My trip to Cambodia with Steps of Justice was the most heart breaking of any trip I have taken. I have seen poverty in India, prostitution in Amsterdam, and discrimination in Thailand. I have felt sorrow for the living conditions and the inaccessibility to education that many children experience in many countries. In Cambodia I visited non-government organizations like Hagar, International Justice Mission, Daughters of Cambodia, and World Vision, and learned about their work to improve the lives of people who are forgotten, ignored, or shunned. The Steps of Justice team worked with some of the same people we learned so much about which deeply impacted me in understanding the reality others face everyday.
The Khmer people experienced genocide from 1975 to 1979 during which a third of the population was killed under the rule of the Khmer Rouge. The government took away all private ownership and scattered city dwellers to the country in effort to reeducate the people as farmers. Anyone who was a threat to this plan was killed, including opposing government parties or a person just wearing glasses. After this oppressive government fell due to Vietnamese invasion, conflict continued with Vietnam until 1991. Cambodia lost a generation of people who would now be the grandparents and elders of communities and more importantly a generation of educated leaders to teach the youth. With this loss, the Khmer people are far behind neighboring countries in education and social development.
Families struggle in poverty. Many believe they must take their children out of school in order to work and earn money, creating a cycle of uneducated workers unable to escape poverty. Other families sell their oldest daughter into prostitution so that the younger children have a chance to go to school. Cambodia has a well-known saying about men and women, “Men are like gold, you can wash them clean. But women are like a cloth, once dirty they are ruined.” When a mother sells her daughter into prostitution she knows she is stripping her daughter of dignity and respect. Hagar, IJM, and Daughters of Cambodia are NGOs that restore dignity and life to girls by giving them an opportunity to make fair wages in respectable factories or restaurants. In the midst of the sorrow there is hope with Christian based NGOs that serve and bring light to women and young men.
The two weeks in Cambodia were completely filled with stories and experiences that I will not forget. Cambodia is a unique place, but the injustices occurring there are not unique to that country alone. If I took two weeks to focus on the injustices happening in Spokane, I would be just as heartbroken for my own city as I was for Cambodia.
