LONDON — Cambodians say that when human traffickers arrive in a village, they bring a storm and tears with them, an experience that Aya, sold into slavery when she was 16, will never forget.
Her story is at the center of the "The Storm Makers," a documentary by French-Cambodian filmmaker Guillaume Suon, who spent three years filming human trafficking victims and traffickers in the impoverished Southeast Asian nation.
A chilling expose of Cambodia's human trafficking underworld, the film depicts the lives of women like Aya who have returned from a life of slavery abroad, and those preparing to leave the country in the hope of earning enough money to support their families at home.
It also portrays a trafficker who claims he has sold more than 500 Cambodian girls, some as young as 14, without ever being arrested by police.