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Disturbing Phnom Pehn "Slave" Brothel Report-


jitagawn

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My sense is that this is possible and if true well it just goes to show you who is really running things in PP:Did they really go steal the girls back??? BIzarre.(-

IMHO patronage in these types of venues is truly eternal gam mai dee -(bad karma) ...

 

Herald Tribune Monday Editorial:

 

 

Nicholas D. Kristof: In Cambodia, sex traffickers are king

By Nicholas D. Kristof The New York Times Monday, January 17, 2005

PHNOM PENH Sex trafficking at its worst is the slavery of the 21st century, yet it has become one of the world's growth industries. To understand how brazen it is, step up to the second floor of the Chai Hour II Hotel here in the Cambodian capital.

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It's like an aquarium: Beyond a glass wall are dozens of teenage girls in skimpy white outfits, each with a number. The customer orders a girl by number, and the manager delivers her a moment later to a private room.

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A Cambodian police report in my hands describes the Chai Hour II as a case "of confinement of human beings for commercial sex" and adds that it is also "a place for trafficking/sale of virgin girls." All told, the report says, 250 girls and women work in the six-floor labyrinth of cubicles.

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So last month, Cambodia's top-ranking female police officer ordered a raid on the Chai Hour II and rescued 83 girls. They were taken to a shelter run by Afesip, an aid group mainly financed by Spain.

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But the next day, the trafficking tycoons turned the tables and raided the shelter. About 30 raiders, some wearing military clothing and at least one driving a car with military license plates, broke down the shelter gate, beat up one woman on the staff and took all the girls back to the brothel.

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Aarti Kapoor, a legal adviser to Afesip, acknowledges that dozens of the girls genuinely wanted to return to the brothel; shame, drug addiction and a desperate need for money keep many in the sex trade. But dozens of others, she says, wanted to stay in the shelter but were forced back anyway.

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To top it off, Cambodia's top police official reprimanded the female officer who had ordered the raid on the Chai Hour II and even briefly suspended her from her post.

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We've had narco-trafficking states; Cambodia may be becoming the first sex-slavery state.

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The U.S. State Department estimates that 600,000 to 800,000 people a year are trafficked across international borders, mostly girls and most of them for the sex industry. Many more, like the girls in the Chai Hour II, are trafficked within a country.

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As it becomes a global industry, sex trafficking is increasingly controlled by organized crime, like the ethnic Chinese mafias in Asia, and the criminals use their profits to buy government officials. Cambodia had made progress against child prostitution in the last couple of years, but now the sex industry has struck back.

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The Chai Hour II is so bold that it drove some of the girls to the U.S. Embassy for a protest against Western interference. A lawsuit, nominally by the girls themselves (who say they're masseuses and entertainers rather than prostitutes), seeks $1.7 million from Afesip, in an apparent effort to drive it out of the country, and Afesip's staff has received many death threats.

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"This is very dangerous, and I'm very scared about my security," said Pierre Legros, a founder of Afesip, who has hired eight bodyguards to protect his children. His wife, a Cambodian who also works for Afesip, has twice had guns held to her head.

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I dropped by the Chai Hour II, explained that I was an American reporter and asked to interview the owner. He was "out." Teenage girls, looking about 15 and older, floated about, but the alarmed managers blocked me from interviewing them. A security goon made it clear that photos were out of the question - but a pimp did politely serve me a cup of tea.

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The State Department's office on trafficking, to its credit, has been jumping up and down ever since the raid on Afesip occurred. "It's unacceptable - it's egregious," the office's director, John Miller, told me last week. "This was government complicity."

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But nothing will happen unless outrage increases in Washington and other foreign capitals.

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President George W. Bush has done more than his predecessors in making sex trafficking an issue, and his State Department has done a first-rate job exerting pressure - but America could do much more. The Bush administration could make a real difference if it were to treat sex trafficking as firmly as it does pirated movies, for example, and this brazen incident in Cambodia would be a fine place to start.

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In the 19th century, the civilized world recognized that slavery was a moral blot on humanity and rose up against it. So why should we acquiesce in 21st-century slavery, when 15-year-old girls are imprisoned in brothels and sentenced to death by AIDS? Those kids in the Chai Hour II Hotel have nowhere else to turn, and their lives are in our hands.

. :down::dunno:

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jita,

 

Thanks for posting this here !

A nice report on how things can really be.

 

It also balances a bit this thread which did leave me a bit of a sour taste in my mouth......

 

Specially this bit :

Hopefully KS and the mods will keep the harassment of anything written about P4P in Campuchia off the board/forum and those who wish to post their info and stories and such here "under the guidance of the board rules" will be free to do so without having to endure the harassment by those with agendas, biases and a penchant to preach and moralize.

which I found really mai sanuk ......

 

Just my opinion of course....

 

BB

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thanks for pointing that post out here.

i have forgotten about that thread after all the tsunami stress.

 

i have to say that i am a bit gobsmacked. i thought that most of us here were in agreement that certain systems of prostitution are not really what encompasses "sanuk", and "consenting adults doing whatever they want".

 

now, that post of cent you pointed out is a nicely worded complete reversal of that very sensible board policy.

 

accusing reports such as the one presented by jitagorn as "having an agenda" is absurd, given the more than overwhelming proof of slavery being endemic in cambodia's sex scene.

 

i really wonder if tolerating that sort of scene is now again policy of the newly fashioned and moderatated board along the lines of more "sanuk"???

 

 

personally, if advertisments for "sanuk" in cambodia's brothelvillages are now tolerated here on this board - i do not want to be part of the community anymore.

i can't stop people from going there, but i can make a choice of not participating in a community that condones, turns a blind eye towards indentured prostitution.

 

 

please, KS, would you mind elaborating on this. as the boardowner.

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Hi,

 

"please, KS, would you mind elaborating on this. as the boardowner."

 

Indentured prostitution is not, and has never been condoned on this board. However, I doubt that all prostitution in Cambodia is indentured (as some people like to imply).

 

Nor do I read in Cent's comment anything that says otherwise. The "under the guidance of the board rules" clearly indicates that any discussion / stories cannot break any of the board rules.

 

Sanuk!

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>>>and such here "under the guidance of the board rules" will be free to do so without having to endure the harassment by those with agendas, biases and a penchant to preach and moralize.<<<

 

 

that part confuses me a bit.

 

now, for example, some place is identified by someone as a place where indentured prostitution exists. somebody else refutes this. now, are we allowed to debate that, under board rules, or do we have to live with the accusation of being one of "those with agendas, biases and a penchant to preach and moralize"?

coss, former (and maybe still) regional forum moderator has alwasys refused any criticism on cambodia's prostitution scene. accusing anyone pointing out that indentured prostitution is endemic drew attacks.

 

i don't know, but i don't know if i like what is happening here.

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Hi,

 

The thing is, Fly, that one never knows for certain. I despise indentured prostitution as much as the next guy (and I am sure this goes for the vast majority of people on this board, including Coss and Cent I am sure), but just because it happens in Cambo does not mean we should therefore condemn any and all comments on partaking of prostitution in Cambo.

 

I also think that Lusty's comment is very valid, and in that context a lot of the prostitution here in Thailand could be seen as indentured. Would you suggest we stop discussing that as well (rhetorical question, please don't anwer :) ).

 

As for your question on debating, sure you can as long as it is done in a civil way and not in the way you tend to attack these posts (sorry, Fly, but you cannot control yourself in such discussions).

 

Sanuk!

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>>>As for your question on debating, sure you can as long as it is done in a civil way and not in the way you tend to attack these posts (sorry, Fly, but you cannot control yourself in such discussions).<<<

 

 

i have learned a lot in the past. ;)

 

only problem is that i am in direct conflict with my POV to some moddies here, who do have the added advantage of being able to close a discussion with one click on the keyboard.

 

 

 

>>>I also think that Lusty's comment is very valid, and in that context a lot of the prostitution here in Thailand could be seen as indentured. Would you suggest we stop discussing that as well (rhetorical question, please don't anwer ).<<<

 

 

yes, i agree that this is a valid point. it is a very grey line. reading the report jitagorn posted though, that is a case where the lines have very visibly been crossed.

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Hi,

 

"only problem is that i am in direct conflict with my POV to some moddies here, who do have the added advantage of being able to close a discussion with one click on the keyboard."

 

And if they would ever close a discussion because they can't 'win' it you can come complain to me. As far as I know this has never happened, nor do I think it likely it will.

This was one of the main reasons behind the move to anonymous moderation. You will never be in discussion with a moderator anymore, just with another member.

 

"yes, i agree that this is a valid point. it is a very grey line. reading the report jitagorn posted though, that is a case where the lines have very visibly been crossed."

 

I think this line sums it up pretty well:

 

"Aarti Kapoor, a legal adviser to Afesip, acknowledges that dozens of the girls genuinely wanted to return to the brothel; shame, drug addiction and a desperate need for money keep many in the sex trade. But dozens of others, she says, wanted to stay in the shelter but were forced back anyway."

 

Some wanted to be rescued, others did not.

 

Sanuk!

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