Safe For Life
It was by accident that I ended up in a brothel. After a few hours of tough riding along a potholed road I came upon a small, dusty town. With my companion Megan, I rolled down a street in search of a guesthouse for the night. There were a few fancy ones, but they also carried a significant price tag. Finally, behind the thriving central market and the bus stand was a lodging house.
A small sign advertised "Guesthouse," which was followed with Khmer writing we couldn’t read.
We went in. The woman at the front desk looked perplexed by our presence, but at $US3 we couldn’t go wrong. We were shown to our sleeping quarters where a giant four-posted bed dominated the room. A huge mosquito net hung above a bed that was adorned with bright pink satin sheets.
The women who ran the guesthouse were really very nice, extremely friendly. These women—they were all very attractive—sat on the veranda and watched the street as their children played around them. There were no men around, although this changed later in the day.
I began to grow suspicious of the nature of our lodging: we were two girls in a brothel! As the afternoon passed, a few more made-up girls appeared with men in tow. We stayed locked in our room all night.
I had heard about these pay-by-the-hour guesthouses. In the smaller Cambodian towns there were no obvious displays of prostitution. Asia’s sex market is a booming industry, yet it is concealed once out of major cities.
But awareness is being raised about the implications of the sex trade for the situation is desperate. According to the Cambodian Women’s Development Agency (CWDA) there are 50,000-55,000 prostitutes in Cambodia. Obtaining an exact figure is difficult due to the secrecy of the industry, yet in a country that has a population of about 13 million, this is a significant proportion.
Almost two-thirds of the girls in prostitution have been forced into it, with the vast majority being lured into it by someone they knew who promised to find them a job. Once away from their family, they’re sold to a brothel. About 35 per cent are under the age of 18 years.
The reasons why young women fall into the prostitution trap mostly stem from the struggling lives of its victims. Since 80 per cent of females in rural areas have no primary education, women are forced to resort to manual labour to make a living. These jobs are poorly paid and can be difficult to find. The girls already have low self-esteem because they are isolated from decision-making in society. They feel like a burden to their parents as they approach marriageable age, as they need to be provided with an expensive dowry.
A way that a girl "helps" is to be sold as prostitutes. It is not uncommon for a family to have a "sacrificial" daughter who will provide for the rest of the family by earning money for their siblings’ education or dowry. Some girls, about 10 per cent, are sold directly to brothels by their parents. Many see their daughters as a commodity, an unfortunate result of the demise of family relationships during the Khmer Rouge period, from which the country is still recovering.
The girls have little choice. Once in a brothel, they are under surveillance, unable to leave because they are indebted to the owner for the cost of their life. And even when their contract is complete, they can’t return home because of the stigma and disgrace attached. Even if a woman does escape from the brothel and wants to change careers, there is nowhere she can turn. There is little they can do and society has no sympathy for them. Faced with an untenable situation outside the brothel, they usually return to prostitution, where they often succumb to more dire situations.
A recent study showed that 42 per cent of Cambodian commercial sex workers are HIV-positive and with 70 per cent of Cambodian men visiting brothels on a regular basis, it’s not surprising that more than 200,000 Cambodians have HIV/AIDS.
With poverty a major cause of prostitution, ADRA has taken an active role in helping women at the grassroots level. The Women, Empowerment, Learning, Livelihood (WELL) project is one way ADRA is helping women in Cambodian local communities. It is a holistic approach aimed at empowering women to be actively involved in their community. Another ADRA project is the Woman’s Empowerment Group (WEG), which is based around supportive team activity. In addition to literacy and adventure activities, these groups address practical issues relating to their daily lives. The Sustainable Agriculture and Family Empowerment (SAFE) project provides basic literacy for adults. Eighty-two per cent of its participants are female.
A simple example is the building of a well in a community. Apart from providing potable water, being a reliable source through the dry season enables families to irrigate. Having food means that families—who might otherwise have been desperate enough to resort to selling a daughter—are no longer vulnerable to ruthless recruiters in search of girls.
By helping with food security, ADRA continues to have a positive effect in communities stricken by poverty. But while these projects are helping to build a community of stronger women and families, others remain in areas still subjected to prostitution.
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