The Secret Life of Antlered Girls

(to read about sex workers in Phnom Penh, scroll down)

So, last night we arrived in Phnom Penh, Cambodia after riding bikes across the mekong delta in Vietnam, taking a boat to an island called Phu Quoc which was a gorgeous tropical paradise, spending a week having fun in the fun, then boat back to Rach Gia on the west coast of Vietnam, getting scammed trying to get a bus to Chau Doc at the Cambodia border and left at a bus depot, bribing a minibus to take us to Chau Doc, getting the slow boat and bus to Cambodia where I got scammed again (wouldn’t give me my change) and finally arriving in Phnom Penh.

VIETNAM:

In Vietnam it began to feel like the entire country was conspiring to screw me out of my money, scowl at me and treat me like a Vietnamese prostitute (because I’m on this tour with Porter, my white male American partner) despite the fact that I’m Chinese/Irish, not Vietnamese, don’t speak a lick of any Asian language and am a fucking western tourist like everyone else. Sadly, this is the primary interaction travelers have with people when traveling in Vietnam and it gives you a skewed perspective on what people are really like, which is not generally mean, but totally varied just like ay other place. In any case I was realy on the defensive for our travels through Vietnam. Still, our bike ride through the delta was pretty amazing, riding down little red dirt goat paths with rice paddies on either side, across a zillion little rivers, taking ferries and boat rides, nearly getting mowed down by mopeds everywhere–including inside the tiny covered markets! We even got super lost (the map was basically hand drawn and completely awful) but luckily had a compass, and when night fell we were totally screwed and asked a Vietnamese family if we could sleep in their outdoor family restaurant at their house, which they graciously allowed us. We fell asleep with the entire 3 generations of the family staring at us and children’s videos blaring on the television in their elevated thatched roof house.

CAMBODIA:

After a super rough trip here getting scammed a couple times (for like $3 each time-not such a big deal), we’ve arrived by boat, bus and bike to Phnom Penh, Cambodia. It’s super touristy here and this is the height of high season (whoops). Anyway, last night we went to dinner on the main strip by the river. Each business has security guards out front because they say street crime is bad here–though I don’t really get that sense–just the sense that people are very very poor here. Lots of people are begging and hawking with babies sprawled out on the sidewalk and people with missing limbs begging. Tours to the killing fields are advertised widely and people hawk photocopied books all over.

Last night we went into a restaurant after barely eating all day and have a great meal. Across from us were two tables of two pairs of ugly white men. Cambodian women came and sat down with them every fifteen minutes while the ’security guard’kept saddling up young Cambodian girls (maybe 14 yers old) with old vile white men (maybe 65 years old) and sending them off on mopeds to brothels. One of the Cambodian women sitting with the men was pregnant, another was grabbed by the wrist and then groped and dragged over to another table by a disgusting man who sat with her while she patiently sat, back pin straight looking freaked out. I don’t know how to adequately express how upsettin it is to see the sex work here in your face. Nearby, sex workers have a 58% HIV infection rate and are often in posiions of slavery and indentured servitude. The horrendous dehumanization happening right in front of me is just fucking astounding and visceral and has really shaken me to the core. I couldn’t hold back my disgust at these men and broke down in tears at the dinner table. When we got up I couldn’t hold my tongue, though I probably ought to for my own safety, and called them vile and disgusting and gave them the finger walking away. The fact that these men can go on these sexual slavery tours with impunity is beyond upsetting. I feel so furious and helpless at the same time. So, this morning Porter and I started dreaming up some ways we can help and I’ve been researching work being done to fight trafficking and sexual slavery here and what we can do. There’s so much more to know, but one place I’ve begun is with these organizations I’m going to try to connect with while in Phnom Penh:

http://www.onlinewomeninpolitics.org/cambo/cmborgs.htm

Herés a group, discussed below doing awesome direct service work: Mith Samlanh

Here’s a quick excerpt of the situation from a USAID site:

In Cambodia, women, men and children are trafficked for sexual exploitation or forced labor. Often Cambodians who cross over into Thailand, frequently as illegal migrants, are forced into labor or prostitution. Cambodian children are trafficked into Vietnam and forced to work as street beggars, and Vietnamese women and girls are trafficked into Cambodia for prostitution, as are Cambodian women and girls internally.

Cover of U.S. State Department’s report, Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000. The report is available on the State Department’s web site.

In the capital of Phnom Penh, the USAID-supported Hagar Shelter gives training to women who could be at-risk for trafficking. The shelter has space for 40 walk-in residents and 80 non-residents from the poorer areas of the city. The training in catering, industrial sewing, hairdressing and small businesses gives women supporting their families the skills they need to get jobs with decent wages or start their own businesses. In addition, the shelter teaches them about their legal rights and HIV/AIDS and provides counseling. The results speak for themselves. Six months after participating in the program, 62 percent of the women were living independently. They were maintaining a steady job, and their kids were in school.

Phnom Penh is a magnet for young women and girls from the provinces. The long years of war and chaos in Cambodia destroyed many of the traditional networks of family and communities that used to take care of orphaned children or those in abusive situations. With nowhere else to turn, many girls flee to Phnom Penh in hopes of a better life. When they arrive in bus and taxi stations, would-be traffickers prey on them. Mith Samlanh/Friends, another USAID supported project in Cambodia, meets as many new arrivals as possible before the traffickers reach them. Mith Samlanh gives them information on short-term housing, employment and training opportunities. They also provide literacy and math skills training, so girls can go back to school if they wish.

In addition, USAID has provided legal assistance to 126 survivors of trafficking in Cambodia, including women rescued from brothels. In a recent development, two traffickers received ten-year prison sentences and had to pay financial compensation to their victims. It is the first time in Cambodia that traffickers were found guilty and forced to compensate their victims. That trend has continued. Even more recently, in October 2003, six defendants were convicted and sentenced from 5 to 15 years in jail for trafficking related activities. Various USAID grantees helped in the stages of this trial.

from: http://www.usaid.gov/locations/asia_near_east/features/trafficking11_03b.html

(to read about sex workers in Phnom Penh, scroll down)

So, last night we arrived in Phnom Penh, Cambodia after riding bikes across the mekong delta in Vietnam, taking a boat to an island called Phu Quoc which was a gorgeous tropical paradise, spending a week having fun in the fun, then boat back to Rach Gia on the west coast of Vietnam, getting scammed trying to get a bus to Chau Doc at the Cambodia border and left at a bus depot, bribing a minibus to take us to Chau Doc, getting the slow boat and bus to Cambodia where I got scammed again (wouldn’t give me my change) and finally arriving in Phnom Penh.

VIETNAM:

In Vietnam it began to feel like the entire country was conspiring to screw me out of my money, scowl at me and treat me like a Vietnamese prostitute (because I’m on this tour with Porter, my white male American partner) despite the fact that I’m Chinese/Irish, not Vietnamese, don’t speak a lick of any Asian language and am a fucking western tourist like everyone else. Sadly, this is the primary interaction travelers have with people when traveling in Vietnam and it gives you a skewed perspective on what people are really like, which is not generally mean, but totally varied just like ay other place. In any case I was realy on the defensive for our travels through Vietnam. Still, our bike ride through the delta was pretty amazing, riding down little red dirt goat paths with rice paddies on either side, across a zillion little rivers, taking ferries and boat rides, nearly getting mowed down by mopeds everywhere–including inside the tiny covered markets! We even got super lost (the map was basically hand drawn and completely awful) but luckily had a compass, and when night fell we were totally screwed and asked a Vietnamese family if we could sleep in their outdoor family restaurant at their house, which they graciously allowed us. We fell asleep with the entire 3 generations of the family staring at us and children’s videos blaring on the television in their elevated thatched roof house.

CAMBODIA:

After a super rough trip here getting scammed a couple times (for like $3 each time-not such a big deal), we’ve arrived by boat, bus and bike to Phnom Penh, Cambodia. It’s super touristy here and this is the height of high season (whoops). Anyway, last night we went to dinner on the main strip by the river. Each business has security guards out front because they say street crime is bad here–though I don’t really get that sense–just the sense that people are very very poor here. Lots of people are begging and hawking with babies sprawled out on the sidewalk and people with missing limbs begging. Tours to the killing fields are advertised widely and people hawk photocopied books all over.

Last night we went into a restaurant after barely eating all day and have a great meal. Across from us were two tables of two pairs of ugly white men. Cambodian women came and sat down with them every fifteen minutes while the ’security guard’kept saddling up young Cambodian girls (maybe 14 yers old) with old vile white men (maybe 65 years old) and sending them off on mopeds to brothels. One of the Cambodian women sitting with the men was pregnant, another was grabbed by the wrist and then groped and dragged over to another table by a disgusting man who sat with her while she patiently sat, back pin straight looking freaked out. I don’t know how to adequately express how upsettin it is to see the sex work here in your face. Nearby, sex workers have a 58% HIV infection rate and are often in posiions of slavery and indentured servitude. The horrendous dehumanization happening right in front of me is just fucking astounding and visceral and has really shaken me to the core. I couldn’t hold back my disgust at these men and broke down in tears at the dinner table. When we got up I couldn’t hold my tongue, though I probably ought to for my own safety, and called them vile and disgusting and gave them the finger walking away. The fact that these men can go on these sexual slavery tours with impunity is beyond upsetting. I feel so furious and helpless at the same time. So, this morning Porter and I started dreaming up some ways we can help and I’ve been researching work being done to fight trafficking and sexual slavery here and what we can do. There’s so much more to know, but one place I’ve begun is with these organizations I’m going to try to connect with while in Phnom Penh:

http://www.onlinewomeninpolitics.org/cambo/cmborgs.htm

Herés a group, discussed below doing awesome direct service work: Mith Samlanh

Here’s a quick excerpt of the situation from a USAID site:

In Cambodia, women, men and children are trafficked for sexual exploitation or forced labor. Often Cambodians who cross over into Thailand, frequently as illegal migrants, are forced into labor or prostitution. Cambodian children are trafficked into Vietnam and forced to work as street beggars, and Vietnamese women and girls are trafficked into Cambodia for prostitution, as are Cambodian women and girls internally.

Cover of U.S. State Department’s report, Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000. The report is available on the State Department’s web site.

In the capital of Phnom Penh, the USAID-supported Hagar Shelter gives training to women who could be at-risk for trafficking. The shelter has space for 40 walk-in residents and 80 non-residents from the poorer areas of the city. The training in catering, industrial sewing, hairdressing and small businesses gives women supporting their families the skills they need to get jobs with decent wages or start their own businesses. In addition, the shelter teaches them about their legal rights and HIV/AIDS and provides counseling. The results speak for themselves. Six months after participating in the program, 62 percent of the women were living independently. They were maintaining a steady job, and their kids were in school.

Phnom Penh is a magnet for young women and girls from the provinces. The long years of war and chaos in Cambodia destroyed many of the traditional networks of family and communities that used to take care of orphaned children or those in abusive situations. With nowhere else to turn, many girls flee to Phnom Penh in hopes of a better life. When they arrive in bus and taxi stations, would-be traffickers prey on them. Mith Samlanh/Friends, another USAID supported project in Cambodia, meets as many new arrivals as possible before the traffickers reach them. Mith Samlanh gives them information on short-term housing, employment and training opportunities. They also provide literacy and math skills training, so girls can go back to school if they wish.

In addition, USAID has provided legal assistance to 126 survivors of trafficking in Cambodia, including women rescued from brothels. In a recent development, two traffickers received ten-year prison sentences and had to pay financial compensation to their victims. It is the first time in Cambodia that traffickers were found guilty and forced to compensate their victims. That trend has continued. Even more recently, in October 2003, six defendants were convicted and sentenced from 5 to 15 years in jail for trafficking related activities. Various USAID grantees helped in the stages of this trial.

from: http://www.usaid.gov/locations/asia_near_east/features/trafficking11_03b.html