Neang Seap

Neang Seap: Neang, now 59, tightens the towel that wraps about his waist, scrapes a chair across the parched hardwood and settles his sinewy frame. Once he was a rice farmer, before his land was taken away, before the music was taken away, before the books were taken away. His is one story, but thousands are identical. Hundreds upon hundreds of thousands, according to The Star. Read more: I got hired at a Bangladesh sweatshop. Meet my 9-year-old boss PHNOM PENH, CAMBODIA Neang Seap and his wife, Em Mom, arrived in Phnom Penh bearing the lacerating wounds that mark Cambodias rural migrants. Evicted by the Khmer Rouge in the late 70s from his village in the countrys eastern zone, Neang was part of the long forced march west, ending up at the Khao-I-Dang refugee camp, just across the Thai border. It was there that he met his 15-year-old bride-to-be. The couple married and brought five babies into the world before moving to the capital, where Em bore four more children. Related: One Cambodian factory strike gets ugly (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.