How a young man’s search for a better life led to a decade of exploitation

By the time Norng Samen’s son returned to Cambodia after a harrowing 10-year journey abroad he was so unrecognisable that she had to check his scars to make sure it was really him.

A distinctive mark on his elbow confirmed that the man standing before her was the son she had held a funeral for years earlier.

Norng Samen had last seen Pisey when, at the age of 18, he followed in the footsteps of so many boys from his small village in Cambodia and migrated to Thailand in the search of better job opportunities and a better life.

Norng Samen and Pisey (pictured above) were unable to stay in contact. A few years after Pisey had left Cambodia, neighbours of the family who had migrated to Thailand found a dead body in the water and misidentified it as Pisey.

“I was told that he was dead and we had a funeral for him,” Norng Samen says of her son.

Deep scars

Pisey eventually returned to Cambodia 10 years after he had left, but a decade of exploitation and abuse in Thailand had left Pisey with more scars than the ones his mother remembers.

Pisey’s work in construction was physically demanding and poorly paid. For years he did not receive a regular income. Once, Pisey slipped while carrying heavy steel, leaving him with a permanent disability to his legs. Another time, he was stabbed in the stomach by drunk gangsters on the beach.