Sok Suosdey had always worked hard to help support her family in Cambodia’s Oddar Meanchey province, on the border with Thailand, but no matter what she did, they remained poor. In 2016, things became even more dire when her family was saddled with repayment of a loan to a local bank.So when a neighbor approached her that year with the opportunity to make a higher salary in China, Sok Suosdey - who asked to use a pseudonym for this report to protect her privacy - leapt at the chance.
After making the necessary preparations, she departed to the bustling city of Shanghai, excited with the prospect of becoming financially independent in China and helping her family get free from debt back home. But around a month after her arrival, the woman who had promised her a job told her she would have to marry a deaf Chinese man and if she refused, she would be on the hook for the costs associated with her relocation to China - a sum far beyond her ability to pay.