When safe sex isn’t

According to Cambodia Daily reports of recent prostitution busts in Phnom Penh, the Cambodian police are using the presence/possession of condoms as evidence of prostitution and as a basis for arresting the people involved.* For example, in ‘Police Raid Parlor Alleged to Provide Sex Services’ (Cambodia Daily, March 14, 2012,) police reportedly stated that, in addition to other evidence, “…used condoms showed the massage place is 100% providing sex services.” The women from that bust were taken by the police for “education” (i.e. possibly sent to one of Cambodia’s notorious ‘rehabilitation centers’) and the parlor owners were arrested.

While I understand, from a law enforcement perspective, why the police would want to use condoms as evidence, this practice clearly runs contrary to this interests of community health and the health and safety of individuals involved in the sex trade. It creates a situation in which sex workers and brothel owners must choose between possessing condoms/risking arrest and eschewing condoms/risking sexual disease. It makes safe sex unsafe (at least legally) and incentivizes sex workers to forgo condoms.

This is particularly frustrating in light of Cambodia’s hard-fought battle against high HIV infection rates. Due in part to efforts by NGOs and government to encourage condom use amongst sex workers, the country’s comparatively high HIV rates have been significantly reduced over the last decade. While the recent crackdown on brothels has negatively impacted this effort in several ways, it has been largely indirect, e.g. forcing prostitutes out of brothels and onto the streets has made them less accessible to the NGOs that provide condoms and safe sex education, and also made them more vulnerable to customer pressure not use condoms.

The practice of using condoms as criminal evidence represents a much more present and direct threat to condom use and safe sex. It amounts to the de facto criminalization of condoms, actively discouraging condom use amongst sex workers. In terms of community health, it is a step backwards, working to undo efforts to reduce the spread of HIV and STDs. And in so far as the anti-trafficking/prostitution laws are intended to protect the women involved, it acts to the contrary, putting their health and safety at greater risk.

Time to end this practice.

---------------------------------------

(* Cambodia is not alone in this practice. 'The Policy That Keeps Prostitutes From Carrying and Using Condoms' addresses a similar policy in New York.)

See also:
Cambodia: Sex workers, 100% condom use and human rights
Off the Streets: Arbitrary Detention and Other Abuses against Sex Workers in Cambodia 
Cambodia HIV and Aids treatment programmes threatened
AIDS on Stamps

Better late than never - 2011

Newly completed Phnom Penh Tower, the city's second highrise.

Running a couple of weeks late on this post. Stray thoughts of Cambodia last year.

2010 At the end of last year, the on-going conflict with Thailand over Preah Vihear was probably the most talked about issue of that moment and perhaps the year. A decades old dispute, the flare up of the last few years was largely the result of Thai political instability stemming from the 2006 coup that ousted Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. After months of deadly border skirmishes in 2010, political and military tensions had begun to ease in December, only to spike again with the arrest of a Thai politician and yellow-shirt activists on the Cambodian side of the border. And so began 2011.
Preah Vihear: the Thai-Cambodia temple dispute 
New developments in the Thai-Cambodia conflict (Dec 30, 2010)

Cambodia Daily

Voluntourism The international press turned a long overdue critical light on Pity Industry tourism, including orphanage tourism and commercialized voluntourism. Prompted by a study of orphanage tourism in Africa, papers such as the Guardian and the Telegraph published critical pieces toward the end of 2010, sparking several other unfavorable articles, blog entries and internet debates throughout the year. In October 2011 the high-respected NGO Friends-International in Cambodia launched an important new campaign aimed at bringing an end to orphanage tourism.
Guardian: Before you pay to volunteer abroad, think of the harm you might do
Telegraph: Volunteer holidays 'do more harm than good'
Inside the thriving industry of AIDS orphan tourism
Taking Aim at Voluntourism
The Independent: Cambodia's orphanages target the wallets of well-meaning tourists
When Children Become Tourist Attractions

Internet censorship Cambodia stumbled clumsily into the world of Internet censorship in February. After a ham-handed start in which all of BlogSpot was suddenly blocked and ISPs initially affirmed then denied knowledge of the blockage, the outage narrowed, leaving only the highly provocative KI Media and Khmerization permanently unavailable through some ISPs in Cambodia. Both the government and the ISP’s denied responsibility. The media squawked about it for a month or so, but the story has since been relegated to NGO reports. The blocked sites are still unavailable through many, perhaps most ISPs in Cambodia. That said, Cambodia still has some of the most unrestricted internet access in Southeast Asia, significantly better than its immediate neighbors.
The Curious Case of the Banning that Wasn't
LICADHO Condemns Censorship of Web Sites Critical of Government

Sam Rainsy Mid-March, Sam Rainsy was stripped of his seat in Parliament. It seemed much less of a story than it would have been in years past.
Cambodia opposition leader loses parliamentary seat

US Maintains Ban on Cambodian Adoptions  There has been a US imposed ban on the adoption of Cambodian children by Americans since 2001. After reconsidering the ban in March, the US ultimately declined to rescind it.
Cambodia Law Blog: Can expats adopt Cambodian children? Dispelling the myths

Unhappy Hippi In May Sihanoukville’s fabled Happy Hippi lost its smile.
K440: Happy Hippy smacked

The Cows of Spring On Royal Plowing Day in May the Royal Oxen ate beans and corn, eschewing the rice and other offerings.

Phsar Thmey and wart

Central Market After more than two years of work, during which many vendors were displaced to temporary buildings next to the market, the renovation and refurbishment of Phsar Thmey was completed mid-2011, including a brand new bright yellow paint job. (And it grew a wart in the form of a new, completely out-of-place 7-story building on the market square.) What a fantastic building, even with wart.

Preah Vihear In July elections were held in Thailand. The Pheu Thai party won. Thaksin’s sister became PM, Thailand’s political turmoil eased a bit, the yellows quieted, and the Preah Vihear situation has been getting better ever since. Come the end of 2011, Thai activist Veera remains in Cambodian jail.
Cambodia congratulates Pheu Thai Party on election win
Yingluck's visit to improve relations: Cambodian deputy PM
Cambodian PM stresses good relations with Thailand

DVDs at Russian Market

Legend In July The Legend Theatre opened in Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s first ‘international-standard’ cinema. Full size screen, proper theater seats, quality projection and sound and the first screen in Cambodia to (legally) show Hollywood first run movies, including 3D movies. As a result there has been a threatened crackdown on bootlegged DVDs of certain first run movies.
Cambodia Law Blog: New moves on pirated movies

Tonle Sap Prime Minister Hun Sen continued to make the health of the Tonle Sap a priority, apparently with significant success. Illegal reservoirs and fishing lots were ordered shut down and the orders were enforced. Initial reports indicate the annual total fish catch is way up.
Fishing licenses around Cambodia's Tonle Sap Lake revoked
Hun Sen extends Tonle Sap fishing lot closure
AKP: Large Scale Crack-down of Illegal Fishing in Tonle Sap to Come

Former brothels on 63

Brothels closed on 63 Sometime in July, the long-running string of brothels on Street 63 was raided and closed. I posted about the bust of one in this group back in 2010. The place was back in operation a couple of weeks later, business as usual. Clearly well protected. But all of the brothels are gone now. To my knowledge those places on 63 were the last openly brothel-like businesses in central Phnom Penh. They have been there as long as I can remember and survived years after every other city center brothel had been shuttered. There must have been dozens of girls there. Closing them was probably one of the biggest brothel raid/ closures in the country this year. But to my knowledge the raid went unreported in the English press in Cambodia.

A Brief Tour of the Cambodian Sex Industry Best article on prostitution in Cambodia by an international journalist in recent memory. I don’t agree with everything he wrote, but unlike many of the weepy, sensationalistic, pre-scripted reports in the international media of late, he drew his conclusions from the evidence rather than looking for evidence to support his conclusions.

Faintings There was a spate of mass faintings at several different garment factories and even a couple of schools in Cambodia. Many observers were understandably quick to cast a suspicious eye on factory conditions, but the cause is still a matter of investigation. The mass faintings began suddenly and have occurred over a relatively short span, the only obvious commonalities being most happened in the factories and were exclusively amongst the laborers. It would be an extraordinary coincidence for such a cluster to occur, yet not have some common cause or link between the incidents – e.g. some new chemical, pesticide or product in use, a new ventilation system, a illness of some sort being passed around, longer working hours or increased production requirements, some new practice common to all of the affected factories.

Different causes have been suggested by investigators and labor advocates. In fact, there have been almost as many possible causes cited as there have been fainting incidents – chemicals, smells, ventilation, long hours, hunger, food poisoning, dehydration, etc., but nothing definitive and nothing new and common to all of the affected facilities. Working conditions in the factories appear to be pretty much the same as they have been for years.

In lieu of evidence of a common cause I am inclined to agree with Time Magazine. The mass fainting are, for lack of a better term, ‘mass-hysteria,’ but by that I don't mean to diminish their significance. These factory workers are largely poor young women, often rural girls accustomed to rice farming and country living, now working in gray, stuffy, unpleasant conditions, feeling homesick, pressured by family (for money) and harsh supervisors, and doing mind-numbingly repetitive work for very little compensation (averaging $55-$61/month,) often for long hours. Though the factories are not 'sweat shops,' this is still the kind of work that is undesirable enough to drive some young women to choose prostitution in preference. In my opinion, for whatever reason that first mass fainting happened, it sparked a chain reaction of all the faintings that followed - it was the spark for a sort of involuntary protest by these young women against the unhappy and oppressive circumstances in which they find themselves.
Hundreds sick in mass fainting at Cambodian factory
Mass Fainting In Garment Factory
Mass faintings at H&M factory in Cambodia
What's Causing 'Mass Faintings' at Cambodian Factories?

Siem Reap, September 2011

Floods The wet season was too wet this year. Cambodia (and Thailand) saw some of the worst flooding in more than a decade. In Cambodia huge swathes of countryside along the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers were submerged, hundreds of deaths, enormous crop loss and property damage. Government response was slow and inadequate. In an unprecedented but widely supported move, the government cancelled the Water Festival boat races in Phnom Penh. Just as the press was beginning to take note of the flooding in Cambodia, especially with the repeated flooding of Siem Reap town, Bangkok came under flood threat and story in the international press changed focus to Thailand and never really returned to Cambodia. Interestingly, even with the flood related crop loss, Cambodia managed to produce more rice in 2011 than the previous year.
Flood reports, photos and links
Cambodia's rice yield stable in 2011 despite flood devastation: PM

Most self-absorbed article of the year Amidst stories of captive Cambodian women jumping from upper floor windows to escape Malaysian recruitment agencies and of repeated allegations of abuse, torture and rape of Cambodian maids in Malaysia, the Cambodian government has banned its citizens from working as maids in Malaysia. Reporting on the ban in ‘this article’ the Malaysian press complained of a “dire maid shortage”in Malaysia and of how the ban will hurt their recruitment agencies. "Dire." Never mind the abuses suffered by these maids in Malaysia or captive women jumping from windows to escape these so called 'recruitment agencies' in Phnom Penh, it sounds like tough times in Malaysia. It's dire. They're having to make their own beds and there's nobody to do the dishes. 
“They Deceived Us at Every Step”
Recruiters Round Up Cambodians to Work in Malaysia

Rice wine deaths There were several mass poisonings attributable to bad batches of homemade rice wine. A regular motodup on my street died a couple of months ago after being poisoned. In one tragic case the better part of a village was wiped out. One poisoning incident:
12 Cambodians died of wine poisoning

Top Ten Tycoons The essential Who’s Who

Land Next to the floods, the rampant land-grabbing and mistreatment of evictees was the story of the year. So much has been written on the subject I am not sure what more is to be said. The problem continues and is growing. It is involving ever more people and confrontations between evictees and authorities are becoming more violent. In terms of politics, it is a gift from the ruling party government to the opposition. While I accept it is unrealistic to expect there will not be evictions as the city and country develops, I don’t understand from either a human or political POV why it is being handled so badly and the evictees treated with such callous inhumanity. It is sowing the seeds of dissent and future conflict in ever growing numbers. As one Kampong Speu evictee put it, "If there was still a Khmer Rouge hiding in the jungle, I'd join." In the long and even medium term, these pitiless evictions don't make moral or even Machiavellian sense.

NGO Law The government wants to regulate NGOs and has proffered a law. The NGOs are suspicious of the government’s intent but split between those who say the proposed law needs modification and those who say there should be no law at all. Much ink has been spilled on the subject with the highlight being an exchange between Elizabeth Becker and an anonymous commentator at AKP, the government media mouthpiece. The proposed law is currently in its fourth draft and the debate continues. The Prime Minister recently calmed the debate by saying that there was no rush, that they would work as long as necessary to craft a law acceptable to both sides. But, of course, this also takes the ‘no law’ option off the table.
Catalogue of artcles related to the NGO Law
Hun Sen Calls for More Talks on NGO Law
Elizabeth Becker/AKP exchange
Silencing Cambodia's Honest Brokers By ELIZABETH BECKER
AKP: Commentary: Elizabeth Becker and the Campaign to Put NGOs above the Law
Response To Anonymous Critique by Elizabeth Becker

The King, King Father and Queen Mother on the occasion of the 90/20 celebration.

90/20 King Father Sihanouk celebrated his 90th birthday and 20-year anniversary of returning to Cambodia. A truly historic occasion.
Birthday of King Father Norodom Sihanouk of Cambodia

Mu Sochea proves to be a continuing force, making her mark (and political hay) taking a hands-on approach and focusing on issues that directly affect the poor and disadvantaged such as land grabbing and maid trafficking. Like I said last year, keep an eye on this lady, especially in the coming election year. She’s going places.

Kristof Tweets In November Nicholas Kristof parachuted in to Anlong Veng to tweet a brothel raid and promote his favorite anti-trafficking NGO in Cambodia. His dramatic tweeting of the raid probably did more to raise public awareness of his questionable ethics in the reporting of sex trafficking than anything he has done since purchasing two underage girls in Cambodia in 2005.
Nick Kristof to the rescue!
Nick Kristof Live Tweets a Raid on an Underage Brothel – And Not Everyone is Thrilled
Fighting back, one brothel raid at a time
A human trafficker defends Cambodian sweatshops
Be Aware: Nick Kristof’s Anti-Politics

Laos threatens to construct the first hydropower dam on the Lower Mekong.
Laos' Mekong Xayaburi dam plan delayed again

@Faineg Tweets KR trial The KR trials continue under a darkening cloud of criticism from disparate quarters. Growing feelings that the trials may be fundamentally flawed, talk of UN incompetence, accusations of government interference, a judge resigned, acrimony between the government and UN, and that's just the now of it. Case 002 is underway. Nuon Chea (Brother #2) has been on the stand and has put on quite a show, well-worth a hundred million, see-sawing between denying knowledge and blaming Vietnam. In an innovative and powerful use of Twitter, Faine Greenwood, aka @faineg, (and others more sporadically,) has been live tweeting the proceedings from the courtroom. This is journalism. ( Recently @KRT_Monitor has taken up the blow by blow.)

Plane to Sihanoukville Cambodia Angkor Air began regular flights between Siem Reap and Sihanoukville in December. If memory serves, this is the first regular air service to Sihanoukville since Royal Air Cambodge stopped flying to Sihanoukville in late 1997…except for PMT’s short-lived ill-fated venture on the same route a few years back. 

Tourism grows and grows At year’s end the government announced that tourist arrivals were up 14% over last year, Vietnamese leading the way. Tuk-tuk drivers in Siem Reap complain that the increasing numbers of Asian tourists, often on packages, is driving down local transport prices. Still, Siem Reap is booming and some of it is spilling off to Sihanoukville and Phnom Penh.
Cambodia's foreign tourist arrivals up 14% in 2011

Gold Tower 42, The Phnom Penh Tower and The OCIC Tower

Phnom Penh towers At the site of the old Ministry of Tourism, Phnom Penh's second highrise after the OCIC Tower (Canadia Tower,) the new Phnom Penh Tower on Monivong Blvd, was completed and opened for business. Stalled project Gold Tower 42 (aka Grey Tower 31, aka Bassac Thmey) has been idle now for 15 months.

The Riel The Cambodian Riel held its own against the US dollar throughout the year, varying only about +/-50 Riel over the course of the year, beginning 2011 at about 4055KHR = US$1 and finishing around 4075KHR = US$1.

New bridge to Koh Pos, Sihanoukville, 2/11. Construction is now complete.

Outrage In the final week of the year Cambodia publicly soiled itself and walked around stinking of shit in its pants all week after pardoning and releasing convicted Russian pedophile Alexander Trofimov. Alexi first arrived in Cambodia heading up a high-profile US$300,000,000 Koh Pos investment project before being caught diddling dozens of prepubescent girls in Sihanoukville in 2007. His subsequent handling by the Cambodian judiciary was riddled with irregularities and he had served only a fraction of his original sentence before being freed by royal pardon. Juice speaks. He has since disappeared into Cambodia somewhere, doing what...we can only imagine. After he was released all of the authorities that should have been in-the-know did a Sgt. Schultz style, "I know nothing...nothing!" all denying knowledge of how he got on the pardon list. His former company even denied knowing who he is. Yeah, right.  
Cambodia pardons Russian in paedophile case
Phnom Penh Post: Petition to deport pedophile Alexander Trofimov

Ten Cambodia Tweeps to Follow
khmerbird
peter_k440
faineg
nate_thayer
dickonverey
HunSensEye
ChrisInCambo
SimOliver
MuSochua
mybigfatface
JaredsCambodia

Cambodia News and Info on Twitter
phnompenhpost
voakhmer
tweetcambodia
cambopedia
cambodianews
Canby_Cambodia
USEmbPhnomPenh
EyeOnCambodia
KRT_Monitor

New Cambodia Blogs of Note
Faine Opinines
Nate Thayer

Pedophile!

It finally happened.

As a result of the hysteria generated by the western press, and perhaps a bit of racism as well, today I was accused of being a pedophile, for absolutely no other reason than being a white male in the company of brown children – my son and daughter. 

First, just a bit about us. I’m 50+ years old, white, a businessman and have lived in Cambodia for more than 18 years. I’m married to an Asian woman. We’ve been together more than 10 years and have two beautiful children - a 9 year old girl and 7 year old boy. We are the natural parents of both. They are wonderful children, the loves of my life. They are well-behaved, excellent students and speak perfectly accented American English as well as 2-3 other languages. And though it sickens me that the situation requires me to make note of their racial features… though they are not distinctly Asian, they are darker than me and not 100% European in appearance, to anybody with an eye, clearly ‘kon kut’ (mixed race.)

I work a lot, perhaps too much, but always reserve Sundays for my family and children. It’s become a Sunday afternoon tradition in our family to give Mom a break, some time for herself. The kids and I always go somewhere together on Sunday afternoons - the Museum, the park, the Palace, the Russian Market, or quite often the riverfront for snacks and CD shopping, as we did today. 

We took a tuk-tuk to the riverfront, got out at K-West (Sisowath Quay and Street 154) and started walking up the riverfront road. My children were dressed in their Sunday best, happy and smiling. We strolled hand in hand, my daughter anxious to buy the newest installment of Harry Potter at the CD shop, my son looking forward to strawberry and passion fruit ice cream at K-West.

We hadn’t got but 40 meters when I noticed a woman – white, 50ish, seemingly a tourist - walking toward us taking photos in our direction. A man, presumably the husband, stood next to her. As we got closer I thought she might be trying to get a riverfront shot, perhaps of something behind me, so I stepped slightly to the side to get out of the way. But she tracked us with her camera. As we got closer and she kept shooting I furrowed my brow in a ‘what are you doing?’ sort of way, but didn’t actually say anything.

She held up her camera, pointed at it and said, “Internet!” I wasn’t sure I got the meaning so I said “what?” She pointed at her camera again and said with a smirk, “Internet,” pointed at me and said, “you pedo!” Hearing clearly but not wanting to make a mistake I stepped closer to her and asked again. She repeated, “Photo you, internet, you pedo…for police,” in a distinctly Italian accent. I said something like “These are my children.” She just shook her head and started to raise her camera again. I said, “You want police? You want to call the police?” She nodded. I said, “I’ll call police.” She nodded again and we stepped to the side of the pavement together. My children backed off a few steps, frightened by the obvious tension in our voices. I pulled out my phone, called my staff and asked them to call the police and I called the police myself as well. I told them where I was and asked them to come quickly.

We stood there uncomfortably for a moment. I considered grabbing the camera, but didn’t want to start a fight, especially with my children there. I motioned my children to us and told my daughter to explain who she was. I figured my daughter’s thick American accent alone should be enough. My daughter started to tell her name, age and such when the Italian woman cut her off. “No English. No English,” she barked. Startled, my children moved behind me.

We stood there another uncomfortable minute, waiting. The woman started to get nervous. She said “I go,” and tried to push past me. I said “No, we wait for police.” She repeated that she was going. I told her to either wait for the police or delete the photos. She said, “No, you pedo,” and tried to push past me again. I stood firm and told her we were going to wait for the police. She pushed me back but I stayed in front of her like a blocker. I didn’t touch her myself because she was a woman, but she pushed me back repeatedly. It became a jostling and yelling match, her pushing, me blocking, staggering down the riverfront back toward K-West. Khmers and tourists stood and stared at the commotion. I just kept repeating, “wait for the police or delete the photos,” as did she, “no, no…go, go.” 

Through all this her husband did nothing to help her. I kept expecting him to jump in. Rather hoping he would actually.  But he just looked uncomfortable, slowly, silently, wimpishly following behind his wife.

In front of K-West they jumped in a tuk-tuk. I thought about getting in too. Or perhaps grabbing a motodup. I saw my children standing about 15 meters away, wide-eyed. I didn’t want to involve them in a chase. This was already too much. I pulled out my phone and aimed it at the woman to take a photo. She screamed, “No photo! No photo!” and covered her face. It took a few seconds for my camera to work allowing her time to cover. I took several photos, all of her with face covered.

After they left, I called the police back and told them she was gone and to not bother coming.

My kids and I went into K-West, got some tea and sodas and we talked about what had happened. I tried to explain, leaving out the bit about pedophilia and replacing it with ‘she thought I was trying to steal you.’ “Why?” they asked. I could only say because I’m white and they look Asian. “But we’re a family,” they said. They know that their Mom is Asian and I’m a barang, but they haven’t yet learned that this is an important distinction in the minds of some.

I know there is more to it than that, but how do I explain that to a 7 and 9 year old?

In moments of silence, as they tried to comprehend what this woman had done, I tweeted about it. The whole thing left me rattled. Bitching about it on internet seemed to help relieve the tension a bit.

My daughter made an astute observation in the aftermath. Thirty minutes later, as we walked to the CD shop she said, “She knows nothing about Cambodia. Doesn’t she know that Asians and Americans can have children? She doesn’t know anything.”

I think my daughter is right about that, or perhaps even understated it a bit. The woman doesn’t know anything about Cambodia. She, in fact, probably only imagines she knows something because of what she has read in the western press, which is something less than nothing in many cases.

If this Italian woman isn’t simply a racist, her mind has probably been twisted by the constant stream of sensational, repetitive and often wildly-overstated stories of western pedophiles and abused children in Cambodia.  And not only by the western press but by NGOs that profit from it and feed the beast with exaggerated stats and a constant stream of rehashed horrors stories that keep the funds flowing and the presses humming.

Back in the US a few months ago I saw MSNBC playing their 8 year old ‘Children for Sale’ video yet again, about a brothel village that hasn’t existed in more than half a decade. Some NGOs are still pawning off the ’33,000 child prostitutes in Cambodia’ stat when there aren’t 33,000 prostitutes of any age in Cambodia (link). Some Christian NGOs tell their people that there are women chained to beds and being raped in hostess bars in the center of the tourist district on the Phnom Penh riverfront. Every westerner busted for pedophilia in Cambodia is repeated in the international press for weeks while the fact that they make up a tiny fraction of the pedos in Cambodia goes unmentioned. Nicholas Kristof parachutes into Cambodia to do a sensational live-tweet of a brothel raid, painting himself the cowboy hero riding to the rescue of women and children in the Wild West (link1 link 2). Some NGOs in Cambodia parade their rescued victims (link) of trafficking in front of an insatiable press and voyeuristic tourists to repeat their stories of victimhood again and again - donations accepted. Sex in Cambodia sells. 

Don’t get me wrong. Human trafficking and trafficking in children for sex is a real and present problem in Cambodia, and the rest of the world. There are pedophiles, especially amongst the Khmer and Asians, and certainly westerners too. It all needs to be addressed, there is no doubt about that. But the western press’s manic fixation on abusive sex in Cambodia has made the country name synonymous with pedophilia, unfairly and inaccurately so.

From her exposure to the press, tourists like this Italian woman think that pedophiles are as common as cockroaches, that any white man with an Asian looking child must be a pedo who can simply waltz through tourist areas in broad daylight with a prepubescent child on each hand. (And I can’t help but believe that if my children had been white, she wouldn’t have made this judgment about us.) Kristof’s sensationalism has 3-day tourists believing they too can play super-hero, identifying pedos at a glance, swooping to the rescue and saving a child in between their afternoon visit to the Royal Palace and authentic Cambodian Curry dinner on the riverfront.

Ultimately, as good as their intentions might be, as important as the problem is, the press, some NGOs and these misguided tourists are doing the country, the victims of trafficking, and yes, even little people like me a terrible disservice, while enriching and glorifying themselves in the process. This needs to stop. This isn’t a game or an action hero movie or an opportunity for tourists to feel righteous pity. The problems need to be addressed realistically and not in the context of sensationalism, mania, big-money, and dare I say, racism.

If, unlike this Italian woman, you have a reasonable, rational belief that you have seen a child in a risk situation, by all means, call the ChildSafe helpline, if possible keep the child in sight and wait until the ChildSafe team arrives to sort things out.

Anyway, I figure that when my photo turns up on some Italian website as another pedophile operating openly and with impunity in Cambodia, it will also include a story of my powerful police connections that were on their way to protect me and how she had to flee for her life. A narrow escape by our heroine, just like in the movies. Cambodia is a very dangerous place, you know. And her harrowing tale might even generate a few donations for some Cambodian anti-trafficking NGO.

A passing encounter

Bangkok. Out of the hospital with a clean bill and no required follow-ups. Not quite what I was but a helluva lot better than I could have been. I'm done with them and almost home.

Feeling tired and weak and a bit beaten up by the doctors, but nevertheless past it, I decided to make a night out, recoup some strength, if in attitude only. I began at a Soi 4 bar, perchance talking to an old (35ish) Thai taxi girl with whom I had one of the most disturbing conversations I've had.

I think she was trying to talk me up, hoping that I'd become a customer, but she spewed so much hatred, such unrelenting bile for everybody and every kind of person, that she literally made me feel physically ill. Any other time I would have been able to take it in stride, perhaps knock her down a few pegs, but my weakened state left me vulnerable.

One of the reasons I went to the bar was to try to relax and buck up a bit, put on a light, listen to some music, watch some people, get into a better frame. I just wasn't ready for her. Not that she directed any of her venom at me - after all, I was a potential customer. But no-one else was spared.

She began when I entered, harshly forcing some other (younger, prettier) taxi girls to relinquish their choice streetside seats to me, referring to them as "buffaloes." Granted, as a paying customer I was entitled to the seat, but I wouldn't have asked them to move, taxi girls or not.

I sat down.

She plopped down next to me and immediately began about the 'half-brained idiot farang bar owner' who lets these "useless buffaloes" do what they want. She went on…and on.

Trying to change the subject to something completely different, I asked about a katoey fortune teller that used to sit on the sidewak in front of the Dynasty Inn a few doors down. A deck of cards, a candle and a kerchief on the pavement - he was there for many years and I noticed in my last couple of visits that he had disappeared. I thought maybe he had moved. To be honest, I have no particular sympathy for katoeys and probably even something of a prejudice against them, but would never dream of wishing harm on somebody who had done me no harm. And this particular guy (girl) had always been kind to me. He spoke decent English and turned the cards and told my fortune a couple-few times over the years, doing a pretty good job of it. Anyway, when I asked about him she told me bluntly and with something of a smirk that he was dead - "dead of AIDS," she enunciated.

I felt an immediate rush of sadness. I knew this guy, or at least who he was. She went on to revel in it a bit, telling me how he deserved it because he was a katoey, how all katoeys deserve it, "butt-fuckers" that they are. I pressed for more info, received little, and in hindsight, I'm not sure she was telling the truth anyway. It may have all have been an exercise in wishful thinking.

She then went on to attack, in turn, the stupid Khmer beggars, the job-stealing Burmese, the thieving Vietnamese children who sell flowers on the street and, of course, the "smelly Muslims" that inhabit Soi 3. With a big smile she used my almost empty beer bottle to demonstrate how she would crack the skull of an 8-year-old Vietnamese 'match-girl' who was working the street nearby. And even though I went from a polite smile, to defending these people, to a blank stare, to a disgusted stare and finally quite obviously just looking away trying to ignore her, I don't think she ever got the idea that I was anything but enjoying her vile banter. I guess I should have just laid into her, but really wasn't up for a fight. That's not why I was there.

In the end, after only two beers, I called for my bill, paid the exact amount, and left. As I was leaving she followed, proffering the standard lilting "where are you going?" and a sweet voiced "come again," probably hoping for a tip or an offer to have her join me, but I wouldn't/couldn't even look at her.

I went on to better places and better people and made a pretty good night of it.

I have no moral to this story or conclusion to offer, just a vaguely sick feeling from the encounter, slowly fading as the hangover wanes and my strength returns.

Creepy Motivations

One evening last year I was relaxing over a beer after a late dinner at a bar & grill on the riverfront here in Phnom Penh. It was about 10:30 or 11:00PM. At the bar sat a 50-something Western tourist and a Vietnamese taxi girl chatting and laughing together. Four young tourists strolled in and sat at a table near the open front of the restaurant - two couples, 20-somethings I think. I was sitting at the near end of the bar between the two groups and after a short while noticed that the tourists at the table seemed to be grumbling about the guy at the bar. They were leaning in together, speaking in low raspy tones, shooting occasional sharp glances and other pointed little gestures in his direction.

Distracting their attention momentarily, a pair of tiny 'flower girls' wandered in from the street - perhaps 8 or 9 years old, barely tall enough to see over the tables, ragged but clean and laden with doughnut-shaped flower rings and broad Cambodian smiles. They approached the tourists and began their sales chant, pleading "flower, 1500 riel, 1500 riel, flower, OK?, mam, OK?" The tourist women were immediately captivated by the little girls. "They're so cute," one of the women commented, stroking the girl's cheek. "How old are you?...What's your name?" they queried in cutsy sing-song tones. The girls leaned into the women, giggled, batted their eyes and repeated their sales chant. The couples inspected the flowers and gently bargained them down to 1000 riel each (25 cents), eventually buying a couple of the flower rings.

After admiring their purchase, the tourist women quickly fell back to talking about the guy at the bar, now a bit louder but still difficult to understand over the usual pub din, "blah, blah, sex...blah, blah, older than ...blah, blah, disgusting..." Meanwhile, the males at the table had begun bargaining with a Vietnamese shoeshine boy who was about 12 years old. The boy wanted $1 to shine their shoes. They were only willing to pay 50 cents (the 'right price' is 12 cents, but I am not saying anything). They struck a deal. The boy took the shoes outside where he squatted next to a puddle in the street for a little water to clean the mud from the soles.

As I was watching the boy work, my attention was jarred back into the bar by a loudly-spoken "CREEPY!" echoing across the room. The guy at the bar had his hand on the taxi girl's knee and one of the tourist women was glaring at him intently, talking loudly to her friend, her face turning red with anger. As she spoke, her volume progressively increased so that everybody in the bar could hear, "...CREEPY ...sick ...HER FATHER ...police ...children ...SEX tourist ...ped..." The guy at the bar ignored them, or didn't hear them, and carried on. Continuing to talk amongst themselves, the people at the table seemed to get more and more agitated. Finally they called over the bartender, pointed at the guy at the bar and made some sort of demand. The only words I heard clearly were, "sick old bastard," "police" and "sex tourist." The bartender shrugged and looked like he was trying to explain something to them. Abruptly, the tourists stood up, threw a twenty on the table and left in a huff, forgetting the flowers in their haste.

These young tourists, particularly the women, were absolutely blinded by disgust for what they saw - an 'old white man' with a 'young Asian girl' in an apparently sexual relationship. They completely missed the plight of the 8 year old flower girls, working 10-hours shifts, late into night, hawking 1000 riel flowers for some unknown flower girl pimp. They did not think to ask why an 8 year old is working at 10:30PM. Or why an 8 year old is working at all. Or who is controlling these children. Or where the money is going. Or whether they were indentured servants or abused or even slaves as they might very well be. In fact, these tourists happily contributed to the plight of these child laborers, buying their trinkets (and bargaining them down 12 cents,) ignoring their situation and sending them on their way into the night.

Nor did they raise any questions about the 12-year-old shoeshine boy, who is probably an illegal immigrant living on the street, not going to school, not getting enough to eat, perhaps sniffing glue to pass the time and assuage his hunger, and certainly paying tribute to a street gang for the privilege of shining shoes in a tourist area. Where will these children be after 5 or 10 years working the street for pennies? These tourists didn't think to ask, let alone do something about it. They were preoccupied with sex. They were blinded by revulsion and rage at the sight of a middle aged man with a much younger woman.

In fact, I've known this particular taxi girl for more than 4 years. I've never used her sexual services but I have played pool with her at the bar dozens of times, we've had drinks together a few times and we occasionally share a plate of noodles on the street at the end of the evening. She is at least 25 years old, divorced and has a three year old daughter. She's not particularly young looking for a Vietnamese girl, but to the unaccustomed eye she may look younger. She works as a prostitute because she needs to support herself and her child, because it's what she knows, and because she has no other options if she wants to make that kind of money. And these tourists preferred to try to 'save' this adult woman from the 'old man,' and perhaps from herself as well, rather than give one thought to the 8 year olds that sold them the pretty flowers or the 12 year old that shined their shoes so well.

One has to wonder about the motivation of many of these westerners who seem so focused on the SEA sex scene. If asked, these people would probably say that they are against the exploitation of women and children, or trafficking, or pedophilia, or slavery, or some such worthy ideal. Yet when confronted with actual cases of child exploitation and even slavery, they ignore it in favor of the 'creepy' sexual practices of consenting adults. Some might say that it can be blamed, at least in part, on their ignorance, though IMO it shouldn't take too much thinking to realize that there is something seriously amiss about 8 year olds hawking flowers in tourist bars in the middle of the night. No, it's not ignorance. It is their fixation on sex and the sexual behavior of others that distracts them from the real problems of real people. Yes, of course there is exploitation and other horrible things going on in the SEA sex business. But the focus on sex is so intense for many (if not most) of these western do-gooders, it is to the exclusion of real abuses and exploitation, and to the reasons that all of these people end up in these difficult and exploitive situations.

(Originally published in 2006. Probably even more relevant now than then.)

Brothel Bust

Police lead girls wearing masks to van

This afternoon I witnessed a brothel bust here in Phnom Penh. Just happened across it as I walked up the street on my afternoon constitutional. The police raided a house amongst the strip of karaoke joints on Street 63, an area known for its brothel-like activities. Places that cater primarily to Cambodians and Vietnamese.

It was a peaceful bust from what I could see standing across the street. The police spent at least an hour in the place, presumably taking photos and gathering evidence. At one point the MPs showed up escorting some high ranking police or official, but they eventually moved on. At the end the gates of the house slid open wide and people began to emerge. The police led a half dozen working girls, all wearing

Gawkers like me

surgical masks, to a waiting van. Two children wandered out of the house nonchalantly and tried to disappear on the back of a motodup, but the police collected them and put them in the van too. They also arrested what appeared to be the mama and papason, putting them in a separate vehicle with the officer in charge. The police locked the front gates, tagged it and left.

These days this sort of thing is neither new nor uncommon. The Cambodian police have been using the anti-pimping laws for several years now, and to some significant effect. There are still plenty of prostitutes working the bars and clubs in Phnom

Police spot escaping children

Penh, and even on the streets in some areas, but regardless of what some NGOs may tout, the days of red light districts and the open brothel has long passed in the city, save a few comparatively small protected exceptions, like this little string of mostly Vietnamese places along 63. And today the civilian police raided one of those places, presumably because it was operating as a brothel or involved in trafficking.