger than four, through to 25, 26 years of age. It depends on what type of criminality is being put against them, so if it's trafficking externally and the girls are sold to Malaysia it could be between 16, 17 onwards. If it's girls trafficked for sexual into Siem Reap or those other surrounding provinces for the virgin trades, they could 9,10,11,12,13 years of age and then of course we have the foreign paedophiles that come here for the very, very young children so the ages can start from any age."

BOYLE: Mr Morrish says advocacy is important, but it has to be backed up with effective policing.

MORRISH: "They're susceptible to exploitation when you're poor. So the traffickers and the pimps and the mama sans can exploit them very easily so for me, for my opinion, sending the message to the community that if you do exploit someone, if you do traffic someone, if you do sell someone for sex, you will go to jail".