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Cambodia, Where Sex Traffickers Are King
New York Times ^ | 1/15/05 | NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

Posted on 01/15/2005 1:11:35 PM PST by wagglebee

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

The Chai Hour 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.

"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.

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.

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, Ambassador John Miller, told me this week. "This was government complicity."

But nothing will happen unless we get higher-level outrage in Washington and other foreign capitals.

President 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 there's so much more that we could do. The Bush administration could put a real dent in sex trafficking if we were to treat it as firmly as we do, say, pirated movies, and this brazen incident in Cambodia would be a fine place to start.

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.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Editorial; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: cambodia; humanslavery; prostitution; sexslaves; sextrafficking
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President 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 there's so much more that we could do.

I'm amazed that Kristof would make this admission. This is such a very sad situation.

1 posted on 01/15/2005 1:11:36 PM PST by wagglebee
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To: wagglebee

Tell me why American people are so hated in this world when the the treatment of women is better here than anywhere in the world?


2 posted on 01/15/2005 1:23:32 PM PST by mammer
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To: mammer

Because socialists thrive in an environment of hate.


3 posted on 01/15/2005 1:33:48 PM PST by Bob J (RIGHTALK.com...a conservative alternative to NPR!)
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To: mammer

The left wants to destroy America, therefore they will overlook any facts that don't correspond to their agenda and tell any lies necessary to further their goal.


4 posted on 01/15/2005 1:37:53 PM PST by wagglebee (Memo to sKerry: the only thing Bush F'ed up was your career)
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To: wagglebee

you are so right wagglebee


5 posted on 01/15/2005 1:43:04 PM PST by mammer
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To: Mamzelle; windchime; Liz; nopardons; wagglebee; nw_arizona_granny

>>>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.

The quantum fund was set up originally with foreign investors. I can't help but wonder if the money is from human trafficking.

Don't forget, a lot of the 'non profit' funds are for Soros funded youth groups.

If these prostitutes don't chose abortion, their babies are taken from them and raised (indoctrinated) by these youth groups and are turned right back to the human trafficking arena.


6 posted on 01/15/2005 2:18:54 PM PST by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
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To: Calpernia

I think you're really onto something here!


7 posted on 01/15/2005 2:22:24 PM PST by nopardons
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To: nopardons

As much as I sympathize with the females caught in this situation, what can the US do about in internal situation in Cambodia? We can't crack a whip and demand that everyone in the world adhere to our moral standards.


8 posted on 01/15/2005 2:31:16 PM PST by Ciexyz (I use the term Blue Cities, not Blue States. PA is red except for Philly, Pgh & Erie)
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To: Ciexyz

It isn't that we can do anything...it's the SOROS link,which has some of us benumbed.


9 posted on 01/15/2005 2:33:07 PM PST by nopardons
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To: wagglebee
How is this President Bush's or America's problem to solve? These are the same people who don't want us to 'interfere' in the affairs of 'sovereign' nations like Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, the DPRK (North Korea), Cuba, etc... Are we an empire, or a republic? You can't have it both ways! If we are to be the 'world's policeman' then we need to start collecting taxes from the rest of the world for the service we are providing. I am serious. Say a 5% worldwide (excepting the United States, of course) sales tax on all goods and services to pay for the US military & foreign aid that is currently provided free of charge. In return, all other countries may disband their militaries, and merely keep a gendarme/paramilitary force on hand, at a much lower cost.
10 posted on 01/15/2005 2:38:15 PM PST by The Loan Arranger (The modern definition of 'racist' is someone who is winning an argument with a liberal.)
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To: The Loan Arranger

I don't think this is America's problem to solve. I do think that America can impose trade sanctions against the countries that knowingly allow this to happen. We did this in South Africa and Apartheid was over within a few years (even though the system that replaced it isn't any better, it's just different).


11 posted on 01/15/2005 2:44:08 PM PST by wagglebee (Memo to sKerry: the only thing Bush F'ed up was your career)
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To: wagglebee

Don't allow Americans to travel there, for starters.


12 posted on 01/15/2005 3:07:37 PM PST by Mamzelle
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To: Calpernia; Blurblogger; Grampa Dave; wagglebee; windchime
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. The Quantum Fund was set up originally with foreign investors. I can't help but wonder if the money is from human trafficking.....a lot of the 'non profit' funds are for Soros-funded youth groups. If these prostitutes don't chose abortion, their babies are taken from them and raised (indoctrinated) by these youth groups and are turned right back to the human trafficking arena.

Nice, very nice, take, Cal. It would be naive to think Soros is rich b/c he is an altruist........even though Soros wants everyone to believe he is motivated by the (gag) goodness of his heart.

Soros reminds me of the old saying about do-gooder liberals, "There's always someone willing to say they're for their fellow-man and hoping to make a buck on it."

Soros mucking around American politics should give us pause. His motives are not to be trusted.

13 posted on 01/15/2005 3:53:28 PM PST by Liz (Wise men are instructed by reason; lesser men, by experience; the ignorant, by necessity. Cicero)
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To: Calpernia
The babies, will be so brainwashed by soros, that there will not be any fit life for them.

Look at all those child soldiers.
14 posted on 01/15/2005 4:07:38 PM PST by nw_arizona_granny (The enemy within, will be found in the "Communist Manifesto 1963", you are living it today.)
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To: The Loan Arranger
How is this President Bush's or America's problem to solve? <<<<<<<<<<

Your question is one that I have been asking for years...

the answer, is that we have so much in America, that we
must now be forced to share it with the rest of the world.

Once you know the game plan, it is clear and you will hear the commies calling for our money all over the world.....

And they are getting it.

To me a liberal, democratic and a few other names, are nothing but communists.

All the information is out there, use Google, ask them the
questions that we have asked ourselves.

Ok, granny will get off her soap box.
15 posted on 01/15/2005 4:18:47 PM PST by nw_arizona_granny (The enemy within, will be found in the "Communist Manifesto 1963", you are living it today.)
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To: Liz; Calpernia

Plausible theory, Calpernia. These children are just another commodity to people like him.

Liz, it seems the less honorable they are (Soros/Kerry), the more mucking around they do!


16 posted on 01/15/2005 5:20:57 PM PST by windchime (Podesta about Bush: "He's got four years to try to undo all the stuff we've done." (TIME-1/22/01))
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To: Calpernia; Liz; wagglebee
The offshore "...Quantum Fund was set up originally with foreign investors. I can't help but wonder if the money is from human trafficking. Don't forget, a lot of the 'non profit' funds are for Soros funded youth groups."

In an economic sense, Soros cannibalizes live infants! MONSTER!
17 posted on 01/15/2005 6:56:04 PM PST by The Spirit Of Allegiance (REMEMBER THE ALGOREAMO--relentlessly DEMAND the TRUTH, like the Dems demand recounts!)
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To: Blurblogger

Come by here too: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1320747/posts


18 posted on 01/15/2005 9:07:58 PM PST by Calpernia (Breederville.com)
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To: Ciexyz

"We can't crack a whip and demand that everyone in the
world adhere to our moral standards".
=====well,hell, Clinton tried to do that.........


19 posted on 01/15/2005 9:51:25 PM PST by willyboyishere
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To: The Loan Arranger

Well said.


20 posted on 01/15/2005 11:23:06 PM PST by LibertarianInExile (NO BLOOD FOR CHOCOLATE! Get the UN-ignoring, unilateralist Frogs out of Ivory Coast!)
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