Sex Abuse in Cambodia

Chris Rees, 10B

Photo of a brothel from the outside.
       (photo from Greyscale.org.uk)

Abuse towards women isn’t rare or hard to find in Cambodia, it’s a pretty common thing. Husbands will beat their wives or daughters, and if they’re no use to the family they will sell them to brothels (prostitution) and have them sell themselves for money. The average age of prostitute is 12-13 years old, a 7th grader. Kids who are still in middle school are being used a prostitutes and are abused daily. 636 cases of sexual abuse and human trafficking were reported in Cambodia in 2004, of these, 433 were children, most of them girls. However, it is estimated that between 60,000 to 80,000 women and children are sexually abused every year in Cambodia. This issue has been going on for years and is still happening today. In Nicholas Kristof's New York Times report about brothels and human trafficking in Cambodia it mentioned how governments are aware prostitution is apparent in all countries, but when a young girl dies because of AIDS it’s just something we have to live with and its unavoidable. “It exists in all countries, and if some teenage girls are imprisoned in brothels until they die of AIDS, that is seen as tragic but inevitable.” This is a solution we can't afford to live with, the way the governments are handling this won't change anything. We need to change it by spreading awareness and protesting child prostitution and human trafficking.

In the book The Road of Lost Innocence, a memoir by Somaly Mam, Mam experiences prostitution and being sold into a brothel first hand. Her parents abandoned her when she was a child so she was forced to grow up alone. She was sold to a man that she soon called her grandfather. He would beat her and would make her do all the work. Mam met a family and started living with them and would go to school with them, but would still have to work and deliver money to her grandfather. After a while her grandfather decided to sell her to a man who brought her to a brothel in the city. He sold his "granddaughter" into a brothel and would have her work as a prostitute and get abused daily, just so he could come around every month to collect her earnings. Somaly had to face the hardships of being raped, hit and disrespected everyday. She would run away and somehow get brought right back to where she started, the brothel. None of the men who came there were nice, or treated any of the many girls who worked there with respect. This book is a great way to spread awareness about this topic because it has a women who experienced it first hand and knows how terrible it is.

I believe the best way to put an end to this problem is to spread awareness and go around the major cities where these issues have been reported and try to close down all the brothels. We can spread awareness by protesting and having more people come out and tell their stories about their experiences being abused. There are many organizations such as Say NO which are women rights activists who are trying to put an end to sex abuse and discrimination. There are many different ways to help, such as donating money or simply just raising awareness. The United States and other countries aren't doing much to help this issue but by using these organizations we can make a huge difference.