Presented by Sam Vuthy, information from the Brief Information on the Prostitution Situation in Cambodia by Cambodian Women's Development Agency

Many women and children have been trafficked from rural areas in Cambodia and neighbouring countries to Cambodian cities, especially Phnom Penh, to be prostitutes.

A government human rights committee has estimated that there are more than 14,000 women and children working as prostitutes in brothels, night clubs, massage parlours, private houses, and hotels in Phnom Penh. Research carried out by the Cambodian Women's Development Agency (CWDA) indicated that there are between 50,000 to 55,000 prostitutes in the whole of Cambodia.

The NGO, Human Rights Vigilance of Cambodia, has conducted a rapid appraisal of the situation, which indicated that 35 percent of prostitutes in the whole of Cambodia are under 18 years old and 40 percent are Vietnamese. Statistics from the Cambodian Women's Crisis Centre (CWCC) indicated that 64 percent of the prostitutes were forced into prostitution: 53 percent of them were deceived by promises of well paid jobs; 11 percent were sold by parents, relatives and friends; less than one percent were abducted; and 35 percent were went into it because of poverty. The traffickers offer girls and women jobs in garment factories, or as domestic workers, or they convince them to visit Phnom Penh city. Sometimes they go by themselves to earn money to settle debts or to pay for medical treatment of other members in the family.

Usually, after they have been sold to brothels women and children are locked up, threatened, beaten up, denied food, or shocked with electric batons until they agree to comfort the guests. All the money they earn is taken by the brothel owner. They only receive food and make-up to glamourise themselves for the guests. Even when they are sick or have their menstrual periods they have to comfort the guests. Every day they have to service three or four clients. Others have to work from 9 a.m. to 3 a.m. the next day. Many brothels are occupied or controlled by the military or police.

90 percent of the clients are Cambodian. Some of them refuse to wear a condom, which accelerates the number of HIV victims, and causes unnecessary and hazardous abortions. Research carried out by the National Committee on HIV/AIDS indicated that 70,000 to 80,000 families have members infected with HIV or AIDS.

Thousands of women and children are trafficked to Thailand, Malaysia and Taiwan to be prostitutes, beggars, construction workers, housemaids or porters. In the first half of 1998 13,000 Cambodians were repatriated from Thailand. 50 percent of them were women and children. Most of them had been deceived and forced to work as the slaves.

Most of the victims are deceived to believe that in Thailand you can cam a lot of money. They are just told to pay the trafficker around US$IOO for guiding and travelling fees to Bangkok. To get back the victims, relatives have to sell their own farms, houses, rice fields, or other property. After the victims have been arrested by Thai authorities and sent back to their homeland they have nothing and are homeless.

Economic problems are not the only causes that women and children are trafficked for prostitution. There are other difficulties such as:

1. Double Standards. Man is compared to gold which can easily be cleaned if he falls into mud, but woman is more like white cloth which will not wash clean. This analogy means that men can have sex before marriage but girls cannot. This belief encourages men to have sexual intercourse with prostitutes, a service they need increasingly. Traffickers and brothel owners who are ambitious to take advantage of this find many ways to deceive women and children to fulfil demand. But women must be loyal virgins until their wedding day, if not they are condemned by society. This is complete hypocrisy, but it is an attitude which we can change. Jackie Chan, the Hong Kong film star was absolutely wrong when he said that man's sex drive is a natural urge which cannot be stopped and men should have affairs or sex with prostitutes.
2. Lack of law enforcement allowing guilty traffickers to escape. Guilty people have the freedom to do like that. Many women and children are bought and sold but very few traffickers are prosecuted.
3. Violent and problematic families. These cause children to run away from home and fall into the clutches of traffickers.
4. Lack of ways to spread information in communities or rural areas. If women and children were alert to the dangers, it would avoid most of the above-mentioned 53 percent of prostitutes who are deceived by traffickers promising to offer jobs but who are actually sold as prostitutes.