Update: Child victims of sex trade in Cambodia

In March 2003, a Dateline team is in the middle of an undercover operation with a human rights group, the International Justice Mission, which is trying to rescue these child sex slaves.

Robert: This is Loeum and Viet, and, uh, Tau?

The pimps believe the investigators are organizing a sex party and have agreed to take the kids to a house outside the village where the party is supposed to be held. What they don't know is the Cambodian police will be waiting for them.

Robert: Ah, yeah, my girl.

At first, everything seems on track. 

Investigator: I’ve got five now.

But then suddenly the pimps change their minds and won't let the girls leave the brothel.

Robert: Yeah, but we talk, we talk, talk many day, and now I come and you know? My friend at my house. No girl.

Investigator Bob Mosier suspects the operation has been compromised.

Bob Mosier: There's been a tip-off. This is something we've encountered. This is going to require a traditional policing kind of response.

It's not clear how much the pimps know, but it seems they've picked up on rumors of an investigation.

They may be suspicious, but they're not exactly chasing anyone away.

Robert: What about my friend at my house?

Interpreter: Maybe they come here?

In fact, they want the sex party to take place right here, right now, and there isn't much of a choice, so our producers and the investigators play along.

Robert: Okay, come, girls.

They take the girls behind closed doors to separate them from the pimps and to protect them.

The pimps wait in the hallway.

An investigator manages to make a phone call to alert the police who are supposed to be standing by.

Girls: A

Dateline: B

Girls: B

A producer stalls for time...

Dateline: E

Then suddenly there's commotion in the hallway.

The girls panic.

Dateline: Be good girl. Be good girl. It's okay. It's okay.

Girl: I know. I know.

Dateline: It's okay.  

The police have burst in.

This girl - Yau - tries to run away.

The suspects scramble.

Investigator Bob Mosier struggles with one.

A plainclothes cop chases the suspect and strikes him with his gun.

Then Mosier finds that girl who tried to run off - Yau.

Bob Mosier: That's okay. That's okay. Come here.

She and the others don't understand, don't know if they're being kidnapped or arrested.

They're gathered on a sofa in the hallway, another missing girl - Tau - is found hiding in a closet.

Everyone is crying.

This girl says in broken English that she doesn't know what to do or where to go.

Girl: My mommy after die.

She has no mother.

Outside a crowd gathers. Among the spectators: a man who looks very familiar. Remember him? He's that police officer who was working with the pimps and asked for a bribe.

Robert: How about $100?

Now, he is off duty and out of uniform. Could he, or someone like him, have tipped off the pimps and made them suspicious?

Robert: He is a police officer, but I pay him money-

Officer: Yeah.

Robert: To, to have sex with young girl. Can you arrest him? I show you?

Officer: Yeah.

At first the crooked cop slips away.

But moments later police grab him and drag him back.

But now there’s a problem with the girls.

Bob Mosier: There are nine girls sitting back there. Three of them disappeared off the couch.

In all the commotion, our cameras catch this suspected Madam sneaking one of the girls past the police. In an instant she's gone.

So are several others.  

Robert: Oh, I think she ran away.

Officers are dispatched to look for the missing girls.

Cambodian Officer: No victim.

They don't find them, but inside other brothels, they do find more than two dozen teenagers - 14 and older.

Word of the raid has spread rapidly. Now most of the brothels are shuttered and padlocked.

Police break the doors open.

In one of the brothels, they stumble on a lone teenager and signs others made a hurried exit: scattered shoes, and a bowl of soup - still warm.

And everywhere traces of crimes committed behind closed doors:

Condoms. And drugs. And what look like ordinary business ledgers, only each of these entries could be evidence of the rape of a child...

Dateline: [What] do they have? That tells you how much business they do?

Bob Mosier: Yeah, yeah, this is how much business. Look at, uh, let's look at today.

Some of the ledger books look more like a grade school project -- one book per girl -- each with a photo and name on the cover.

It hasn't all gone according to plan, but at the end of the day a dozen suspected pimps and madams are in custody and 37 girls rescued, girls like Tieng and Yau -- seen here being carried from the brothel to a van waiting outside.

Robert: Where's the rest of them?

Police Officer: [Khmer]

Investigator: They're still coming.

As they're loaded into the van, they're in shock.

Several - like Tau - are still sobbing.

Others - like this little girl, Tieng - are more subdued.

Escorted by officers from the Cambodian Ministry of Interior, they pull away from this place where they lost so much - hopefully never to return.

So where will these girls end up? Can they ever escape their past?  We're about to find out.

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