Kolab doesn’t know who her real parents are. She was allowed to go to school until year five, but horrible conditions caused a situation that forced her into selling drugs and sex at a karaoke bar.
Kolab is born in 1991 and grew up on a farm in Cambodia. On the farm, she was treated like a servant and was frequently beaten by the people she thought were her parents. When Kolab was seven years old, she found out that the people she was living with had bought her from her real parents who couldn’t afford to keep her. Kolab describes this discover as very painful. After this, a series of events followed which was the cause of her ending up in trafficking.
Phalla studied until year 12 but was then sold to a brothel by her grandmother.
Phalla is born in 1988 and at the age of twenty, when her father died, she moved in with her grandmother. After a month of living there, her grandmother brought her to the city of Kampong. The city is situated by the sea and Phalla was happy about finally getting to experience it. They visited a house where girls consistently went away with different men. Phalla’s grandmother asked the owner of the house to let Phalla stay, to then pick her up a few days later. Phalla never returned.
Read the rest of the stories of Kolab and Phalla here.
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