Chab Dai Hero's Project

 

 

 

Human trafficking and exploitation remain persistent risks in Cambodia, particularly for individuals and households facing economic and social vulnerabilities. While these risks exist across the country, some rural provinces experience heightened exposure due to structural and geographic factors, and critically, limited community-level systems to detect and respond to them.

 

Tboung Khmum Province, located in southeastern Cambodia near the Vietnam border, faces significant and documented protection risks. Between 2023 and 2025, Chab Dai's Protection Team documented 246 trafficking and exploitation cases in the province, of which approximately 45% involved the trafficking of women and girls to China for forced marriage. These figures reflect only detected cases. The true scale of risk is likely greater, precisely because community-level monitoring and early warning systems remain weak.

 

Several overlapping socio-economic pressures are driving vulnerability. Many households depend on low-income labour or small-scale farming, both increasingly unstable. Climate variability has made agricultural income less predictable, while rising debt linked to microfinance and informal lending has placed families under significant financial strain. These pressures are known to increase susceptibility to deceptive recruitment and exploitation, and they are accelerating.

 

Recent developments have compounded this further. Following tensions related to the Cambodia–Thailand border conflict, large numbers of Cambodian migrant workers have returned from Thailand, with remittance flows severely disrupted. Families that previously relied on remittances for daily costs, debt repayments, and children's education are now facing sudden income loss, a vulnerability that traffickers actively exploit.

 

What makes this particularly urgent is not just the economic pressure, but the absence of systems capable of seeing it in real time. Many vulnerable individuals lack civil documentation, limiting their visibility to service providers and authorities. Coordination between civil society, government actors, and community protection mechanisms is fragmented, meaning that early warning signs such as a household in crisis, a young person considering irregular migration, or a suspicious recruiter often go unnoticed until it is too late.

 

These communities are at risk, and they are not being adequately watched over. What is needed is not a new service, but a sustained, trusted presence within communities, one that can observe emerging risks, raise the alarm early, connect individuals to support, and coordinate an effective response. This is the gap the Community Hero Protection Project is designed to fill.

 

 

This project will strengthen community-based prevention and protection mechanisms in Tboung Khmum Province through Chab Dai’s Community Hero Protection Project (CHPP) model. CHPP establishes Hero teams, multi-stakeholder groups that identify risks, raise awareness, and coordinate responses to trafficking and exploitation within their communities.

 

Hero teams consist of local authorities, youth groups, schools, civil society organizations, religious leaders, survivors of trafficking, and other community stakeholders. Operating under clear roles and structures, they act as trusted focal points connecting directly with communities to support locally driven prevention and protection efforts.

 

Over a one-year implementation period, this project will operate in three districts in Tboung Khmum Province: Por Nhea Kraek, Memuth, and Dom Bae. Two teams are already active in Por Nhea Kraek and Memuth and will be strengthened, while a new team will be established in Dom Bae. Each district team will include approximately 20 Hero members, totalling 60 members. Teams are based at the district level, while engagement and outreach occur at the commune and village levels.

 

Through training, mentoring, and coordinated action, Hero teams will:

 

The project will prioritize return migrants, vulnerable households, and high-risk children and youth, aiming to directly reach approximately 2,100 vulnerable individuals across these groups and 9,400 household members indirectly.

 

 

Goal: To strengthen community-based prevention mechanisms and local capability to reduce trafficking and exploitation risks in Tboung Khmum Province.

 

Outcome 1: Return migrants, vulnerable households, and high-risk children and youth are better informed about trafficking risks, aware of protection services, and supported to access appropriate community and government mechanisms.

 

Outcome 2: Hero teams and relevant local authorities are equipped, coordinated, and actively engaged to detect risks early, respond to cases, and support community-level prevention and protection activities.

 

 

Outcome 1:

Outcome 2:

 

The project is designed to create lasting impact by embedding capacity and systems within the community and local actors.

We are inviting funding contributions of up to $30,000 toward a total project budget of $50,000. Partial funding of $20,000 is already in place, and this request represents the final funding gap required for full project delivery.

 

A full proposal and detailed budget are available on request.