Sex Trafficking Video

Here’s the link to the video that I made for my CES 440 class.

Although it is not the only issue that contributes to sex trafficking in Cambodia, my video chooses to focus on the government’s weakness and inability to protect Cambodian and internationally trafficked women and children from the terrors of sexual exploitation. Intense poverty and economic instability are also huge factors in the abundance of sex trafficking in Cambodia. Basically, my main point is that government control is pretty wimpy in Cambodia. If it were beefed up, then there might be less sex trafficking, but no one can tell for certain what would happen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqQJB-s3M2I

 

 

The 1992 Demand for Prostitution in Cambodia

As I mentioned before, the communist regime in the 1970’s and the following government control in Cambodia kept prostitution to a low during its rule (although the rule did have a LOT of other flaws making life very difficult for the average Cambodian).

 

Civil war was going on in Cambodia and the United Nations Transitional Authority in Cambodia (UNTAC) in 1992 was sent into Cambodia to stabalize the environment so that Cambodia could have a general election. Although they were sent with intentions to help the situation in Cambodia, one effect of having the UNTAC 20,000 mostly-male troops and personnel was that there was a huge spike in the demand for prostitutes. The demand decreased in 1993, when UNTAC withdrew from Cambodia, but prostitution, brothel ownership, and sexual exploitation already had become a way of life for many Cambodians. Rather than finding a new way of life, many just began finding new customers. This is one of the underlying reasons for Cambodia’s problem with illegal prostitution. 

 

Link to an article where I got all this lovely information: http://www.hrsolidarity.net/mainfile.php/1996vol06no04/219/

A Cycle of Hope?

The article that I read today tells the story of an French journalist writing a piece for Glamour Magazine. Mariane Pearl spent a year in Cambodia writing about the sex trade there. In Cambodia she met a woman named Somaly, a former prostitute, who started an organization in 1996 to help other women get out of the prostitution system. So far the organization has saved 3,000 girls, although, Pearl does not define “saved” in her article. Even if women are rescued from brothels, many women are likely to return to prostitution because they either have no skills and education to pursue anything else, their family ties have all been broken up (keep in mind many women are sold by family members or trafficked across international borders making the return home impossible), and/or they are stigmatized by society.

 

Pearl’s article does reveal some tradgedies, such as the little girl who was sold for the equivalent of $10 by her own mother and another girl who was drugged, caged, and forced to service up to 30 customers per day. However, the article paints a hopeful perspective for Cambodia. If women like Somaly, who helped others out of prostitution, would become more common in Cambodia, then society would begin to change. Instead of a cycle of prostitution, they would be creating a cycle of liberation and healing. Pearl ends the article on this hopeful note.

 

Here is the piece that she wrote: http://www.glamour.com/news/feature/articles/2006/07/31/globaldiary06sep?currentPage=1

The Cambodian Media Mirrors Society’s View of Women

An article I read tonight brought up one issue that I haven’t considered before:  

How women are portrayed in the Cambodian media.  

The article said that:

·         80% of drawings in the Cambodian media, which feature women, are obscene

·         More than 50% of the drawings depict women as sex objects

·         women are the subjects of only 7% of stories 

So the question is:  Are women portrayed poorly because they are actually being treated poorly OR is that fact that they are being portrayed poorly add to their mistreatment? 

My guess is that both statements are true and are perpetuating each other. The inferiority of women to men has been a part of Cambodia’s culture for a very long time. Since the modernity of media hit Cambodia, this cultural aspect was being solidly reinforced by either keeping women out of the media, or by portraying them in a degrading way. I think there is a definite link between the media and the cultural acceptance of prostitution, which is directly linked to sex trafficking.  

Link to the article: http://www.catwinternational.org/factbook/Cambodia.php

Image from: http://www.cwcc.org.kh/images/gender-based.jpg

Oh Just Some More Info

I keep reading news articles and keep hearing the same stories over and over again about poverty, forced prostitution, and pedophiles. Here is just a few more random facts that I have not yet come across in all of my research:

·        As the Cambodian government cracks down on the sex trade, it forces the sex trade to go underground. The people involved have to more inconspicuous when they are operating their brothels. They can’t be as open about it on the streets, but by far, it hasn’t stopped prostitution and trafficking.

·        Also, they have gone out from the cities into the more rural provinces where anti-trafficking systems are not yet set up. Cambodia can’t afford to cover the rural areas, so much of their anti-trafficking movement is targeting cities like Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville.

·        The Dominican Republic, Bosnia and Guatemala are alternate places where sex tourists are likely to go instead of Cambodia because they have less restrictions and it is easier to get away with it.  

·        The government is marketing its anti-trafficking stance across the country. They have posters at airports, and message boards. These are supposed to serve as warning to sex tourists. Some have slogans like: “Turn a sex tourist into an ex-tourist” or “Abuse a child in this country, go to jail in yours.”

The article I read was: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1543174,00.html

 

Sign on the road leading into Cambodia from Thailand: Absoutely against Child Sex

I got the photo from:  http://japanfocus.org/products/details/2687

An Economic Problem on Our Hands

On my last blog, I looked at some events in Cambodia’s history that led to its poor economy. After reading an article on a human trafficking website, I can see how there are few incentives for Cambodians to report sex trafficking, or sex tourism, which was the main focus of the article. Sex tourism is related to sex trafficking because it causes demand for trafficked women to rise in areas and perpetuates the trafficking system.  

The article shows how economics and the Cambodian sex trade are directly linked:  

• There are few incentives for turning perpetrators in because Cambodia’s economy relies on tourism for revenue. Individual Cambodian’s, such as hotel operators, are less likely to report tourists for sex crimes because it would be bad for business. If Cambodians deter these tourists they are diminishing their own incomes and ways of life.  
• Also, according to the article, police only earn $35 per month and are not reimbursed even for their gasoline, so they are unable to investigate reported cases of sex tourism.  
• The article also describes a common situation in which children actually sell themselves for sexual service to tourists to make money.  

The more I investigate sex trafficking in Cambodia, the more I am discovering that it is an economic problem just as much as it is a social and criminal problem.  

Want to read the article? Here it is: http://www.humantrafficking.org/updates/138

Photo from: http://www.lotusoutreach.org/images/photo_projects_cambodia6.jpg

 

Cambodia’s Past Sets Up an Economy for Sex Trafficking

In my Comparative Genocide at my university, we took an in depth look at the history of Cambodia. Having this background makes it easier to see how Cambodia is one of the world’s most active countries for human trafficking.

Here’s a quick outline that might help explain the state of the Cambodian economy and why the crime of human trafficking is more prevalent there:

• The US heavily bombed the Cambodian countryside 1969 to 1973 targeting Northern Vietnamese soldiers and the Cambodian government allowed this to happen. This was during the US Vietnam War. The bombing heavily impacted Cambodia’s infrastructure, caused about 150,000 casualties, and displaced thousands from their homes in the countryside.
• The Khmer Rouge, a brutal communist regime, took over the Cambodian government from 1975 and stayed in power until 1979.
• The regime’s goal for Cambodia was to create a utopian peasant society based on agriculture. In order to achieve this, they evacuated all of the cities and distributed the people around the countryside. This halted all business – international and domestic.
• The Khmer Rouge killed about 1.7 million Cambodians, which made up over 1/5^th of the population. They especially targeted intellectuals, merchants, bureaucrats.
• After 1975 and the removal of the Khmer Rouge, the Vietnamese were largely in power in Cambodia until 1989. Political instability and economic instability marked the country.
• Since 1989, Cambodian markets have been gradually opening to the global economy and the country has been developing, but it is still a poor nation with a GDP ranked at 121 in the world. This number does not reflect the division between the rich and poor within Cambodia.

Human trafficking can be found in even the most wealthy and industrialized nations such as the US, but by far, the majority of it can be found in the poorer nations. Would people choose to go into the crime of prostitution or to run a brothel if good paying honest jobs were available to them? I think that most would choose otherwise.

Victim Aftercare Neglected

This article posted on a human right’s website draws attention to the problem of the aftercare of victims in the Cambodian sex trade.

 After being rescued from a brothel in Cambodian’s Phnom Penh by Cambodian police, 14 young women were charged with illegal entry into Cambodia under the immigration law. Because they didn’t have the correct documentation when they entered Cambodia, they were treated like criminals instead of victims.  The article doesn’t mention the countries of origin of the victims, but it is common for women to be trafficked against their will across international borders. Some of the common places where victims are trafficked from are Vietnam and Thailand. I wonder if these particular victims were trafficked across international borders against their will? Either way, there is still an injustice being done by the Cambodian government.  

The women were in a helpless situation during their captivity in the brothel. Under the care of the Cambodian government, they are equally helpless.

 The article calls for the groups that donate money to the Cambodian government for the cause to end sex trafficking to put pressure on the government to change the system. Laws condemning illegal immigration should not be enforced against sex trade victims. Instead the women need physical, mental and emotional aftercare.

Link to the article: http://hrw.org/english/docs/2002/06/22/cambod4056.htm

Nick Kristoff Video

New York Times columnist, Nick Kristoff made a video about sex trafficking in Cambodia after many trips to the country. He is broken-hearted about the practice, but gives lots of facts in his video:

• Prostitution is currently illegal in Cambodia, but it happens all the time.
• Estimates have been made that the slave trade today is larger than it was in the 18th or 19th centuries.
• Brothels are mostly concentrated in Cambodian cities, but they are some in villages as well.
• Virginity is highly valued in the sex trade industry & is sold at a higher price.
• Some men believe that sex with a virgin can cure aids.
• It is common for brothels to give drugs to their slaves. They make women dependent on drugs to destroy their chance of life outside of the brothel even if they are rescued. Women will sometimes return to a brothel and to gain access to drugs because of this dependence.
• Most Cambodian women do not have access to education & are taught to accept what is being done to them. This is partly why they don’t stand up against human trafficking together.

Video link: http://video.on.nytimes.com/?fr_story=e0ec5663a3391c673aaa2a9789c5510946adc2be (about 5 mins)

Image from: http://www.poyi.org/60/wua/photos/wua01stanj01.jpg

Good intentions gone wrong?

I found this article on the bbc website:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6532181.stm

It brings up a really good point. When people become concerned about the issue of sex trafficking in Cambodia, it’s almost like their first response is to start up an organization. As of April 2007, there were at least 200 different organizations and government ministries set up to try and stop the sex trade in Cambodia. More is not always better however. There is very little communication between these organizations. It sounds like they are all just getting in each other’s way, especially because they compete for international funding with one another. The article also mentions that the government is putting together a task force to unify all of these groups and get everyone on the same page. They have the same goals: that sex trafficking would end in Cambodia and its surrounding areas. It might be easier if they were all working together.