Posted on 01/28/2004 11:57:02 AM PST by presidio9
SVAY RIENG, Cambodia — Four years of sexual servitude had shattered Srey Mom's spirit and left her with no real family, other than the brothel owner she called "Mother."
After I had purchased the freedom of Srey Mom and Srey Neth, the two teenage prostitutes whose story I've told in my last three columns, we took Srey Neth back to her family. Then we had to drive clear across the country to return Srey Mom to her native village. During that long drive, she repeatedly vowed that she would never return to the brothels — but she said it so insistently that the possibility clearly preyed on her mind.
"I'm going to go to the pagoda to pray that I never go back," she said, for she had seen other girls rescued from the brothels who ended up ostracized by outsiders and slinking back again.
Srey Mom worried constantly during the drive whether her mother would ever accept her again since a stormy relationship with her mother had led her to run away from home at the age of 14. A woman at a bus station had befriended Srey Mom and handed her over to a brothel. The brothel's owner rubbed her with pineapple juice, which supposedly lightens the skin, and sold her virginity to a businessman.
Completely illiterate, Srey Mom ended up shuffled from brothel to brothel, continually cheated and mired in debts that left her unable to leave. Over four years of prostitution, her price for sex gradually dropped from $27 to less than $3.
As we approached the village, Srey Mom grew excited — and anxious about whether her mother would accept her or beat her. Perhaps children worldwide cannot comprehend how much their families love them, for the scene when we pulled up at Srey Mom's house was the most joyous I've ever witnessed. Srey Mom bounded out of the car and into the arms of an aunt. Both convulsed in happy sobs and shrieks, and other villagers came running over.
"We thought she was dead," the aunt said through a shower of tears. Then the grandmother trundled up, wailing with joy. Later, she said, "I've been crying for her every single night, I missed her so much."
Srey Mom's mother and father rushed over in disbelief, and Srey Mom fell to her knees and begged their forgiveness — which they happily gave. The family, having given up hope that the girl was still alive, had planned a Buddhist funeral ceremony for her in 20 days' time — and now it would be turned into a celebration of her return.
When the tears had slowed, we discussed options for Srey Mom to earn a living. In the end I left the family with $100 for Srey Mom to start a small business selling pork in the market. Since the villagers thought she had worked in a restaurant and didn't know her past, they embraced her return. An experienced aid group would monitor and help her. As we pulled away from the village, I was as happy as I've ever been as a reporter. (To learn more about trafficking by following these two girls in their journey, visit the interactive special report.)
I wish I could have ended the column there. But a few days later, Srey Mom quarreled with her mother and fled to her old brothel in Poipet.
My interpreter found her there. She still says she wants to leave prostitution, but she also refused the interpreter's offer to take her to a women's shelter or anywhere else. Bernard Krisher, the chairman of American Assistance for Cambodia (www.cambodiaschools.com), a first-rate group that helps Cambodian children, is going to Poipet to meet Srey Mom and offer her a chance to learn modeling or hairdressing, live with a family and begin again. I'm still hoping for a fairy-tale ending.
But there are few fairy-tale endings in sexual trafficking (I hope the other teenager, Srey Neth, will have one, for she has now built a tin-roofed shack and stocked it as a grocery, and is proudly earning a living for herself.) Typically, trafficking not only destroys its victims' bodies with AIDS but maims their spirits as well, leaving them feeling so worthless that they can't easily return to normal life.
Multiply the dreams and fears of these two teenagers by the global scale of trafficking, 700,000 people per year, and you see why the U.S. and foreign governments have to get serious about stopping this modern form of slavery.
Sad...
This exposes the problem with liberalisms solutions...Giving someone money and opportunity doesn't fix the issues that got them into the situation in the first place...
Those who are able to stay out of trouble are generally the same people who either never get into trouble or can get themselves out.
Even the liberals know that, among world governments, the US is the ONLY MORAL FORCE to solve problems like this...
What the NYT fails to tell you is that their scribe is not the only one heroically buying back the slaves. The lead in this is both Christian and Bhuddist groups. The Christian groups are largely Western supported. The root of the problem is economic and social. The broken cultures of Cambodia, Laos, Burma and Vietnam supply most of the slaves and a lot of the snake heads who run the trade. Drugs are central to the whole thing just as they are in prostitution in the USA.
The low lifes that use the brothels of Bangkok, Manila, etc. support much of this. Some are American, most are Asian (Japanese, Chinese, Thai, etc.) and all are scum bags. However, I have yet to see that it is American GOP policy that you visit whorehouses.
I have not said we should do ANYTHING...I only said that even the liberals know that no one else can or will fix it...
Just playing Devil's Advocate here, but is one of those scumbags supporting the Asian white slave trade the President's brother?
I have been to funerals where Thais have lost daughters, sons, mothers, and wives to this trade. It makes me sick to my stomach. I can think particularily of one instance where a husband liked to spend some of the money from their produce sales at a karioke bar. He and his wife died within six months of each other leaving three kids in the care of her 70+ year old parents.
Delightful business.
With all due respect, there's simply no comparing the social ills of America and Cambodia. There's a big difference between those in America who have opportunity and prosperity at their grasp and choose a life of sloth knowing leftist socialism will coddle them, and those in Cambodia who have neither prosperity nor opportunity.
The factors motivating them to conduct themselves as they do are entirely opposite, in fact.
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