BC man’s mission of hope in Cambodia, helping survivors of human trafficking

This is the third story in Hidden in Plain Sight, an in-depth series exploring human trafficking and its connection to British Columbia.

Warning: Content may disturb some readers.

The bustling Cambodian capital Phnom Penh is a city full of street markets and tuk tuks.

It is a place where the differences between poverty and wealth stand in stark contrast.

And here a side road takes you to a building with a very Canadian connection.

It is the home of Ratanak International, founded by Brian McConaghy in Delta, BC

“This is a safe environment for them,” said McConaghy, a retired BC RCMP officer who spent decades helping Cambodian survivors escape modern slavery.

Ratanak is a refuge for traumatized women and teenagers who have just escaped a life of sex trafficking.

“They escape by jumping out of moving cars, pretending to be sick so they can be taken to the hospital,” he explained.

Ratanak International was founded in Cambodia in 1989.

“I swam through the Beijing sewers, I think. How bad does it have to be before you go down into the sewers without even expecting to survive?” McConaughey said.

McConaghy’s humanitarian work in Cambodia began decades ago.

While working with the RCMP, he helped jail a sexual predator in Vancouver in 2005.

“Donald Bakker was the first case of a Canadian who came to abuse children in Cambodia,” McConaghy recalled.

Police later discovered another BC man abusing children in Cambodia. His name was Christopher Neil.

“He would post pictures of himself being abused and twist his face so he couldn’t be identified. It wasn’t hard to develop it and it was identified,” McConaghy explained.

Canadian teacher Christopher Neil has been convicted of child sexual abuse after authorities were able to “develop” his face in online images.

Although retired, McConaghy helped the Mounties find the building in Cambodia where Neil’s murders were committed.

However, obtaining search warrants was difficult, so McConaghy waited patiently, and when the building came up for sale, he bought it.

“Now that I own the crime scene, I didn’t need warrants to examine the building. And so was ours. So we actually processed the whole crime scene, went to court, got a conviction,” he recalled.

But McConaghy knew much more work needed to be done to help victims of exploitation.

“Innocent young country girls, they get caught up in it. Traffickers masquerading as job skills brokerage companies will get them passports, get them plane tickets, ship them, but by accepting the plane tickets, visa and passports, they don’t realize that they are becoming debtors,” he said .

McConaghy said victims are most often sent to China.

He said his organization worked with the Cambodian government to create protocols for the return of undocumented citizens.

“We had a girl who was locked in an apartment for years to be sexually abused and she got out of that apartment through an eight-story window and survived by tearing the curtains and making a rope,” said he.

Some of the women and teenagers who arrive at Ratanak have been out of Cambodia for years. The organization not only provides them with trauma counseling and skills training, but also gives them hope.

I met one of the hundreds of survivors helped by McConaghy’s organization in a rural area outside Phnom Penh.

Speaking through a supporter who works as a translator, she told CTV News that her poor family forced her to go to China and marry a man she had never met.

“The husband used violence with her,” the interpreter explained.

The survivor said the trafficker took her passport and ID and she felt she had no way out.

“She feels a lot of anxiety and depression and worries a lot, just thinking about (how) she doesn’t have documents, so the police can catch her at any time,” the performer explained.

After being trapped for four years, she escaped, only to be imprisoned until the Cambodian Embassy intervened and she was returned home, she said.

In addition to counseling, Ratanak sponsored training to become a tailor.

It’s a job he loves and said it has given him a new lease of life.

A human trafficking survivor, left, speaks with CTV News reporter Michele Brunoro through an interpreter.

Ratanak now has about 80 employees at its center in Phnom Penh, supported by Canadian donors.

And at the center of it all is McConaghy.

“It’s exhausting, but after 35 years of seeing lives with freedom, it keeps me going.” he said.

And it keeps him focused on his mission of bringing hope to those robbed of so much.

This project was made possible with funding from the BC Lieutenant Governor’s Journalism Scholarship in partnership with the Government Foundation and the Jack Webster Foundation.