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Cambodia faces problems enforced new sex trafficking law

by CJaye | December 26, 2008 at 11:33 am

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Chantha said there was nothing else she could do in Cambodia but become a prostitute. "If you don't even have a dollar in your pocket to buy rice, how can you bear looking at your starving relatives?" she said. More than 500 women were arrested for soliciting sex in the first nine months of 2008, with many of them forced into rehabilitation centres. Despite Chanta and others testifying to instances of rape, beatings and extortion at the hands of police in the rehabilitation centres, authorities have repeatedly denied the abuses.

Chanta, in her early twenties, was working in a small red-light district west of the capital Phnom Penh several months ago when she was arrested under Cambodia's new sex-trafficking law.

Police nabbed her in a raid and charged her with publicly soliciting sex, fining her nearly two dollars. Then, Chanta claims, the arresting officers gang raped and beat her for six days in detention.

Bruises covered her body, but none of her assailants were brought to court, she said.

The Cambodian government began prosecuting a new "Law on Suppression of Human Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation" in February after years of pressure from the United States to clamp down on sex trafficking.

Since then, authorities have conducted brothel raids and street sweeps, but rights groups complain the new law has in many ways worsened the exploitation of women.

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Jordan Yerman

at 11:55 on December 26th, 2008

Law enforcement was fairly thin on the ground when I was in Cambodia (which was a few years ago), and foreign visitors are, in comparison with most locals, fabulously wealthy. Therefore, you can find pretty much anything you want if you have enough money, and "enough money" is much less than in the West.

It was as easy to find a rocket launcher as it was to find a place that accepted credit cards. Seriously. People offered me artillery.

I found Cambodia's people to be incredibly resourceful; they made McGyver look like an idiot, and were willing to do whatever they had to in order to survive. This of course also leads to some fairly entrenched organized crime.

CJaye

at 12:44 on December 26th, 2008

I believe it. I'm not surprised artillery was offered. Anything to make money, that's funny about McGyver Jordon but pretty bad because it's true. Thank you for commenting.