Female sex tourism

In today's Globalpost.com: Female sex tourism in Senegal attracts women who will pay for romance.

"Moussa flipped through a stack of photos. In one image, an overweight, Spanish woman — his first "girlfriend" — has her arms around his small frame. She gave him $500, he said, before heading home. Another photo is a self-taken shot of him with an Italian woman who he said gave him the $650 to open his souvenir shop in Dakar where we now sit, drinking spicy Touba coffee.

He pointed out the gifts tourists send him: CDs, USB drives, a guitar, an MP3 player and a DVD player.

“I don’t ask for money," he said. "We go out. They pay for everything. We have sex. Before they leave, they give me a bit cash to help me out."

Some call it male prostitution, while others say it's just women doing what middle-aged men have been doing for centuries: Taking up with someone half their age and giving that new friend an all-expenses-paid ride in exchange for sex and a new lease on life. [...]

But, others in Senegal say it is not that innocent. It's exploitation on both sides, they say, and sex tourism has sullied the country's reputation and corrupted its youth.

But, closing up his shop back in Dakar to head off to drum practice, Moussa said he's not worried about what other people think.

"I haven't met her yet," he said, "The woman who's not so old, who loves me, who's willing to do anything. The woman who will get me a visa and a plane ticket out of here." [...]

"I saw quite a few young men there with old, white women. I began to question my morality. What are you doing with this old woman? She could be your mom. You've become a gigolo, someone who doesn't have ambition, someone who is ready to do anything for money,” he said.

Years ago at a club in the Gambia, Pape saw a young man gyrating sexily in front of three old white women. One of the women reached out and patted his butt before shaking her head no, like it was a piece of fruit in the market.

"That memory comes back to me often lately," he said, stamping out one cigarette and lighting up another. "Once I find a good job, I will get my dignity back. But for now, I'm a prostitute."

According to Wikipedia, destinations for female sex tourism in southeast Asia are Bali, Indonesia and Phuket, Thailand. No mention of Cambodia, but of course it takes place here as well because of the wealth disparity between the locals and the visitors.

I have a funny story about a friend of a friend, a female sex tourist who likes to sample men from all over the world. This Dutch woman slept with a Cambodian man, a waiter at her hotel, while she was on holiday in Battambang. Later, she complained about his small size. We were amazed that she actually told the guy: "It's ok, don't worry. We Europeans are bigger, that's all." (I am sure she was just "unlucky" though, as other friends have told me otherwise!)

I also met a motodop (motocycle taxi driver) who told me about his Japanese "girlfriend". She came to holiday in Siem Reap for a week and spent one night in his family home. She told him she loved him and asked him to wait for her after she leaves. Meanwhile, he sends her emails but she is busy, he says. The Japanese woman takes about a month to reply to his emails. He said she has asked him to go to work in Japan but his mother does not want him to go. He will wait for her for 5 years, he told me. He has not seen her in a year and a half.

According to the wikipedia article, "Social reasons for women seeking promiscuous and no-strings-attached sex abroad include the dating war, as typified by extreme competition between the sexes in schools, the workplace, while dating, in marriages, and even in contentious divorces. The dating war appears especially to drive sex tourism by Australian and Japanese women, and to a lesser extent, German and Scandinavian female tourists."

In Singapore, Japanese women have a reputation for wanting "Sun, Shopping and Sex" while on holiday. I had heard how one of the bird trainers at a local attraction, the Singapore Bird Park, used to entertain Japanese women at the park--after hours of course. But there is a difference with someone like the Singaporean bird trainer who does not do it for the money and a man who feels a sugar mommy is his way out of poverty.

So we can make a distinction when Jeannette Belliveau, 51, a former sex tourist who remarried, and who wrote the book, Romance on the Road, says : "There is the view that these women are guilty of hypocrisy and that they are exploiting poor men. This is nonsense. Sex between two adults that doesn't harm either partner is without question a good thing." I learnt so much from it. It healed me after a painful divorce."

Sex between two consenting adults does not always mean no one is hurt. Just ask Pape from Senegal who said: "Once I find a good job, I will get my dignity back. But for now, I'm a prostitute."

Sex and the Cambodian artiste/artist

From romony.blogspot.com, a Cambodian blogger living in Japan who is a follower of this blog. I just checked out her site, which I found interesting for its pan-Asian coverage. Among other things, Romony writes about entertainers in Korea, Taiwan as well as Cambodia. Here is one, with a youtube video of Cambodian singers "playing behind the stage" with a sex toy.

Says Romony in her post:

I remember these people; popular or not, they were Cambodian singers I used to see on the stage. They used to step on to the stage from the room behind and greet audiences with their gentle words and gesture traditionally (matching their acts to Cambodian culture). However, the video footage below shows their hidden faces and acts - things that are still unacceptable to Cambodian society (at least to the conservative Cambodians)....Many people in Cambodia are now playing more with camera embedded within their hand-phones, thanks to what is termed technological diffusion. When camera-ing something like their own naked body or own sex scene, however, these people totally forget or never think of the consequences, particularly in the age that internet is far beyond our control.

I found Cambodia actually has a Maxim model! For those of you who don't know, Maxim is a men's magazine, like FHM and Stuff, and they feature sexy and sexily clad women. Meng Lau, born in Phnom Penh but now lives in San Francisco has been featured in more than one men's magazine.

Khmerbird says "people know her as America’s hottest doctor’s assistant on Maxim Magazine and as Neighborhood Knockout Meng Lau on Stuff Magazine." Here is Khmerbird's interview with Meng Lau as well as photos of her.

Then there was this hoohah of the drawings of Reahu, who draws Apsara dancers with big boobs. Really, which Cambodian woman has a chest like this? It's all in Reahu's fantasies, which I find laughable. But some people take him seriously.

Quoted in the linked article above: "Mr. Chuch Phoeung, secretary of state of the ministry of culture and arts, said that the website was not based in Cambodia. He said that the Cambodian authority cannot do anything. If it is based in Cambodia we can invite them to explain to us. He agreed that those drawings can cast a bad image of the Khmer culture but said that the Khmer authority is unable to do anything (to stop them)."

Well, they obviously can. If you try to go to reahu.net, you'll see this message:

ERROR
The requested URL could not be retrieved
While trying to retrieve the URL: http://reahu.net/
The following error was encountered:
Access Denied.
Access control configuration prevents your request from being allowed at this time. Please contact your service provider if you feel this is incorrect.

New law on sex trafficking leads to more abuse

Or, as AFP more politely puts it in this story published on Christmas day: "Cambodia faces problems enforcing new sex trafficking law"

25 DEC 2008, PHNOM PENH (AFP):
The Cambodian government began prosecuting a new "Law on Suppression of Human Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation" in February after years of pressure from the United States to clamp down on sex trafficking.

Since then, authorities have conducted brothel raids and street sweeps, but rights groups complain the new law has in many ways worsened the exploitation of women.

"The law allows police of all levels to arrest and punish sex workers," said Naly Pilorge, director of local human rights group Licadho.

"The sex workers are arrested to police stations and rehabilitation centres and then they are abused."

The reporter interviewed one prostitute, Chantha, who said there was nothing else she could do in Cambodia but become a prostitute.

"If you don't even have a dollar in your pocket to buy rice, how can you bear looking at your starving relatives?" she said.

"You do whatever to survive, until you start to realize the consequence of your deeds."

Chanta, in her early twenties, was working in a small red-light district west of the capital Phnom Penh several months ago when she was arrested under Cambodia's new sex-trafficking law.

Police nabbed her in a raid and charged her with publicly soliciting sex, fining her nearly two dollars. Then, Chanta claims, the arresting officers gang raped and beat her for six days in detention.

Bruises covered her body, but none of her assailants were brought to court, she said.

I once spoke to a young Cambodian prostitute who told me she'd rather die of AIDS tomorrow than of starvation today.

And a Merry Christmas to you too.

Regulating the sex trade-The Economist

TheEconomist

I found The Economist's article on how to police prostitution relevant for Cambodia. In this spirit I am summarising the magazine's arguments for and against government regulation of the sex trade. The article ends with a survey done by two British grannies who found the best system to be the one where the prostitutes owned their own brothel, i.e., a (sex) worker cooperative.

Less government regulation:
- In 2000, Netherlands made prostitution legal, thinking the sex trade would become one that is freely undertaken between individuals, and there would be an end to bullying by pimps and clients, violence etc.

-But this has not worked. "In Amsterdam—where the spectacle of half-naked women pouting behind shopfront windows is a city trademark—the link between prostitution and organised crime has proved durable. Efforts to break it have been a “complete failure”, says Lodewijk Asscher, a deputy mayor who has led the city hall’s effort to buy up and transform much of the red-light district."

More government intervention:
- In 1999, Sweden started fining, jailing and naming and shaming people who patronise prostitutes (called "johns"). Prostitutes are treated as victims. After studying the Dutch and the Swedish experience, Britain decided to follow the Swedes. It is illegal for sex workers to solicit sex on roadsides in Scotland and England and Wales plan to make it easier to prosecute pedestrians and motorists who ask for sex. Also moving in this direction: Norway and Italy.

- However, problems under this system include: sex being exchanged furtively may make sex workers more reliant on pimps in order to get work. Prostitutes may also be more susceptible to violence as transactions agreed to in haste means they do not have the time to assess clients.

The New Zealand Approach
-In 2003, New Zealand decriminalised the sex trade and sex workers can sell services at home, in brothels or on the street.

- But there is one big difference between New Zealand and other countries that legalise sex work--"In the Netherlands and Nevada, the business is confined to brothels, which are usually run by businessmen rather than the sex workers themselves."

- By allowing sex workers freedom to practise their trade anywhere they want (instead of having to do it in brothels owned by businessmen), sex workers can keep all their earnings and they can choose their johns and to practise safe sex if they wanted to. “They feel better protected by the law and much more able to stand up to clients and pushy brothel operators,” says Catherine Healy, head of the New Zealand Prostitutes Collective.

Which is the fairest? Ask the sex workers' themselves.
- A pair of British grandmothers from the Women’s Institute did. They toured brothels in the Netherlands, America and New Zealand to find out which system worked best for the women. And the winner? "A discreet house in a suburb of Wellington—classed in New Zealand as a “small owner-operated brothel”—where two women offered their services from Mondays to Fridays. “Just like a regular job,” one of the grannies noted."

Somali fighters stone 'rape victim'

For once, I am at a loss for words.

Aljazeera.net

A Somali girl who said she had been raped has been stoned to death in Somalia after being accused of adultery, a human rights group has said.

Amnesty International said in a press release on Friday that the victim, Aisha Ibrahim Duhulow, had been 13 years old - not 23 as earlier reports had suggested.

Duhulow was stoned to death on October 27 by dozens of men in a stadium packed with 1,000 spectators in the southern port city of Kismayo, Amnesty International and Somali media reported, citing witnesses.

The armed group in charge of Kismayo had accused her of adultery after she reported that three men had raped her, Amnesty said.

"This child suffered a horrendous death at the behest of the armed opposition groups who currently control Kismayo," David Copeman, Amnesty International's Somalia campaigner, said in a statement.

Initial local media reports said Duhulow was 23, but her father told Amnesty International she was 13.

The Islamic Courts took control of much of Somalia in 2006, triggering an intervention by neighbouring Ethiopia, which propped up the UN-backed transitional government and ousted the movement.

While the group's political leadership largely fled the country, the movement's military and youth wing, the al-Shaabab, switched to guerrilla warfare.

In recent months the group appears to have gained strength, taking over the port city of Kismayo, and dismantling pro-government roadblocks.

Anti-Rape Condom

This bizarre device was invented by a South African woman, Sonette Ehlers.

RAPEX (TM) was developed to empower women to defend themselves against rapists. It also helps to identify the rapist, as it can be removed only surgically. See Rape Stop for more information. The prototype was launched in 2005 in South Africa. I tried searching online to see how popular the device is but could not find much information. I guess desperate times call for desperate measures. And how desperate is the situation?

In today's news from South Africa:
- Of every 25 men accused of raping a child or adult woman, 24 walk free - and one in every eight rape suspects is under the age of 17.
- Only 4.1 percent of reported rape cases resulted in a conviction.
- One out of every 10 child rape cases reported to the police resulted in a conviction. "Police rape study results drown victims' hope"

I tried to find the percentage of women raped in SA but you know what? The most recent SA government statistics on rape was in 2000. The government placed a moratorium on government crime statistics in 2001 stating that they needed "reassessment". Anyway these are the figures, which you can find here: Stats South Africa.gov

From the report: "...Stats SA calculated that 55 000 South African women were rape victims in 1997. This figure translates into 134 women raped per 100,000 of the total population in 1997. (Since some women were raped more than once, the actual incidence was 143 per 100,000 of the population.)" (page 1)

The report then cites the International Crime Statistics study (1996) by the International Criminal Police Organisation ICPO-Interpol which showed South Africa leading the world in rape with 50,481 cases reported to the police. Only the US has more reports, in absolute terms, with 95,769 cases. But the US has a much bigger population, so in terms of the number of rapes per 100,000 population, the figures are 36.1 for the US, and 119.5 for South Africa (so more than 3 times more than the US).

The Stats SA report concludes: "The figures obtained from the Victims of Crime survey in 1998 give a similar proportion [to the ICPO-Interpol study] if children are excluded. (page 28) [It means if children (below 18) are included, the statistics are even higher]

Of course these statistics are over a decade old, but as I've said, the SA government has stopped releasing data on the subject. For more updated statistics, I found these, compiled by Oprah Winfrey's team of researchers for her website:

- In South Africa, more than 1 million women and children are raped every year. (The London Times, October 14, 2004)
- Each and every day in South Africa, at least 50 children are victims of rape. (South African Press Association, June 2005)
- More than 90 percent of rape victims know their attackers. (South African Press Association, June 2005)
- A young girl born in South Africa has a greater chance of being raped than of learning how to read. (BBC News, April 2002)
- In South Africa, one in four girls faces the prospect of being raped before her 16th birthday, according to the child support group, Childline South Africa. Oprah.com

The Pretoria News article noted that National Prosecuting Authority head Mokotedi Mpshe admitted under oath that South Africa's justice system was failing its child rape victims:

"Instead of having made vast progress since 2000, dedicated (child rape) courts have declined in numbers; SAPS (South African Police Service) Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences Units have been redeployed; trained forensic social workers employed by the police have become quite scarce; (some) magistrates have become obstructive; the system of district surgeons was abolished (giving rise to a loss of expertise); and the need for training of all remains, with language barriers exacerbating every identified issue."

The South Africans have a term for recreational gang rape: "Jackrolling". The Cambodians too, have a name for it: "Bauk". A worker at AFESIP (a large anti-sex trafficking organisation here in Cambodia) once told me they picked up a teenage prostitute who had been gang-raped by 40 (yes, you read correctly) men and then left for dead around the upper riverside area in Phnom Penh.

Cambodian Sex Trade: "70 per cent of local demand rather than sex tourism"

I was interested to read today's news article by Al Jazeera on the child sex trade in Cambodia. I had pointed out in an earlier post "Sex trade in Cambodia, Childish Khmers and the Blame Game" (10 April 08) how local demand and the participation and complicity of local authorities is driving the sex industry in this country. But here are excerpts from Al Jazeera's report, which can be found in its entirety here: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia-pacific/2008/10/2008102110195471467.html

"Mu Sochua, a politician with the opposition Sam Rainsy Party and a former minister for women's affairs, told Al Jazeera that most of Cambodia's sex industry was supported "by local customers".

"And some of these local customers are high-ranking officials. You have the military, the police and civil servants. you have rich businessmen who have lots of money," she said.

The involvement of high-ranking officials has been one reasons, NGOs say, that the sex industry has thrived in Cambodia.

"Very often these brothels and criminal networks are being supported and protected by high ranking officials," Mark Capaldi, from Ecpat International, an orgnaisation working to eliminate child prostitution, said.

"The problem is not just as abusers but also the impunity and lack of law enforcement in closing down these brothels and karaoke bars."

Daniela Reale, an advisor from Save the Children, told Al Jazeera: "The reality is that we do know local demand is the force driving this abuse.

"We also know it is around 70 per cent of local demand rather than sex tourism"....

...But while the arrest and conviction of foreigners make the headlines, most child sex trafficking supplies local demand, Mu Sochua said.

"It is easier to catch a foreigner and also the government wants to have showcases to make itself look good - that Cambodia is actually taking care of this problem of human trafficking, which is really not the truth," she told Al Jazeera.

Cambodian prostitutes protest police crackdown

In yesterday's news: Two hundred prostitutes protested peacefully in Phnom Penh. They said they had been unlawfully detained, and then beaten and raped by guards at the rehabilitation center where they were held. I quote from the AP article

"Some of them (the sex workers) were beaten and gang raped by the center guards, and most of the time they did not use condoms," said Chan Dina, a 31-year-old prostitute and member of the Cambodian Prostitute Union, a sex workers' advocacy group.

"Pich Sokchea urged the government to end the crackdown because it was affecting the livelihood of sex workers, many of whom were forced into the profession by poverty and debts. "We are people who sacrifice everything for the sake of our families and for our livelihood."

"Police Lt. Gen. Khieu Sopheak, the Interior Ministry's spokesman, dismissed claims that police committed violence against sex workers and said none was mistreated in the crackdown. He defended the crackdown, calling sex work unacceptable in Cambodia."

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iyJ-JyIbPDfhPBVGJVDXCd5DTRGwD913BI080

The Interior Ministry's spokesman comment epitomises the hypocrisy that exists in this country. Publicly, Khmer officials and society condemn the sex trade, but privately, many of them engage in it, visiting prostitutes, taking on mistresses (make no mistake- this is also sex trade) and even making money from it.

From a BBC programme: "A few months ago, another foreign group working to protect children from the sex industry organised a raid on a brothel. It turned out the place was owned by a particularly powerful policeman."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/4078304.stm

Human rights groups estimate that out of as many as 100,000 prostitutes in Cambodia, one third are underage (younger than 18).

Sex trade in Cambodia, Childish Khmers and the Blame Game

I am posting a comment I wrote on this website run by a Khmer-American. In general Oudam is a good, thoughtful, site, and gives an insight into overseas Khmers and they way they think and feel about their country. But it also has horrors such as, "After all, we Khmers built Angkor– it’s in our blood to be great." oudam.com

It's like the Chinese always saying we invented gun powder, paper, bridges and what have you and so are destined to rule the world. It always disturbs me, this misplaced sense of pride. I am sure if we went into it, most cultures would have produced something great at one time or another, so how should we play this game of my invention is bigger than yours?

Anyway, the comment I left was in response to Oudam showing Dan Rivers' CNN report on the sex trade in Cambodia

The comment failed to appear, but since I've written it, I figure I may as well post it on my blog.

This is the quote I take issue with:

"The work of Mam Somaly, the former prostitute featured in this video, is admirable. However, a glaring omission from the report is the throngs of Western sex tourists and pedophiles who come to Cambodia each day to exploit our women and children and help fuel the sex trade. They’d arrive by the plane-loads, fanning out across towns and villages taking advantage of impoverished Cambodian women and children."

This is what I said:

Please give us facts and figures. You do not help the discussion by fanning racist flames and repeating hearsay information.

Do a bit of research and you will find actual figures:

October 08, 2007
High demand for virgins from mostly Asian clients is fuelling the flow of underage girls into Cambodia's sex trade, the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) says.

About 38 per cent of the women and girls surveyed working in the sex trade in Cambodia entered the industry by selling their virginity, IOM found, while 85 per cent of the clients paying to sleep with them were Asian men. See humantrafficking.org

and this March 2006 report:

Bearup (2003) also conducted a quantitative study with convenience sampling of 580 young people (13–28 years old) living in Phnom Penh and found that 60 percent of male university students knew others who had been involved with bauk (gang-rape).

Percent beaten by gangsters in past year - 60.6

Percent whose money was taken by gangsters in past year - 67.2

Percent raped by a single gangster in past year - 43.7

Percent gang raped by gangster in past year - 42.7

"While the level of violence reported here from clients seems high compared to the limited data available from elsewhere in Asia (Jenkins et al., 2002), the interviews reveal that many of the men referred to as clients are in fact gangsters and out-of-uniform police.

"Altogether, 86.8 percent of female freelance sex workers and 90.8 percent of srey sraos (transvestites) had been raped in the past year. The percent raped by police last year was 41.8, and the percent raped by gangsters last year 62.0, whereas the percent raped by clients last year was 73.8. In total, the percent of freelance sex workers raped by anyone last year was 85.3.

Please don't tell me the people the university students know, the gangsters and the police are "Westerners". They are clearly Khmer. So you can understand my fury at Khmers who abuse their own people and then have unwitting allies like yourself who distract from the problem by trying to point fingers elsewhere.

If you really want to do something to help your people in this area, you need to get your facts right first. It is far simpler to take the easy way out and blame foreigners for a problem that is mostly caused by Khmers and can be solved by Khmers, by the Cambodian government and police themselves, if they weren't some of the biggest perpetrators.

Diana Saw
a Singaporean woman living in Cambodia

I get really angry at what I perceive to be a common Khmer trait: blaming other people and not taking responsibility for one's own actions. This happened (notice i use the past tense, because things have changed) a lot with the Bloom team. It was impossible to get anyone to own up to any wrongdoing and forget about getting anyone to say "Sorry". Every single time, workers would blame one of their peers for a mistake. It was always somebody else's fault. And it was always done behind the other's back. It was terrible and reminded me of primary school, when kids lie and blame someone else when confronted by the teacher. I am still reeling from an incident where two women gave two completely different accounts of the same incident, one of them clearly a barefaced liar ("Barefaced" or "Boldface": "Barefaced is one year older than bold-faced; its first print appearance dates to 1590. But the original meaning of barefaced was literal: it meant "having the face uncovered,".... barefaced soon came to describe something "unconcealed or open"; and then something "showing or having a lack of scruples." Merriam-Webster Online).

Of course they were worried about consequences, but being an adult means taking responsibility for one's actions. In this regard, I find Khmers to be very childish--if you reprimand them, for instance, they will laugh or giggle, as a way of hiding embarrassment, instead of discussing the issue like adults. It used to drive me crazy when our first housekeeper (the one who ran away to the province, taking my camera etc with her) giggled every time I pointed out the things she did incorrectly (like putting the rice cooker pot in the microwave!).

As I said, things have changed with Bloom. It has taken almost 2 years, but the team leaders Sipha and Saren are now (sometimes) willing to point out mistakes on their own and apologise for them, even before I notice anything. Part of it was reassuring the team that it is ok to make mistakes, as long as we learn. I repeated this constantly, every time someone made a mistake at work--it could be drawing the wrong template, so the bags would turn out wrong, for instance. I honestly think it is ok for me to lose a bit of money for the workers to learn, because they will improve as workers which will benefit the business in the long run. And I am glad they seem to have more confidence in themselves and appear to be more responsible than when we first met.

Sexual exploitation in Cambodia

Navy (pronounced Na-wee) our housekeeper told me the other day when she was working at a massage shop on Pub Street, she was propositioned by a Korean man, who asked her to be his girlfriend. Navy is very pretty and slim. She is married with two young children. She said the guy was "jah", Khmer for "old" (in his 40s, but then Navy is only 26).

This man would come to the massage shop and tip her USD10 or USD20 each time. He asked his friend to translate his desire for her to be his girlfriend. He would pay her USD100 a month and buy her everything she wants, he said. When he returned from a visit to Korea, he bought her makeup.

This is the reality for many Khmer young women -- there are men who come to Cambodia to pick up girlfriends, to exploit the poverty here. And one should note that it is not just foreign men, nor, as Navy's example shows, just Western men. Cambodian men are among the worst exploiters. Rape is very common and often by policemen, gang members or customers. When they do pay for sex, Khmer men pay between USD3-5 here in Siem Reap (it's cheaper in Phnom Penh). No wonder prostitutes prefer to sleep with rich foreign customers, some who pay up to USD100 a night.

Navy asked me a strange question: Do you have to sleep with foreign men when they ask you to be their girlfriends? Duh...! Apparently, it is not the case when Khmer men ask for a girlfriend. She says it could be just for company, like an escort, which I find hard to believe.

Navy says she told this man she was married with two kids, but that didn't bother him. I asked her, what did your husband say? She said her husband is afraid of her, which I took to mean, it would be her choice, however she wanted to respond to the situation. Fortunately, she says, she "cheh kert" (know how to think) and will not "louk kloon" (sell oneself), even though she is poor. We got to talking about these "srei ko-ick" (bad girls) and Navy says they think they are the clever ones, because they do not have to work hard or for a long time, in order to save money to buy a house or start a business. But this is hardly the norm. Far more common for Cambodian prostitutes is the situation described below:

UNEDUCATED,HOMELESS WITH CHILDREN (ON THE STREET),35 YEARS OLD,5 YEARS IN PHNOM PENH
My hometown is in Kampong Cham Province.I never went to school, because I grew up when the country was in the middle of the war (Pol Pot).All schools were destroyed and teachers were killed.I had been living with a man as husband and wife without marriage for 4 years.I have two children.All the children are living with me.I don’t have money to rent a house.Every day I sleep on the street and in the parks.I came to Phnom Penh in 1999 and started sex work in 2000.I get a better income from sex work than from begging on the streets or at the markets.I don’t have money to pay for a house rental fee.Every day I
work in the parks and streets and stay under the tree.When it is raining,I stay in front of the shop.All the children are with me.They go out to beg.Sometimes they come back to me with some money or food they got from the restaurant.We live like dogs. FILENO. 0740454, 4 MAY 2004

It is from this study:
http://www.researchforsexwork.org/downloads/Jenkins-CambodiaFinal.pdf



It is a very depressing subject for me, and I'd like to leave it as that. You can find out more about this part of life by Googling the topic. For readers interested to do something about the situation in Cambodia, you can join us at Riverkids . I am a trustee of this locally-registered NGO that focuses on prevention of sex trafficking. The children helped by RK are all at high-risk of being sold for sex. We had one case where a cross-eyed girl had her eyesight fixed by an NGO that RK contacted. The now normal-looking girl was promptly sold to Sihanoukville by her sister-in-law for USD400. She was 14.

The work is incredibly hard, and needs the cooperation of the families, the community and the officials. Although RK does not win them all, the team never stops trying. RK's country director is Phy Sophon, who used to work for another famous anti-trafficking outfit, AFESIP.