Training of Trainers in Phnom Penh

I just finished up a two day training of trainers on child abuse prevention with Chab Dai! We had 25 participants from 15 organisations! We delved into many aspects of child protection, including our biblical mandate to protect children, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, definitions, types, and symptoms of abuse, screening and operational procedures and abuse response protocol. This training was in English, so most of our participants were foreigners (from Canada, the U.S., Europe, and other Asian countries), but having some Cambodian participants was very helpful when discussing cultural issues. The Khmer training will take place over three days in January.

Through the activities and discussions, we were able to confront difficult issues, such as cultural practices that are potentially abusive, and a real sense of cooperation emerged, giving some organisations encouragement that they don’t have to face these issues alone. Chab Dai is a coalition, a learning community, where organisations working to end child sexual exploitation and trafficking, can learn from each other, lean on each other for support, and share knowledge and resources. Child protection is just one of the issues involved in this fight, and I hope this training was a big step in the right direction!

Child protection in Cambodia is very different from child protection in Canada. In Canada, if one of our staff reports an allegation of abuse, our main responsibility is to report it to the police and social services, and to extend compassion and facilitate healing for the victim. In Cambodia, where social infrastructure is still lacking, police and social workers severely underpaid and overworked, and significant levels of corruption exist on every level of government services, organisations are mostly left to investigate and substantiate abuse themselves. There is still much work to be done in this area, both in helping NGOs and churches do this aspect of abuse response, as well as challenging and helping government services to improve and respond effectively and without prejudice.

Keep Cambodia in your prayers!