only against a police crackdown but also against what they call election details coverage. more than 300000 people have lost their jobs because of that. and feel is generalism from around the world following reports that officials were aware of the presence of highly explosive material there are plans for mass demonstrations. hello and welcome again to rewind i'm kemal santa maria when we launched al-jazeera english more than 10 years ago our goal was to bring you the source of documentaries all the channels simply want to hear on rewind we revisit some of the best of them and find out how the stories of moved on and today we're returning to a film which had a major impact on young lives and changed the way a global business was developing. tourism it is one of the biggest drivers of the global economy in 2018 it was worth nearly 9 trillion dollars making up more than 10 percent of the world's gross domestic products after emerging from more than 2 decades of war in the 1990 s. cambodia has relied heavily on tourism to rebuild its economy it's one of the top destinations for young travelers many of whom sign up with global volunteering companies but there's a dark side to this story war breeds all friends back in 2012 investigative reporter giuliana rufus went on to tell them to find that well intentioned tourists were unwittingly fueling the exploitation of children at poorly regulated orphanages from the people in policy areas this is cambodia's off a business. numpad the capital of come back. between the 1970 s. and 1990 s. cambodia was ravaged by civil war. since its return to peace there has been a boom in tourism with over 2000000 visiting every year. came to help this war torn country increasing numbers of tourists and now also working as one until. most come with the very best intentions to work in schools and orphanages and filling a gap left by a lack of development funding. but recently disturbing stories have emerged that come boden children are being exploited by some of the companies organizing volunteers all running all from agencies we've come to come by yet to investigate allegations that quite a few of these orphanages out run not for need but for profit. allegedly begins on the outskirts of jumpin at an orphanage and school put the people to improvement organization. set up 10 years ago it provides free education for 2. when he hooked on the city's main garbage dump. was that. i. mean if there's an example of best practice in this industry then perhaps this is it me he was. the book from denmark has come to teach for 2 months. so has it been so far i really like that it's so clean i can do whatever i want and they come into my files like that everybody's really friendly and the kids i really respect to them they really get they give a lot. in a deprived neighborhood p.o.'s making a difference to organize pullen tearing in foreign donations. it's found pam and newman explains how past conflicts have contributed to the estimated 10000 children in orphanages all the farm oh yeah they have children and they are so poor and they are abandoned them sometimes they just come to drop in from the door and they leave we don't know who or where they from these people why would a parent leave their child here on the doorstep of your often that. yeah i do know they. cannot afford to take camp and also on some family they want the people to go to school but they cannot afford. there are now almost 500 orphanages encumber a figure that has doubled in the past decade. some like p i o rely on foreign volunteers for skills and labor but the vast majority use volunteer and to generate income. we find one of them the lighthouse orphanage on the other side of town. sinking. yeah lighthouse is home to 108 boys and girls ranging from 3 to 18 years old and. they request that we donate some food for the children to eat you get good food sometimes too you struggle i can say much better than your hometown a visa office from government all you need n.p.o. yet so you need to nations from volunteer mr rich he is responsible for bringing volunteers to light house and he's found a way of increasing revenues. if you will from the edges not just hosting get volunteers but groups of school students on short term stays to just now a group of canadians are visiting in their downtime to students get to play with the children. and over the past week some special friendships have developed even the teachers are not immune to when they say i don't know. dealing with a kid is going to be hard for just a deaf ear and you know one of these little guys walks up and grabs your hand you have no choice but to sort of follow up with them so they. and that it's pretty awesome. as canadian simple from scrotes closer not just good will but a lot of money is flowing into the orphanages to. be supplied by. the labor heavily but the tiles the sand the compost so we sent out about $5000.00 ahead of time and then i brought a few $100.00 with me so we bought some rice that we fish i call work and go to a water pump to keep the garden going so. kind of give them a little happiness today with their shopping and all this is a huge amount of money in a country where the average wage is $65.00 a month what they will never know is whether all of it will be used for the benefit of the children. we knew from various reports that in a number. case is a huge influx of donor money has attracted unscrupulous businesspeople to open orphanages for the wrong reasons. to find out more and geo puts us in touch with conti and young chante who grew up in an orphanage. when the donors discovered that the director had been stealing the money donated for the children the orphanage was closed down. and john t. take us to see their old home to tell us about the reality of friends lives hidden from the eyes of volunteers. and at the moment. but how. will you know. being in the. open palm we have have they can i well turn to. it. why didn't you tell the volunteers out was going on but that i am with you. one that will get dinner at me and you guys my mayor paddling at least so long enough that i came out in the. palm grove with her. would come out all men would go away no one. can say is he still suffers spouts of depression he works in 2 different restaurants for just $3.00 a day. chante 2 says he still affected he now has a regular job at the airport but not everyone from the orphanages fared so well. john t. introduces us to china who lives abroad on the streets and stays here was a. highly her. town but i'm going by. what. cultivating. charlie barely speaks with a. big but put in japanese. small kind of fallback you pull what i'm fat. duffey fat memory and my red hair but hold on to that the fact that by. my family and by you. but it's not just the combo genes in charge of orphanages who are accused of taking advantage of the money flowing into that voluntourism has become a global industry with foreign companies tapping into the potential profits true. we need us trail demi jackson is who has volunteered in cambodia for the past 3 years and her experiences have made a jaded about the industry that really led to a lot of our nature is there at the things that drive them behind the scenes that you would just see coming in fast time demi explains that volunteers like her book this stays in cambodia for international commercial volunteering companies based outside the country and. her 1st visit in 2009 was through projects abroad one of the largest in the world. volunteering comes at a cost and demi surprised how little money actually goes to the local finishes program my doctor once told me that he gets tired all the same way. here. that you know heartaches of what you pay up to $3000.00 a month. that he gets tired that's ok so what he's saying is about a $100.00 a week for legal mention if you have 10 people say $1000.00 people nation that sends us down there eat a lot of money and there. is nothing but at the moment he is. it really. is an ngo that investigates allegations of exploitation of children in orphanages and it's one of the few places where volunteers can voice their concerns. i know for me to really honestly ehrenstein mob working on a case about an orphanage called the children's center organization or cuckoo brought to them by former volunteers. so these are the e-mail complaints that we did get from the volunteers really clearly stated what their concerns were. the abuse the children missing the director was openly saying that he did want to adopt the children out for a price about $10000.00 which is which is extremely concerning for forcing as well the deduction is illegal income. there are allegations of physical abuse or food standards so the kids are looking hungry was open sewage the boys were sleeping under a smaller roof in the roof is leaking so this place is getting international volunteers just for you organizations do you know who these organizations are well suited rosa came forward and were volunteering really consciously brought and this is dating back to literally one pretty much one year ago. she should took the allegations to the competent government to send in their exam and in november 2011 and january 2012. it has been inspected tries by the ministry of social affairs and they found the conditions step holding them back very happy but they would close the orphanage down if it doesn't stop complying with the minimum standards. to avoid devising suspicions we go in on the cover that it's volunteers wearing hidden cameras. well we're greeted by saying that so often. just the right of the network you have to beg. and go get them. seen it is king for us to start teaching straightaway oh part of that i'm going to get in the market bob when i'm feeling up but one. thing i have never done any teaching yeah and i've been told that you then have to do the same or. i have the book and you can respond she stood you. having simply walked off the street we are now teaching an english class then there is a seemingly endless amount of play time. many of the children are hyperactive and will demand constant attention it is nice. to see you know the streets how many i was i was thinking. about and he said think out of this mess there is no longer. the kids of color nothing to do nothing and what she said was totally pointless. when sinnott returns he shows us the children's rooms only half of the beds have mattresses on the side of the so mother now i only know what is the metal these other conditions the government inspectors asked him to improve and if that was because i was out now rather than come out that right neil white. was there was a lot of heat for that to have frankly they have had to do is a lot of people. in the middle of the courtyard we also see the open sewer report to see sure. their accusations that cynic uses the children's misery to generate donations whether or not this is truth he certainly doesn't seem to make any effort to meet the government's minimum standards. before we leave cinna tries to get money out. again i have it was a whole can still have a day. care i really don't have time to say i mean there was something. i was. ready half an hour sometimes they're going to have all the right. things a cuckoo up bad. but in the evening we learn that they can get even worse. has become a target put child sex offenders and one to come investigate such cases for an n.c.o. called x. for his own home and. he's deeply concerned that some volunteer placement organizations fail to ask volunteers to undergo criminal record checks this is the very high use for the movie in children who are living in the office. this guy you know his american guys and he came to come boy it's like chicken broth he would in a padded trick hospital shockingly this man dr james d'agostino had originally come to come both yes frugal in tearing with projects abroad and at the time here also brought 3 on the boys and one and elderly in the buying records rented and according to the statement from the boy he appears the boy on multiple occasions in another case a british paedophile nick griffon had opened his very own orphanage and abused boys then. both men were found guilty and comes out in courts and sentenced to jail terms of 4 and 2 years respectively we return to cuckoo to follow up on the single most serious allegation that some of the children have gone missing from the also. the stabbing him to our surprise a dutchman has arrived. from fun fearful of. well. and also the same thing really. with the out of the house from your face other people who are falling over which are going to say has that but. they're 60 partly. they feel that wherever we turn we keep hearing about projects abroad to our amazement he tells us projects abroad never asked him for a criminal background check which he would have had to agree to under dutch law. when we go looking for direct as soon as we find him at the back in 05. we want to test how serious he is about protecting his orphans by asking him if we can remove some of the children and. then run. for everyone's safety we've asked the social worker to join us we tell sinnett she's a friend and interpreter we wanted to. do this afternoon to see if we can take some of the kids to have a little troll or. a plump and think how many king of the language or maybe yeah i think i've seen it is actually getting us to choose between the children. and minutes later with 4 of them. never once have we been asked for identification . this is actually totally crazy cinna just allowed us to pick up 4 kids from his orphanage in our car now and we could just drive off with them. we knew from c.c.'s investigation that the children are from the north east of the country but the paperwork at the orphanage was fabricated and their birth parents could not be traced to your home for you. the sad reality is that even if the government would come to the rescue of these children they could never be reunited with their families. during our time income boda we have heard a lot about projects abroad now it was time to find out more. projects abroad had a turnover of over $24000000.00 us dollars in 2010 that made over $3000000.00 u.s. dollars profit and paid a dividend of $1000000.00 to the to direct us i asked projects abroad why they continue sending them all in tears into orphanages that are so clearly failing the children and why they are putting children at risk by not asking all their volunteers for criminal background checks the company declines an on camera interview but tells us in writing that cuckoo receives $50.00 per month but everybody until they say that even if the allegations against kuku were correct it would be better for the children in the orphanage to have better volunteers on the ground they also claim that since 2010 they do criminal background checks on the over thirty's and that for those younger they require a written reference from a school college unnamed referee. when we put our allegations to sin at the director of kuku he denied them all. most volunteers decide and visiting cambodia with nothing but good intentions and until things improve the country and its people are said to benefit from sharing qualified skills. but most volunteers also fire an increasingly commercialized system and before leaving home it's worth investigating who really stands to profit from their present. cambodia's often business a film which played a major part in increasing the understanding of the potential dangers of volunteerism well i'm very pleased to say that we're joined here in the studio by the filmmaker herself giuliana rufus lovely to see you giuliana you were one of the 1st people to report on this internationally how did you even come across a story like this i'm actually quite interested in psychology and i was attending a conference on trauma and it was a global conference and there was a psychologist sociologist from cambodia and she'd been working on that issue because a lot of the children were damaged psychologically and she told me about it and i thought it was astounding that this really wasn't an issue that was known about at all tell us about the children who you met there 1st of all we used the word orphans are they all technically what we would believe to be orphans yeah i mean that was really the 1st thing that i was interested in the vast majority of the children in these so-called orphanages actually do have parents and they there are people who go around and who effectively recruit these children they say to the parents that the children are going to get great education that they'll be in touch with lots of best westerners and the parens allow them allow these recruiters to take the children and then they get put into these again orphanages and effectively some of these orphanages are a money making machine and do the children actually get to see the big. effects of any of that money or a lot of the children are really damaged they're damaged firstly because they're being taken away from their parents and then secondly a lot of them and you can actually see that in our film they have what is called an attachment disorder so that they continuously get attached to a new person a new volunteer plays with them show us them with affection and then leaves very quickly i'm trying to imagine what what you went through and that actually i know it's about the children but i mean that's a that's a very emotional things a goes for where this story really got me is when we tried to take some of the children out for a day out and what we tried to demonstrate is really the complete neglect of care that it was just he was just allowed to do it this is something you could be in ordinary because we actually it's a country that has a well known problem with child abuse especially paedophilia that is foreigners foreign tourists for so-called tourists again coming in and abusing children so the idea that we could take these children out without any supervision was quite astounding and that is really the thing that hit me i was so focused on will this happen can we take the kids out that when we finally said with these kids in the car it was actually quite emotional because we had this sense of the driving of with them in the car and we could have done absolutely anything to these kids and when you did take the children out of the orphanage you had a social worker with you and yeah you can actually see and the film and the social worker she was there for 2 reasons firstly to protect the children and to make sure that they're safe and comfortable and she helped translate but secondly it was also to actually protect us because we were aware that we were making what could be a very controversial film and we were worried about future allegation accusing us to have done something incorrect with the children so she was there also to make sure that we were safe in that sense and what's have. and since what as far as tightening up the laws. live we can talk about the government but what about the actual images themselves are they still operation like this yeah they were actually quite a few responses to this so firstly on an international level the awareness has really grown so astray i would say is as a country a leading example because they have actually made the trafficking of children into orphanages illegal they've they're describing it as a modern form of slavery and so that's the international response then income bogut self the authorities have reacted to some degree they've shut down some of the orphanages and they've worked with international agencies like the u.n. and and also international organizations to close these orphanages down and and actively reunite the children from orphanages with the families where possible but also and this was particularly important to me some of the companies that run voluntourism schemed have to