A Woman's Nightmare

By Keiko Canada

https://www.ijmuk.org/
Inside a brothel.

“To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.” Woman all over have been suffering from prostitution and sex slavery. Being kidnapped and sold into prostitution is a very devastating thought. Well, It is happening to many young girls in Cambodia. The number of prostitutes and sex slaves in Cambodia is between 40,000 and 50,000 (Mam). Will this problem ever be dealt with? Both Cambodian women and little girls as young as the age of 5 have suffered a huge amount of humiliation. Women and young girls are either sold or kidnapped into sex slavery. Then they are trapped forever in the brothel they are sold to. Some people have escaped in the past, although it is quite difficult due to the guards. If you’re now wondering what a brothel is, it is a place or house where men can visit prostitutes. The poor innocent females that are put in brothels are tortured to a point where they can’t even move; age doesn’t matter. The brothel owners would do anything to whoever wasn’t following the “rules”.  

This situation is very important because even now, the females of Cambodia are being tortured almost every hour of the day. Nicholas D. Kristof interviewed a teenage sex slave survivor named Long Pross. Her right eye is missing because her brothel owner gouged it out.

http://www.hopeforthesold.com/
Long Pross

Another reason why everyone should care and be concerned about the actions that are taken place in the brothels of Cambodia. Young Pross also quoted, “I was beaten every day, sometimes two or three times a day”. She was also electrocuted plenty of times. This is definitely not the type of treatment a human should be getting. Beating and even electrocuting a human being is out of the question. The things that women go through can cause Posttraumatic stress disorder, which can last forever in your mind. 

Post-traumatic stress disorder is a type of anxiety disorder. It can occur after you have gone through an extreme emotional trauma that involved the threat of injury or death. Many young girls have suffered badly just remembering the things that were done to them. Also, In the book The Road of Lost Innocence the author of the book, Somaly Mam, was another sex slavery survivor. Shes been through a lot since the age of 14. She was being bought and sold to different people. She was then sold to a brothel; the most terrifying part of her life story. Somaly had no one by her side, no one to hold on to, and no one to talk to. Her family was far away living their own lives in a village where everyone thought she was dark and ugly. Somaly has had maggots thrown on her, she’s been brutally raped a numerous amount of times, drugged, beat, etc. Although, those outside the brothel seemed as if they didn’t want to take action or even be involved in the situation. When Somaly got older, she came across a Frenchman who changed her reputation. Almost everyone knew that Somaly was a prostitute, but when she met this french man whose name was Pierre, she was then known as a “Khmers de France”. When Somaly was married to Pierre, she visited her home town and saw all these young prostitutes who were being sold for sex.

www.somaly.org

She saw herself; thats who she was when she was younger. She automatically wanted to do something to help these poor girls.

We can all do something to help the females of Cambodia live happily and peacefully. Writing a letter to Obama or other congressmen about the devastating situation that’s going on in Cambodia and how we need it to stop. There are many other solutions to help the problem; spread the word online, Pass along articles, stories, posts, or Somaly's memoir, The Road of Lost Innocence, to friends and family, etc.

http://www.somaly.org/

We need people to know that slavery is still happening in this world. We need to help save these girls by letting them know that they aren’t forgotten and that we trying to find an end to the problem. Sex trafficking and prostitution is something that we can’t and never will forget.