Disturbing Phnom Pehn "Slave" Brothel Report-

[shotover]

suadum said:

is what the NGOs are really up to. The most telling is: "(IJT) for the years 2001-2002 spent a whopping $3,248,381 paying themselves salaries and employee benefits, while a mere $1,254 went to their Good Samaritan Expense, and $9,280 went to the child prostitutes victims aftercare expense." They have their boy in the White House and it's feeding frenzy time for all that juicy US taxpayer money! You can easily verify this because IJT are cheeky enough to post these financials on their website. They have no shame! This makes me highly suspicious of any other NGOs (such as AFESIP) in the same game as well.

 

Good observation; Gary Haugen, founder of International Justice Ministry (IJM) has been all over the news channels citing risks and reported cases where orphaned children are being traffiked into the sex trade as a result of the tsunami. In 2002, IJM spent $89,000 on marketing, gifts, and entertainment, compared to $6,703 on victim aftercare expenses. As Suadum cited, almost all their contributions go towards staff salaries and 'contractual services'.

 

IJM's and AFESIP's activities in Cambodia seem much more directed towards getting publicity and raising money, rather than effectively addressing conditions (extreme poverty, lack of education and opportunities, corruption) that give rise to forced prostitution in Cambodia.

[Guest]

>>>>And does that mean that therefore anybody who posts about his experiences should automatically be accused of partaking in this?

 

Nobody denies it isn't going on in Cambo, but to blame everybody just because they go to Cambo is just plain wrong.<<<

 

 

 

it's not about accusing people of partaking in indentured prostitution. it is about highlighting that the scene in cambodia is fundamentally different than the scene in thailand. i do not deny that indentured prostitution does not happen in thailand, sadly.

but in the western oriented scene, which is the mainly discussed here on this board, these practises are more the exception than the rule.

 

 

how many people here do we actually have on the board who live in cambodia, speak the language, are in a position to correct or research places in cambodia from a more informed position than the one of a sextourist? none as far as i know.

 

the board here has come a long way. it is about many aspects of thailand. vistors can get information from the bars to linguistic and cultural aspects of thailand, even informed politics, with lots of regular posters who do speak thai very well.

 

but as soon as the subject of cambodia is touched upon, we get one aspect of it - sex, and from one single angle - the indulgent and selfcentered viewpoint of the sextourist.

problem is that cambodia is a far too compex issue, and especially the sex scene, to be only viewed from this viewpoint.

when i say, what i have often done, in the past, that i have seen children in cambodia's brothels visited regularly by westerners, and and even advertised in the trip reports here, i am accused of "having an agenda" or "being on a moral crusade".

as long as we simply do not have te necessary pool of diversified knowledge on cambodia here on the board, i think that the issue of cambodia's sexscene is simply a shoe a bit too big for us on this mainly thai oriented board.

 

the board rules regarding regional sanuk (and the scene in thailand as well) state that the board does not want to be associated with the nastier low end postitution. that is rather easy to define in thailand, given the vast pool of knowledge. but is that so in cambodia? in a place where the very nasty practises can be found in one and the same brothel or bar? where we do not have any regular poster who does speak the cambodian language.

 

shall we, for the sake of a few die hard combodia sextourists here, suddenly lower ourselves to being a pure whoremongers board, a board that does only care and cater to how to get one's rocks off the cheapest possible way, disregarding completely the most basic human rights?

 

apart from the moral issues, that can be debated, we also deal here with legal issues. not knowing does not absolve us in front of a court. what do we do when a place advertised on the board suddenly turns out to be a place known to be a child sex heaven, or a place of sex slavery? do we really have the necessary knowledge to re-check what is posted about cambodia's scene?

 

 

in terms of thailand - we do. regarding cambodia, we only have the inevitably scewed viewpoint of the sextourist, and my own dated experiences (about 4 or 5 years old) of researching in depth the nastier side there.

 

that is by far not enough to be able to deal with cambodia's sexscene on this mainly thai oriented board here, IMHO.

 

we can't stop people from going and indulging there, even in the nasty aspects of sex in cambodia, but we can limit our discussions on this board to areas where we have enough diversified knowledge.

[Guest]

People in the world watch closely news reports/articles coming out of Cambodia and Thailand. They believe what they see and read. If I was runing a brothel, I would make the necessary changes so people could find less fault with the brothel.

 

For example, people in the West dislike the near slavery attitude in which brothels operate at such as a woman can be fired for refusing to perform sex with a customer. If you were a brothel prostitiute and you were picked to sex service a customer and you did not think he was 'clean' would you still provide the sex knowing that if you refuse you get fired? In the West, refusing to do something that your employer tells you to do on moral grounds is not grounds for dismissal. In the West, if an employer tells a woman she has to perform oral sex on a customer without a condom, it is the employer who gets into trouble - not the employee.

 

When women have to work and do what is in violation of their morals and then everybody looks the other way regarding this violation of human nature - this in of itself is a major root of corruption.

[Nervous_Dog]

<<but as soon as the subject of cambodia is touched upon, we get one aspect of it - sex, and from one single angle - the indulgent and selfcentered viewpoint of the sextourist. >>

 

Well, that would sum up why most read this board, and why they started to read it! It IS named after nanaplaza, or did you think it said something else?

 

While all the "Extra's" that the board covers, and I agree with you, are very good, it is at the end of the day Nanaplaza.

 

DOG

[Guest]

>>>Well, that would sum up why most read this board,<<<

 

 

 

then, why should we keep the general, news, relationship, technology, language, arts etc. folders?

 

 

sorry, but that "most people" argument simply doesn't cut it. especially concerning the cambodia issue. please don't bloody evade that issue.

 

what i would say is that "most" people here are actively involved in the scene here in thailand, or at least have been at some stage. i would not insult the intelligence of the posters here that they are *only* interested in the sexual aspects of the board. there are many boards who cater solely to sex, this here isn't.

and of those who are only interested in the sexual aspects, only a minority is interested in indulging in the dirty brothel scene that most of cambodia's scene in fact is.

 

please don't evade and confuse the issue of cambodia by picking out single statements my post contains, and disregarding the main topic of my post, and the whole thread here.

 

*the issue here is cambodia, especially concerning it's sexscene, it being fit to be promoted on the board, and not if sex in general is the main topic of interest of the board here, or not.*

[thalenoi]

Unfortunately a very very badly investigated report.

That Nicholas D. Kristof does not merit any salery for writing such a biased piece of S.

 

Can't they do their job correctly ::

[Uthai]

I hate to admit it publicly but I have to agree with FLY on the issue that this Forum should not be used to publicize the P4P scene in Cambodia.

 

___________________________________________________

 

Lusty Said:

I was just pondering the thought that of the girls that wanted to return back to the brothel,I wonder how many of their families would have faced reprisals from "creditors"had they not gone?

There are so many potential twists and turns and therefores and whatnots that this is a very complicated subject.Add a bit of corruption by one or both sides and you'll never get to the bottom of it.

 

___________________________________________________

 

 

Some of the girls are indentured and some are not???How on God?s green earth would a punter be able to ascertain that in the same Brothel???

[ultras67]

It may be my imagination but did I not read a report in the last couple of months that an NGO did a raid on a "brothel dorm" and it turned out to be a factory workers dorm?

 

Is it the same raid but just a different version of the story?

[ultras67]

BelgianBoy said:

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

 

I fail to see how it leaves a sour taste - this is exactly what Cent was talking about.

 

I dont really like karaoke bars but I dont spend time posting in a thread about karaoke bars about how much I dont like them. If you dont like Cambodia, fine, but dont come on trying to convert everyone else to your point of view.

 

And lets face it, do you believe every press release thats issued by organisations with an interest in sensationalising events ( individuals, organisations or governaments ) ?

[kamui]

First, I am glad that this board has this high standards concerning underage prostitution, sex slavery and nonconsenting sex. There is another board specializing on P4P in Cambo where some longtime members, even living in PP, flatley deny the existence of of slavery e.g.

 

While visiting PP last summer I just avoided places like the local brothels since I don't want to be involved in any case of illegial or nonconsenting sex and only frequented some freelancer places in the hope that this girls did the trade by their will (the stories of the "taxi girls" I met seem not to be different from the stories Thai girls told me.)

 

But as some people already said, this story in N. Y. times is quite shady.

 

First: because of the organization involved, a fundamental rightwing christian group which is against *any* form of prostitution and which seems to use Cambo as the playground for it's campaign for christian values and the against the *evil*.

 

Second: There was no prove given that any of the girls was really underage, which of course could be, but it it seems highly unlikely that all 83 women where under 18.

Third: It was said in some media before that this kind of groups are not really in helping the girls long time like other low profile NGO's do. They are more interested actions which gives them a broad coverage in the media like this N.Y. Times report. Indeed, while other NGO's do really good work in local communities, building schools e.g. nowone talks about them, while all reports on contemporary Cambodia include this kind of faith based groups and their "fight" against the sex trade, usually with wrong pictures.

 

Forth: For what I understand - based on a very limited knowledge - is that this groups usually only "attack" brothels after having secured some backing in the goverment and only brothels with girls which are not run by very influencial Khmers. Ususally they free girls from Vietnam which can be sent home easily without much trouble afterwards. This case seems to be different because the raid was against a brothel inside PP with Khmer women.

a.) it seems that the NGO pissed off some influencial Khmer, since in the return of the women to brothel military/police was involived.

b.) Many of the Khmer women could not be silenced as easy as Viet girls. They staged a prostet the next day in front ot the US embassy.

 

In this case the details are very unclear about the groups involved and especially about the women involved. It seems that this media stunt by Afesip went terribly wrong and in the end turned against the group. The group even mananged to piss off the government, like an BBC report showed. But as BBC said, we will never know what actually happened during this two days in PP:

 

 

Row over Cambodian abduction

By Tony Cheng

BBC News, Bangkok

 

Map of Cambodia

An anti-human trafficking group based in Phnom Penh has accused Asian mafia groups of being behind the alleged kidnap of 83 women from its safe house.

 

The group, Afesip, said the women were taken at gunpoint last week.

 

Afesip representatives held a press conference in Thailand on Tuesday, because they said they feared for their safety in Cambodia.

 

The Cambodian government has denied claims the women were kidnapped, saying they left the safe house voluntarily.

 

Afesip had been working with the Cambodian authorities for two months before a raid last week on a suspected brothel in Phnom Penh.

 

Eight people were arrested by the police and 83 women, who are said to have been found in glass-fronted cages, were taken to a safe house run by the group.

 

Twenty-four hours later, those arrested were released without charge. Afesip claims they then broke down the gates to the safe house and abducted the women.

 

Pierre Legros, Afesip's regional co-ordinator, told the BBC that threats of violence against the group would not stop them in their mission.

 

"We receive a lot of threats. It think we have so much pressure that we have two solutions - to stop and go back home, or to go further and say today things have to change.

 

"Organised crime is everywhere... and if you are Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia, mafia is everywhere... They make big business."

 

The Cambodian government denies Afesip's claims that the women were abducted, and maintains that they left the safe house of their own free will.

 

Some of the women have since come forward to lodge complaints against the anti-trafficking group, and to say that they were neither sex workers nor being held in the hotel against their will.

 

Cambodia has faced huge problems in trying to tackle human trafficking, especially in the sex trade.

 

Child prostitution has thrived relatively unchecked, and attempts to crack down on the problem have been hampered by government corruption.

 

Both the government and Afesip have now called for an internationally supervised investigation into the affair.

 

But that will be a lengthy and protracted process, which is unlikely to throw much light on the real fact behind these events.

 

 

PS: From what I understand by now is that nothing is easy to understand in Cambodia since there are no clear and visible structures like in Thailand. All stories/reports I read or see are extremely biased: either filled with information without real proof and no background information about the sex trade by the media or in contrary the denial of the existance of the ugly part of P4P by involved westerners. ::