ADRIENNE A. AGUIRRE - Staff Writer

OCEANSIDE ---- Imagine, as a child in Cambodia in 1975, being moved into a slave camp where girls as young as 10 were forced into marriage and younger children performed hard labor from sunup to sundown.

That was the experience of Chivy Sok, who shared her story Sunday night at the 18th Annual Candlelight Walk for Human Rights organized by the North County Chapter of Amnesty International.

Editor’s note: Stars and Stripes reporters Allison Batdorff and Hana Kusumoto recently spent a Friday night in the entertainment district near Yokosuka Naval Base to explore the status of the sex trade a year after the Defense Department banned solicitation of prostitutes.

YOKOSUKA NAVAL BASE, Japan — If you’re an American man without a girl on your arm, walking from Yokosuka’s main train station to the nightlife district is a “massagy-girl” gantlet.

Migrant worker advocates urged the government on Tuesday to abolish the use of private brokers in recruiting foreign laborers and implement a revised system in its place.

The Hope Workers' Center, the Taiwan International Workers' Association and the Vietnamese Migrant Workers and Brides Office all stressed at a press conference that the private brokerage system currently used to match migrant laborers with local employers was the main source of exploitation against the workers, and needed to be changed.

SAD PLIGHT: Foreign workers spoke of suffering at the hands of unscrupulous brokers and employers, with at least two Filipino workers allegedly dying of overwork
By Shih Hsiu-chuan STAFF REPORTER
Wednesday, Oct 18, 2006, Page 2
"I know that some migrant workers use the first three months of their salary to pay their brokers. Some even pay up to 20 months of their salary as broker's fee."
 

(18-10-2006)

HA NOI — Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung yesterday received a delegation from Cambodia’s Ministry of Social Affairs, Labour, Vocational Training and Youth Rehabilitation, led by Minister Ith Sam Heng.