BACKGROUND

Program Description: ACT is one of the PADV’s programs working with the Cambodia ACTs which is an NGO coalition composes of eleven NGOs. Village Safe Net is a strategy incorporated into the campaign through workshops, follow up meetings and activities with local officials, police, school directors, teachers, primary school students, media, and other relevant stakeholder in the target areas.  

It aims to prevented children from being trafficked and exploited through raising awareness on trafficking issues to grassroots people including children, provide direct life skills assistant to high risk and victim children of trafficking and parents, build child protection networks in community and improve capacity of community leaders and other relevance stakeholders to help their own people especially children.

    

1. A Community Education: is conducted through workshops and follow up meetings through the setup of Village Safety Net (VSN). Children & development stakeholders, especially local authorities, are engaged through the VSN to address the protection of children, women and girls from domestic violence, sexual abuse, trafficking & exploitation, to initiate communities' action against such abuses, to open up opportunities for women/girls to learning life skills, capacity building & accessing resources for improvement of their living conditions.

2. A program for support for High-at-Risk and Victim: have both prevention and protection purposes. It includes the provision of temporary shelter and care services, the provision of skills training in handicraft, sewing and agriculture in order to give opportunities for employment, to earn income or reduce household expenditures, therefore, children will not succumb to trafficking and abusive work situations and parents have better income to retain their children in school.

3. Law Enforcement: component involves local authorities, prosecutors and police to be more conscious of their role in protection through improvement of their attitude, skills and knowledge of law and policy.

4. Policy Advocacy Work: conducted through a campaign against child trafficking aimed at raising public awareness, to give chance to children and young people to contribute to activities against child trafficking and to lobby government response to child trafficking issues. A national commemoration of day against child trafficking, on December 12, and provincial workshops serves as a venue to culminate this campaign. Awareness raising is also pursued through the production and distribution of information education materials, using the media for a wider reach as well as visual materials, using the media for a wider reach as well as visual materials in public areas.

5. Media Strategic Planning: in order to strengthen child protection systems in especially protective measures, local partners will provide actors who are involved in anti-trafficking action information on how to deal with children victims of trafficking in line with human rights standards.

    

6. Media Campaign: in order to strengthen child protection systems in especially protective measures, local partners will provide actors who are involved in anti-trafficking action information on how to deal with children victims of trafficking in line with human rights standards.

7. Round Table with Media: Various strategies will be used that contribute to improving or expanding the capacity of journalists to manage information on child trafficking. In Southeast Asia, the results of the regional press review will be presented at national level in a series of roundtable discussions with the media. The discussion will likewise include the review of media guidelines on reporting on trafficking cases involving children and also pertinent domestic legal provisions on media reporting. This activity will be organized by Anti-Child Trafficking Program (PADV) and will be held in the Cambodia. Participants will be selected from different media (television and film, radio, print and internet). This activity focuses on the result of the press analysis on the national and the regional level with the media.

8. Training Meetings with the Media: Following the regional analysis of press coverage on child trafficking and initial roundtable discussions with the media for awareness-raising on how to report on the issue along media guidelines, Anti-Child Trafficking Program will identify more specialized, interested journalists covering child-related issues for attending “training meetings”.
The objectives and program of these capacity-building sessions will build on shortcomings previously identified in knowledge/reporting on the issue.
In follow-up to this activity, we will provide the regional secretariat with the contacts of the most receptive journalists, the idea being to form a pool of well-informed journalists to be updated on current child trafficking issues in the region. Explaining them the advantages of the regional cooperation on child trafficking issues, the regional secretariat and/or country networks could e.g. regularly send them relevant newsletters/material/ information on child trafficking and protection issues in the region.

PROGRAM ACTIVITIES & ACHIVEMENT

1. Policy Advocacy
In May 2006, Cambodia ACTs members include PADV collectively sought policy advocacy on the development and approval of the Guidelines for the Protection of the Rights of Trafficked Children with the Cambodia National Council for Children (CNCC). Ultimately, on 14 December 2007, H.E Hun Sen, Prime Minister of Cambodia, approved the Deci-sion on the Guidelines for the Protection of the Rights of Trafficked Children of the Kingdom of Cambodia. He publicly appealed to all parents, guardians, relevant ministries, development partners and civil society to give attention to children, who were described as "the bamboo shoots which shall grow as the pillars of national development.....".

We lobby the Government of Cambodia to recognize December 12 as a National Day Against Human Trafficking, finally the tireless effort bears its fruits. The Royal Government of Cambodia finally recognized December 12 as a National Day Against Human Trafficking on December 07, 2007 from the Council of Ministers.

2. Awareness Rising
Awareness raising activities was conducted in order to increased knowledge and understanding on child trafficking issues. Because no study has been done to assess the effectively of these awareness raising activities, we can only observe the impact these has brought to the community. We imply that community members have knowledge on;

• Causes of child trafficking issues
• Effects on the family especially to children
• Information on reporting to local authorities and other community members
• Preventive measures on violence against women and children and child trafficking

Awareness rising has been a key factor in the decrease of violence against women and children, child trafficking, and sexual exploitation. There was a noticeable increase in the number if adults and children who recognized that sexual exploitation, violence against women and children and the risk of child trafficking are present in their community.