The Children’s Crusader

There should be no hell for children, but Phnom Penh can seem like its inner circle. Ravaged by the murderous rule of the Khmer Rouge, Cambodia’s lawless capital has become a choice destination for men seeking sex with children. Sex slaves as young as 6 are hidden in the back rooms of brothels. Saving their lives demands dramatic intervention.

Marie Cammal, 52, has made it her life’s work to rescue these victims and give them a chance at something better. “What we are doing is like a transfusion of some kind of relief, some kind of mental comfort,” says the no-nonsense French nurse, who moved to Asia in 1980 to work, in turn, with Laotian, Cambodian, Vietnamese and Burmese refugees. After more than a decade in the refugee camps along the Thai border, in 1996 she converted a villa in a suburb of Phnom Penh into a refuge for beleaguered children. She calls her home Sok Sabay (happiness in Khmer).

Many of the 40 boys and girls who live at Sok Sabay have to learn what happiness is; most have lived lives that made it impossible. One of the home’s current guests, called Harry because of his resemblance to Harry Potter, was stolen from his mother as a toddler and forced to work as a slave laborer on farms near the Thai border. “We have some girls who have been raped one, two, three times — and torture, a lot of torture,” says Cammal. Yet under her tutelage, the children come around. They have decorated one wall with colorful paint-daubed handprints, and they chat noisily as they tuck into lunch in the shaded front yard.

Cammal has to find just the right path between protection and openness. No signs announce the home — for fear of attracting sexual predators — yet Cammal likes to hire male teachers so the children learn that men can be positive forces in their lives. The children get training in English and French, computers and traditional Khmer dance and culture. About 40% of Sok Sabay’s modest $120,000 annual costs are covered by such organizations as the World Council of Churches, the Swiss Tropical Institute and Procter & Gamble; the rest comes from private donors and fund raising.

What makes the place work is Cammal’s simple commitment to these broken lives. “They are the heroes,” she says, “because they were able to overcome their situation and make so much effort to change.” Cammal’s only wish is that she could aid the thousands more just like them.