In Cambodia, most victims and people who involve in the sex trade are girls and women who are to the low-income families. They do not imply into the trade willingly but rather influenced into the business of prostitutes (Beyrer, 2011). Moreover, some of the girls are as well sold to brothels by their parents to pay off debts. However, in Cambodia education is a tradition, but in most cases, most of these girls drop out of school. Those who are forcefully told to work into brothels tend to endure even rape and sex abuse and undergo torture if they are caught escaping from the places. Most of the girls are of a tender age with only five years; they are virgins. Moreover, trade with virgins in Cambodia is a well a enormous market; buyers pay up to $ 40,000 to purchase a young girls virginity. The genocide during the Khmer Rouge era which occurred from 1975 to 1979 killed approximately two million people from the country (Beyrer, 2011). The incident wiped out the educated and the religious people from the communities. Buddhists is the main religion in the area. Therefore most of the people who were wiped out were the Buddhists. The majority of the social institutions as well were destroyed, leaving behind a fractured and tortured community after the regime collapsed. Despite the country showing some signs of development, they are still a large gap in wealth. Therefore Cambodia remains the poorest countries in Asia.
Regarding police corruption, Cambodia is ranked 160 out of 175 in the form of police trafficking, concerning transparency international’s corruption perception index. The sex activity in the region accelerates by the fact that police wages in Cambodia ae so low, giving the brothels a chance to bribe them for them not to be arrested. Approximately 200 organizations are in the move to end sex trade in Cambodia (Beyrer, 2011). However, the challenge is the communication level poor and of low standards between the rescue teams, leading to confusion in approaching this problem in Cambodia. The department of U.S. has tried to advance the anti-trafficking efforts which seek to show the country is making some significant effort to chance its status. However, there is an improvement in the sex trade level in Cambodia since 2005 (Beyrer, 2011). In the past, the girls could approach the tourists. In the present days the market is controlled and sustained but Cambodia’s endemic poverty as well as gender inequality. Therefore, in Cambodia, the women earn a minimum of 27 cents of every dollar that a man makes. Some of the young women as well voluntarily get involved in the trade, they do this as they see it as the only and the best option as well (Beyrer, 2011). However, if caught by the authorities, they become susceptible to official abuse in the anti-trafficking laws.
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Somaly Mam is a Cambodia; a woman fights out of slavery. Her main objective was to see women and young girls out of brothels. Somaly, grew up in a village so primitive in a forest with her parents (Beyrer, 2011). Later, the parents died, and she was left with her grandmother who as well died. She was then left with an option of taking care of herself; she used to fish to get her meals as well as getting some little attention from her neighbors and the rest of the villagers. However, at the age of eleven, she was taken with a man who was claiming as her grandfather. She was taken to a big city, where this man used her as a slave. He used to beat her and force to work for others as well. She later learned how to read from a small school over the place. At the age of fifteen, her grandfather sold her into a violent marriage, where she was forcefully married to a soldier. Later, she disappeared, but the grandfather again sold her to a brothel in Phnom then. She was raped and beaten off, and the desire to survive off the scene overcame the desire to be free. Finally, a French aid worker came to her rescue and then she was able to break off from the devastating life in a brothel (Beyrer, 2011). Despite her undergoing all those series of suffering, she was unwilling to let other women suffer the same way. For this reason, she decided to distribute condoms to a brothel to help the other women in the brothels. She then opened a home where she took in girls who fled from their home due to forced prostitution. Since then she has also passed through other series of threats, but he is unwilling to bend low again. She then set up the Somaly Mam Foundation, where she raised money from the well-wishers to help the sex rescued girls.
She then decided to advance this piece of work and from the money she had. She enrolled the girls in the vocational training center, where the girls could be taught on various activities like cooking and hairdressing as well as nail art (Beyrer 2011). With the help of her foundation (Acting for Women in Distressing Solutions), she was able to launch a movement of rescuing women who were still enslaved in the brothels. The foundation attracted the U.S. business leaders; SMF acted as the global fundraising arm for Somaly Mam’s foundation (Beyrer, 2011). However, the rescuing process was not as easy as people may think. Somaly had to fight against the brothels who were not willing to let the women go. Sometimes, they used to invade the homes that Somaly had started to help the girls and females. Financial challenge was another problem, as some of the money she got was not enough to sustain the large group of girls and women. Moreover, she just minimized and used the little she had gathered from the well-wishers. It reached a point where the government as well supported the work that she was doing as the sex slavery was a concern to them.
The education granted to these rescued women and girls refrained them from going back to a brothel and they become rebellious against the acts of a brothel. The education, as well as the short courses, gave them their financial baseline in which they could support themselves without depending on other people like their parents who could take advantage and take them back to brothels (Beyrer, 2011). To Somaly Mam, this was the greatest achievement, and she felt so happy seeing the girls and women happy and financial stable. The activity lead to a transformation of the community and the girls and well as the women has the courage to rebel sex trade. As a result of this initiative, Somaly Mam received various honors and awards to appreciate her for the good job she did full of sacrifices. She as well wrote a book and her as Wells own a website Somaly Mam’s foundation. Therefore, sex trade has now reduced in Cambodia, even if some girls still involve in prostitution but they are willing (Beyrer, 2011). The face of Cambodia has now changed to a country where girls and women can leave in peace and harmony free to do what they want, thanks to Somaly Mam’s Foundation.
Reference
Beyrer, C. (2011). Shan women and girls and the sex industry in Southeast Asia; political causes and human rights implications. Social science & medicine , 53 (4), 543-550.
