Child Sex Trafficking in the United States (Video Interview -- Interesting)

"http://www.ThisWeekinTime.com

http://InnocenceAtlanta.org

William Mac interviews Dan Homrich of Innocence Atlanta. Dan Homrich talks about the global child sex trafficking trade and how it pertains to the United States."

I'm sorry but the Banditos soundtrack in the background is entirely too distracting. Pity, since the subject is certainly important.

So you're saying the hair, ghetto mustache, and cigarette between the fingers wasn't distracting?

I can't take anything such a douchy looking guy says seriously, even though I really wanted to.

One of the most revolting aspects, of an already revolting situation, is that in the US child victims of sexual trafficking are all too often treated as criminals. In a full 20 states, if a minor is found in sexual slavery, she can still be locked up, if she is a US citizen (there are better protections if he/she is a foreign national).

This is very first glimpse of a society outside that world many of these victims experience - a community that treats sexually abused children as the illicit guilty party, due to certain prostitution laws in the books. And a child who finds herself in prison because of her exploitation, without resources or opportunities, is simply unable in 99% of cases to claw herself out of that life.

Apologies for not having links for those statistics or cases at this moment; I'm familiar with the current obstacles as it relates to something I'm working on right now. If anyone is interested, I can provide those and, more importantly, some outlets for those who may be interested in helping or becoming involved in changing these statutes.

Also - yes, that Weird Al style moustache and hair were distracting.

Yeah, we were at a bar and all that music was playing. As far as I know, there wasn't anyway to dub it out. Meh.

Get a grip.

You don't need to provide links; I understand perfectly. This very problem is something that we're fighting against very vehemently -- it's all part of the same brooding shindig.

On InnocenceAtlanta.org, you can sign up for free and blog with these links. Anyone can. They get a lot of hits, and that would be incredibly helpful.

I am heavily encouraged because of the amount of knowledge you have about this already. It's just plain refreshing.

Hunter S. Thompson may have been killed to shut him up about this sort of thing:

google: Hunter thompson sex trafficking

I looked at the Google links and now my eyes hurt from rolling.

I think he's spitting out the conspiracy about Hunter S. Thompson being killed in order to prevent him from speaking out about what he may have known about the government participating in drug and sex trafficking. I could be wrong. I've never heard of the dude myself.

Never heard of Hunter Thompson? Well... that's a sin. Read about him -- great journalist, just a plain cool life, very weird personality. I've always loved Hunter S. Thompson.

Larissa Sandy has an interesting paper titled Just Choices: Representations of Choice and Coercion in Sex Work in Cambodia. Its an interesting article dealing with the perpetuation of the 'victim' meme in the discourse on sex-workers, primarily in developing nations and primarily by those from privileged backgrounds, (see: White Man's Burden, cognitive disconnect, ideological distortion) It can be found in the Australian Journal of Anthropology.

It is provided below in the interest of bringing to light certain aspects of the discussion in the video (held at a bar over drinks with a couple of white twenty-somethings) that I find a bit odd as well as perhaps providing a little more depth to the discussion beyond the po-mo folklore of Hunter S. Thompson, conspiracy theory and such:

---------------------------
Just Choices: Representations of Choice and Coercion in Sex Work in Cambodia. Sandy, Larissa. Australian Journal of Anthropology 18 no2 194-206 Ag 2007


Introduction
In the past few years, the issue of 'sexual slavery' in Cambodia has captured the attention of the media, in turn arousing widespread controversy and campaigns by high-profile non-government organisations (NGOs), which have generated much heated public debate. In the more socially conservative governments in the West, prostitution is viewed as an evil, which must be eradicated. In these debates, prostitution and sex trafficking are linked too simplistically, and such reasoning has been used as a means to pressure other foreign governments to adopt laws similar to their own. The linking of prostitution and trafficking has also been used to justify anti-sex work approaches by such governments, and has led to what amounts to the moralisation of aid policies. These frameworks, however, rely on the image of women working in the sex industry as helpless childlike 'victims' to be rescued by 'good' adults.
In this paper, I look at representations of sexual slavery in global discourses about prostitution in Cambodia, and how this discourse gains a foothold through powerful lobbying groups and socially conservative governments. Based on research carried out between November 2001 and April 2004, during which I conducted in-depth interviews with women working in the sex industry in Cambodia, I show that these frameworks are unable to capture the complex intermeshing of choice and coercion in women's lives.


Representations of sexual slavery
Cast as 'slaves' or 'victims', depictions of sex workers in Cambodia, as elsewhere in the Third World (Kempadoo 1999: 234), often evoke images of helpless, ignorant and dependent women and girls. Sustaining the view that all women are victims of trafficking and that prostitution is inevitably a form of slavery, stories of sex slaves in Cambodia sensationalise the issues. They often evoke moralistic, even paternalistic responses that have been instrumental in informing public opinion and narrowing the view of trafficking.
In a series recently reproduced in the New York Times and syndicated elsewhere, the journalist Nicholas Kristof, who was 'tired of interviewing child prostitutes without being able to help them', claimed to provide first-hand evidence of his buying young Cambodian women out of a brothel (Kristof 2004: 36).(FN1) His expos on sexual slavery drew heavily upon the erotic-pathetic stereotype of the Asian prostitute, which as Alison Murray (1998: 60) suggests, creates the possibility for trafficking hysteria:


Srey Neth, a petite teenager, squeals when she sees my interpreter and me. ... Westerners are an [sic] unusual sight in the brothels of the Cambodian town of Poipet--most customers are Cambodian or Thai. ... [H]er awkwardness turns to curiosity as she realises we are not going to make her perform the sexual favours she is forced to bestow on customers up to three times a day. As one of at least a dozen teenage girls in this brothel, her situation is dire, but it is not as bad as in the seedy street bordellos where girls have sex 10 times a day for little more than a dollar a time. Within minutes, Srey Neth admits that she is imprisoned by her pimp. Even if she wanted to escape, there is really no way she could. (Kristof 2004: 37)
While Kristof does not provide the actual age of the women he 'rescues', by casting Srey Neth as a petite teenager he blurs the distinction between child and adult and thus fixes the image of Cambodian sex workers as young and helpless. Further, he blames poor parents for selling their daughters to brothel owners, and it is only by his removing all personal responsibility for their condition that young women like Srey Neth and Srey Mom can be constructed as victims, thus generating an outpouring of public sympathy (Doezema 2001:28).
The central representation informing this discourse of sexual slavery is racialised depictions of an 'other'; a helpless childlike victim of poverty, male oppression and the victim's barbaric culture:


Two long rows of wooden shacks stand divided by an impossibly pot-holed dirt road. Out the front, young girls hover in doorways illuminated by dim red lights. Hidden behind the flimsy plywood walls lurk armed gunmen--vicious pimps with powerful connections--who are ready to protect their precious bounty at the slightest provocation. This is Tuol Kork, one of the most notorious districts in Phnom Penh, where many prostitutes are under-aged, most of them are HIV positive and virtually all of them are slaves. (Basil 2001: 13)
The horrifying life stories of 'sex slaves' recorded by journalists and in quasi-academic publications on trafficking, perpetuate the colonial gaze identified by Mohanty (1986). They often depict highly-oppressed, poor, ignorant women living in a backward culture:


As one of the world's poorest nations, Cambodia has perhaps the worst prostitution scene of any country. Countless thousands of young girls are owned by brothels, which cater primarily to local men. Many girls are sold to the brothel by their parents or relatives while in their early to mid-teens, but some are kidnapped or recruited by agents who promise jobs in restaurants. The majority of these girls, and often their parents, are uneducated and unfamiliar with life outside of the villages. (Kristof 2004: 38)
Proponents of this discourse often invoke an exotic 'other' and reflect neo-colonial stereotypes of 'passive', 'submissive' and unemancipated women in the developing world (Law 1997: 234; Doezema 1998: 44). The strong emphasis on victimhood in this discourse justifies the involvement of other women, men and the state in the lives of urban poor women. The moral value of the word 'slavery' legitimates interventionist impulses that simultaneously author the saving redeemers (often urban, middle-class and educated) as agents and sex workers as trafficked 'victims' (often poor and uneducated rural women) (Kempadoo 1999: 228; Doezema 2001: 29). In Kristof s expos , the trope of slavery serves to demonstrate the need for intervention. This is then used as justification for his own impulses: "'Tra going to buy your freedom", I say to Srey Neth, and we begin to plot her liberation'" (Kristof 2004: 38).
Glossed as sex slaves in this discourse, the claims of women who say they choose to do sex work are often read as a kind of false consciousness--women are victims whether they know it or not:


Some women choose to become prostitutes because of financial rewards, but most women have no option. They are reared in poverty, socialised amid discrimination and conditioned to accept narrow choices. They are not exercising their right to 'choice' in entering sex work. They are vulnerable, and this vulnerability, together with their sexuality, is commodified and commercialised so that they can be traded on the sex market. (Brown 2000: 29)
Despite the presence of a body of literature successfully challenging such cultural myths (Law 1997; Kempadoo 1998, 1999; Murray 1998; Doezema 2001), the image of the sex slave remains salient in global discourses of prostitution. This is precisely because, as Wendy Chapkis (1997: 44) suggests, the image provides a powerful explanation for the presence of women in a world of carnality and commerce. It is easier for the public to believe in the notion of 'sexual slavery' and the image of the 'sex slave' rather than to acknowledge that women consciously choose to migrate for prostitution. The idea resonates with assumptions about women's natural sexuality and vulnerability, but amplifies this myth by associating passivity and submission with developing countries, in global circuits of sex, commerce and travel: 'A year ago, a pimp handed me a quivering teenage girl. Her name was Srey Neth, and she was one of the hundreds of thousands of teenagers who are enslaved by the sex trafficking industry worldwide' (Kristof 2005a).
'Sex slavery' has been instrumental in enabling the public to view sex workers sympathetically as victims of social and economic forces beyond their control, which has redirected public debates over prostitution (Irwin 1996: 1-2). This has enabled social reformers, feminists, and faith-based and human rights groups who view women as victims forced into prostitution to challenge dominant representations of sex workers as 'dangerous and threatening', or as 'pools of infection'. However, unlike these public health discourses of containment and control, the image of the 'sex slave' is generally used to support the end goal of such reformist groups, which is often the abolition of prostitution.


Prostitution, international politics and the discourse of slavery
The discourse on sexual slavery is not only circulated via journalists and publishing houses; it also gains a foothold through powerful lobbying groups. These groups are comprised of a bizarre array of sub-groups ranging from feminist organisations, human rights organisations and right-wing Christian groups. High-profile organisations, such as Agir Pour les Femmes en Situation Pr caire--Acting for Women In Distressing Circumstances (AFESIP) and End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and Trafficking of Children for Sexual Purposes (ECPAT), are active in Cambodia. These and other organisations, including the Coalition Against Trafficking in Women (CATW), pressure international governments with a zeal bordering at times on moral panic.
Most recently, the 'buying sex is not a sport' campaign saw such an alliance between religious groups and feminist organisations such as CATW, previously US-based but now an international anti-trafficking feminist organisation. A press statement released by Donna Hughes, spokesperson for CATW, at a press conference held at Capitol Hill in May 2006, included the claim of an epidemic of sex trafficking in the wake of the Soccer World Cup:


The future winner of the World Cup remains unknown, but the clear losers will be the thousands of women and children trafficked and sold in Germany's legal sex industry to accommodate the huge influx of demand that experts anticipate will be generated by male fans attending the games. An estimated 3 million fans from around the world will attend the games, and vast numbers of them are expected to buy sex as a form of entertainment. As many as 40,000 additional women are expected to be added to the approximately 400,000 women in Germany's sex industry. German officials, in what amounts to a virtual partnership with brothel owners, pimps and traffickers, are rushing to accommodate the trade in women by facilitating the construction of mega-brothels and 'sex huts', and cities hosting the games will issue special permits for street prostitution. (Hughes 2006: 1)
Activists claimed that most additional women would come from Eastern Europe, Africa or Latin America, and that many would be forced into sex slavery. Barrett Duke, Vice President of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention, agreed:


The decision by German authorities to accommodate its visitors' demand for sexual servitude during the World Cup soccer championship is immoral and reprehensible. Their callous, calculated decision reveals a total disregard for the young girls and women whose lives are stolen from them. Those who purchase these women for selfish sexual gratification are a disgrace to humanity. They turn women into commodities and encourage the future enslavement of another generation of young girls. One would have thought that Germany would have renounced slave labor forever, considering her past abuses. Apparently, it is still possible to rationalize the subjugation of some for the benefit of others. (cited by Hughes 2006: 2)
International politicking by lobby groups involved in the campaign provoked a severe reprimand from the Bush administration, who were enthusiastic for the campaign at least:


The upcoming World Cup soccer championship has generated widespread concern among some NGOs and governments over the potential for increased human trafficking in Germany surrounding the games. Germany has legalized prostitution. The US government opposes prostitution and any related activities, including pimping, pandering, and/or maintaining brothels as contributing to the phenomenon of trafficking in persons. These activities are inherently harmful and dehumanising. (New York Times, 6 June 2006: 7)
These lobby groups, heavily influenced by victim and rescue ideologies, have found a powerful friend and ally in the ultra conservative Bush administration. The US Government's position is that prostitution 'should not be regulated as a legitimate form of work for any human being' (US State Department 2006: 125). This has seen the Bush administration move against prostitution, which it sees as uniquely linked to sex trafficking: 'Prostitution and related activities--including pimping and patronizing or maintaining brothels--fuel the growth of modem-day slavery by providing a fa ade behind which traffickers for sexual exploitation operate' (US State Department 2004: 1).(FN2)
The Bush administration is now taking a leading role in combating sex trafficking internationally. However, the as yet unproven assertion that prostitution is a cause of sex trafficking has encouraged an anti-sex work approach in their response:


An effective anti-trafficking strategy depends upon partnerships. Organizations advocating prostitution as an employment choice or which advocate or support the legalization of prostitution are not appropriate partners for USAID anti-trafficking grants or contracts. Missions will avoid contracting or assistance agreements with such organizations as primary or sub-grantees or contractors. (USAID 2002: 7)
With the passing of the United States Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act (Global AIDS Act) in 2003, the Bush administration's anti-prostitution stance was made public law. This Act was part of the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). The anti-prostitution clause contained within it allowed the prohibition of US funds for organisations and groups advocating 'the legalization or practice of prostitution or sex trafficking'. Further, under this Act, no US funds were to be made available to any organisation that 'does not have a policy explicitly opposing prostitution and sex trafficking' (Public Law 108-25 2003: 117 STAT 733-4).
PEPFAR, enacted in 2003, promised US$15 billion over five years. This amount of funding dedicated to HIV is indeed welcome. However, it has strict requirements mandating that one-third of prevention funding be directed towards abstinence-only programs. Additionally, between 2001 and 2004, the Bush administration provided more than US$295 million to support anti-trafficking programs in over 120 countries, with a further US$50 million pledged in 2004. Such a large amount of US funding for anti-trafficking and HIV programs means that many organisations will follow the conditions set out by the US in order to secure funding.(FN3)
In 2005, the Bush administration carried the PEPFAR anti-prostitution pledge further when it issued USAID Acquisition & Assistance Policy Directive 05-04. This directive requires individuals and organisations receiving US funding for HIV programs in developing countries to pledge in writing their opposition to prostitution and sex trafficking, and to implement a policy explicitly opposing it (USAID 2005: 7). The directive, however, applies only to US and non-US organisations receiving government funds, and does not apply to multinational organisations such as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria and UN agencies.
However, in late 2005, two separate lawsuits were filed against the US Government by DTK International, the Alliance For Open Society International, and Pathfinder International. In both cases, US District Court judges found that the anti-prostitution pledge requirements restricted the organisation's speech as it forced it to, in the words of one judge, 'parrot the government's polices' in order to be eligible for funding (Global Health Council 2006). It also violated their First Amendment rights by restricting them from using privately-sourced funds to assist sex workers with HIV prevention. These rulings applied only to the organisations involved in the cases, and the Bush administration has expressed its intention to appeal the decisions. However, they provide an important precedent for other US-based organisations who wish to follow suit.
Organisations outside of the US have no similar avenues through which they can contest these impositions; hence they must comply with the restrictions in order to remain eligible for funds. This has led to what amounts to the moralisation of US aid policy, with funding cut or frozen to projects perceived to be supporting sex work and sex workers.
In their approach to the issue of prostitution, the Bush administration has drawn heavily on the notion of slavery and the image of sex workers as little other than slaves: 'Prostitution is inherently harmful and dehumanising, and fuels trafficking in persons, a form of modem-day slavery. ... Few activities are as brutal and damaging to people as prostitution' (US State Department 2004: 1). In their steps to combat sex trafficking, they either conflate prostitution with trafficking, or assert that prostitution is in itself a cause of trafficking and thus argue that it should be eradicated. Through the support of the sexual slavery model, the Bush administration has given significant weight to this discourse. However, this model often obscures the complex, cyclical and dynamic relation of choice and coercion. In what follows, I attempt to address issues that such frameworks are often not sufficiently able to address: namely the complex intermeshing of choice and coercion in women's lives.


Representations of choice and coercion in sex workers' narratives
Some of the sex workers interviewed as part of this study came to Sihanoukville from impoverished rural areas.(FN4) Many, however, had not travelled any great distance from their hometowns. Rather, most women came from the neighbouring provinces of Kampot, Kampong Speu, Kandal, Takeo and Kampong Chain, all of which are located on Cambodia's low-lying alluvial plain. A few women had migrated from the capital Phnom Penh, where they had worked in various jobs including petty trading, sex work and garment work. Most women had left their families and children behind, but as they had not migrated too far from their homes most maintained contact with them. Some women said they had migrated to Sihanoukville because of the high levels of poverty that characterise rural life in Cambodia.
Cambodia's rural economy is still largely based on agriculture, which accounted for 37 per cent of the GDP in 2001, and employed over 71 per cent of the total labour force in 2002 (UNDP 2003: 8). Land is important in sustaining rural livelihoods in a predominantly agrarian-based society:


When I was young, my parents had a lot of rice land; they didn't dare sell it. Only they worried about us because we didn't yet know how to farm. They really wanted to keep their land so they could give it to us, their children, and would have something to leave for us. They knew that if you didn't have any rice land, you couldn't grow rice, and without rice you'd die, so they didn't sell their land. (Interview, Champa, 30 September 2003)
Champa's family, living on the outskirts of the capital Phnom Penh, might be called an average income family. Following customary practices, Champa's parents intend to subdivide their landholdings equally between their children. However, Champa was careful to stress that she:


... had an average life, I didn't lack anything, and I didn't want for anything. I had enough, enough food to eat. My family wasn't impoverished or destitute; we all ate enough rice porridge. When I was young, I studied because my parents wanted me to. And I stayed at school until I had grown up because they had the money for me to do this. (Interview, Champa, 30 September 2003)
With over 36 per cent of the population living in poverty, or surviving on less than 50 cents a day, although she sees her life as 'average', Champa's family are by village standards quite well off (RGC 2002: 10). Her parents are able to subdivide their land between their offspring, including Champa, who stayed in school until grade seven, a possibility for only nine per cent of women in Cambodia (NIS 2000: 14).(FN5)
However, pressure on land in Cambodia is mounting since occupational diversification is very limited and the labour force is rapidly increasing (Godfrey et al. 2001: 4). This trend seems set to continue: after subdivision, Champa stands to inherit less than half a hectare, which would render her nearly landless. Land atomisation, sometimes resulting in landlessness, makes farming families very food insecure, in turn increasing their reliance on work outside of agriculture for securing a livelihood.
Unlike Champa's family, some farming households function in a deficit, whereby production does not match or exceed consumption. Molika's story demonstrates how intricate and delicate the agricultural production system is in rural Cambodia:


When I was growing up, we faced a lot of difficulties ... my living conditions were so very miserable, and now I don't know where my parents live. I pity them, my parents, because I ran away. ... It was so difficult, living with my parents in so much poverty and destitution, so I ran away from them. ... Before I ran away we had some rice land. But then, they had to sell it all, because, before they sold the land they had a buffalo, you know buffalo?
Larissa: Yes, I know about buffalo...
Molika: ... Yes, the buffalo, it helps us to work the land; it gives us rice to eat. Buffaloes plough the fields for us. We overworked our buffalo, it was completely exhausted, and so it died. When it died, that animal, the buffalo, when the time came to plough we didn't have a buffalo for this so that we could plant rice. Because we didn't have a buffalo, my parents sold all the rice land; they decided to sell all the land. My family had a lot of problems ... we faced a desperate lack; we were always running short of everything. (Interview, Molika, 13 August 2003)
The structure of agriculture in Cambodia has been shaped by the long-standing practice of subsistence-based farming as well as farming families only having the means to cultivate small plots. However, low productivity, a rising population, land atomisation and high seasonal fluctuations in agricultural production have all affected food security (Murshid 1998; Chan and Acharya 2002).
For a long time livelihood diversification formed a major part of rural people's survival strategies, but as the economy is in transition from a centrally planned to an open market system, their dependence on the latter has increased. The harvesting of timber and the collection of forest products is a rapidly diminishing practice, mainly because of large-scale deforestation. Large tracts of forest areas have been leased out to private companies for logging. Concessions have also been granted to private companies for other common property resources such as fishing lots (McKenny and Prom 2002; Acharya 2003). In addition to agricultural labour, families often supplement their household income with other work such as road building, construction, brick making or transport. Men are typically preferred for such work.
Moni's story draws out the interconnected issues of rural poverty and landlessness, especially for households headed by women. Her story describes some of the challenges she faced when her mother fell sick with cancer: a time when her family needed a large sum of money. Moni told me how her childhood was a daily struggle as her father had died when she was very young:


Before I came to Kampong Som, I worked in the fields with my mother because she didn't have a man to help her with this and she wasn't able to hire anyone to do this for her. I only have an older brother in my family, [and] my mum and dad. My dad died, then my mum died and I live here alone in Kampong Som. ... I don't know what my father died of because I was very young when he died; I never even saw his face. (Interview, Moni, 29 September 2003)
As a widow of almost twenty years, Moni's mother struggled to survive in Kampong Speu, a province located on Cambodia's central plain. Women-headed households, like Moni's family, often live in chronic poverty and, as outlined previously, women often face an even more constrained range of choices for sustaining their household's livelihood (Metha 1993). Further, one crisis or another has affected most rural families; in recent years, fanning families have been seriously affected by natural disasters such as flooding and droughts (Chan and Acharya 2002: 83-5). In addition to such crises, Moni faced a great and sudden disaster when her mother was diagnosed with liver disease:


My mother had liver disease, cancer of the liver. I couldn't look after her, so in the end she died from it. I took her to Phnom Penh to umm ... I took her to Calmette Hospital in Phnom Penh and they said that they'd be able to treat her illness in Vietnam. However, we didn't have the money for this because my family was poor, very poor, and I didn't have a dad, and my older brother had married and moved to Battambang with his wife...
Larissa: So your older brother didn't help you?
Moni: My older brother doesn't have a lot of money, and my dad, well, I had no father umm ... and I didn't have any money to give to my mum and so I came here. (Interview, Moni, 29 September 2003)
Moni confided how she was devastated by her mother's illness and her failure to provide any assistance for her due to her lack of money. Fuelled by her sense of anger and outrage with her brother and her inability to pay for health treatments, Moni started working in a karaoke bar. Moni said that she did this so she could get money for her mother:


I have a lot of problems because I have no money. If I had money I could have stayed with my mum, I could have stayed with her. But I didn't have any money to give her and so she died and now I have no mother and no father. I have an older brother but umm ... he has his own family, but no mother and no father. Umm ... I have my brother, but he lives in Battambang. I was devastated then, it broke my heart having no money to give to my mum and I didn't have a dad who could look after the both of us. When it comes time for P'chum Ben,(FN6) everyone else has his or her mother, older brothers, sons, and younger sisters. Because they have a family to go home to, they can all go and see them. But me, I have no one. (Interview, Moni, 29 September 2003)
Larger economic structures thus interacted with unfortunate familial experiences to shape Moni's choices, in which she viewed sex work as a practical (if emotionally-driven) response to her situation (see also Wardlow 2006). Somnang also spoke about the high costs of medical care and the pressure she felt to meet these costs, which was also a way for her to meet her obligations to her family:


My mum is very sick [she has cancer], and when I found out about this I came here so I could look after her. She isn't well and she needs a lot of money to look after herself with and so I do this for her. (Interview, Somnang, 25 November 2003)
Employment opportunities for young unskilled and uneducated women are poor, and range from petty trading to factory work. However, start up capital is required for petty trading, and for work in Cambodia's garment factories, young women with some degree of training in sewing and dress making are looked upon more favourably. Dina said that she had no other option. She related this to her lack of basic education, but sees that she needs money to raise her child, support herself and her ageing mother:


I had no occupation, no skills at all and any work that I asked about [in Kampot], they would say, 'You've only studied a little bit [Dina studied until the fourth grade], you don't know' and they wouldn't accept me. ... This was the only job I could do. I decided to come and work here for my family and my child. (Interview, Dina, 3 October 2003)
There is no welfare system in Cambodia and without her extended family, Dina's future as well as her child's would be very uncertain. In order to cope with her new responsibilities as a mother, she started selling sex (see also Law 2000: 69).
Many women felt obligated to look after and support their families, and the very high economic dependency ratio is compounding such social obligations. Almost 50 per cent of the population are below the age of 18, and for those between the ages of 18 and 64 many more people in younger age groups are dependent upon them. This also means that, with many young and some old dependents, the overall earnings of those working must support many more who are not working.
The wages earned by some women working in Sihanoukville's sex industry are quite high. When I interviewed them in 2003, some women said that they could earn up to and in excess of 400,000 riel (US$100) a month. The nearest wage to this that a woman with little to no skills and education in Cambodia can earn is in garment work, with a monthly wage of approximately US$60-70 (240,000-280,000 riel) in 2003. However, to receive this wage a woman would have to work in a factory up to seven days a week, twelve hours a day. Like sex work, garment work is another urban-based female labour-intensive sector in Cambodia that generates a relatively high salary, but not nearly a living wage (Womyn's Agenda for Change 2002). With the ability to earn up to and some times in excess of US$100 a month, employment in the sex industry therefore constitutes a particular attraction.
It also enables women to fulfil an important cultural role of being 'dutiful daughters', whereby Cambodian daughters, rather than sons, are held accountable for looking after their siblings, children and ageing parents. To repay the debt they owe their parents for raising them, daughters are under a continuing obligation to support the family (Muecke 1992; Lyttleton 2000). Female labour migration for sex work is closely related to notions of filial duty and as a relatively high income earner, sex work is an integral part of this (Law 2000; Derks 2004; Sandy 2006b). The wages women earn from sex work enable them to remit funds home to their families and maintain social norms which dictate that women support the family, village and other basic institutions of Cambodian society (Muecke 1992: 891; Sandy 2006a). In this way, some women working in the sex industry perceive themselves as acting virtuously in making a great personal sacrifice (see also Derks 2004). Women feel responsible, but they also derive pleasure from their familial obligations:


[My parents use the money I send them each month] to buy things to trade with, buy things to use for this, and to look after my brothers and sisters and pay their school fees, so that they can go to school every day. ... I feel ... when I can work, I'm satisfied on the nights when I'm able to get some money, I save this money up until the end of the month and I give it to my Mum, I'll give this to my Mum. (Interview, Nari, 2 February 2004)
The women I interviewed, however, were not duped into selling sex to provide for their families to meet either subsistence needs or to provide education for their younger siblings (Tannenbaum 1999: 250). Rather, the women made what they saw as the best choice from within a very narrow range of options. In this respect they did not express the idea of sex work as being their life-long profession; rather, it was seen as a way for them to survive for a period.(FN7) In light of the increasing pressure on women to provide for their families, often as the sole income earner, sex work for some Cambodian women may seem a very real option (Kempadoo 1998: 128):


I do this work of my own will, without anyone pressuring, forcing or duping me, because I am determined that I will try my hardest to earn money that I can send home to look after my child, so he can go to school. (Conversation with Vy, Phnom Penh, 19 October 2002)
They are not cultural dupes. Rather, they are women who have taken a chance to improve their lives and the lives of those nearest and dearest to them as they negotiate their transition to a rapidly globalising economy. In other economic sectors such as garment work or petty trading, their actions would be viewed as exhibiting individual agency. The risks that they have taken would be seen as positive ones, with accompanying economic rewards.


Conclusion
The situations of these women clearly describe an uncertainty and permeability between boundaries of forced and voluntary participation in sex work (Kempadoo 1998: 127). Thus, the dichotomy of forced and voluntary sex work is not as clear-cut or as straightforward as is generally theorised (Murray 1998: 55-60; Derks, Henke and Ly 2006: 15-16; Sandy 2006b: 464-65). It is also difficult to state that sex work in Cambodia involves only poor, illiterate women drawn from the rural underclass. Although some of the women I interviewed came from poor families, the presence of women such as Champa forestalls the possibility of making such generalisations. However, as in neighbouring Thailand, the entry of women into urban-based sex work is often attributed to the poverty of their families (Muecke 1992: 895). Poverty is thus the main, legitimate reason for women working in the sex industry. For non-practitioners, this renders women's actions as logically (and morally) acceptable.
Poverty, however, is not the only reason for women becoming involved in and staying in the sex trade, as other important factors also motivate women to choose sex work (Law 1997: 240-52; Kempadoo 1998; Murray 1998: 55ff). The reasons for this in Cambodia are highly varied and are connected not only to rural poverty but, for example, to narrowing employment opportunities and income-generating activities for women; gendered divisions of labour; landlessness; rising health care costs; a lack of access to basic health services; the lack of a welfare system; and increasing levels of familial responsibility. Poverty and prostitution should not be linked too simplistically: most poor women are not sex workers and poverty is not necessarily the root cause of prostitution (Montgomery 1998: 143). Women's sense of obligation and duty was also a pertinent factor, and so rather than stating that many women work in the industry because they were poor, it may be more useful to consider the proposition that many women work in the industry to earn money to help their families. For many women, working in the sex industry is thus a response to perceived needs and constraints. It is engaged in by choice or perceived necessity and is thereby a way to meet their obligations to their families (Montgomery 1998: 144).
The discourse of 'having no option', seen in some of the women's stories, distances the women from work that carries strong social stigma, emphasising its unchosen nature, and allows women to derive an indirect sense of respectability (Campbell 2003). This discourse also reveals the contradictions and complexities in women's stories. Many of the women I interviewed weighed their choices against the broader socio-economic context, and thus recognised and articulated their limited choices. It is important that women's constrained choice is recognised, but we need to exercise caution when labelling them as 'victims' forced into the trade. The stereotypical image portrayed of a 'helpless victim' waiting to be rescued by some 'good' adult is an important narrative device that elicits public sympathy. However, frameworks that situate women working in the Cambodian sex industry through a singular identity of 'victim' are inadequate in informing our understandings of sex work in the country.
Cambodia is attempting the reconstruction of a society and economy devastated by conflict and war, along with the transition from a centrally-planned to a free-market economic system. Many of the women's stories, and specific moments of crisis within them such as crop failure, natural disasters, desertion and illness, make apparent the failures of the transition to a capitalist-oriented market economy. Their actions, however, are severely limited by their disadvantaged position within hierarchical structures of gender, class and socio-cultural obligations.

References
Acharya, S. 2003. Migration patterns in Cambodia--causes and consequences. Paper prepared for the Ad Hoc Expert Group Meeting on Migration and Development, Bangkok, 27-29 Aug. URL http://www.unescap.org/esid/psis/meetings/migrationaug2003/Cambodia.pdf
Basil, H. 2001. Saving sex slaves. Sydney Morning Herald 12 April: 13.
Brown, L. 2000. Sex Slaves: The Trafficking of Women in Asia. London: Virago.
Campbell, C. 2003. Letting Them Die. Why HIV/AIDS Prevention Programmes Fail. Oxford: James Currey; Bloomington: Indiana University Press; Cape Town: Juta/Doublestorey.
Chan, S. and S. Acharya, 2002. Facing the Challenge of Rural Livelihoods: A Perspective from Nine Villages in Cambodia. Phnom Penh: Cambodia Development Resource Institute Working Paper no. 25.
Chapkis, W. 1997. Live Sex Acts: Women Performing Erotic Labor. New York, NY: Routledge.
Derks, A. 2004. Khmer Women on the Move: Migration and Urban Experiences in Cambodia. PhD Thesis, Radboud University, Nijmegen.
Derks, A., R. Henke and V. Ly, 2006. Review of a Decade of Research on Trafficking in Persons, Cambodia. Phnom Penh: Center for Advanced Study. URL http://www.asiafoundation.org/pdf/CB_TIPreview.pdf Doezema, J. 1998. Forced to choose: beyond the voluntary v. forced prostitution dichotomy. In K. Kempadoo and J. Doezema (eds) Global Sex Workers: Rights, Resistance, and Redefinition, pp. 34-50. New York, NY: Routledge.
Doezema, J. 2001. Ouch! Western feminists 'wounded attachment' to the 'third world prostitute'. Feminist Review 67 (Spring): 16-38.
Godfrey, M., S. So, S. Tep, D. Pon, C. Katz, S. Acharya, D. C. Sisowath and T. Hing, 2001. A Study of the Cambodian Labour Market: Reference to Poverty Reduction, Growth and Adjustment to Crisis. Phnom Penh: Cambodia Development Resource Institute Working Paper no. 18.
Global Health Council. 2006. Council update on second ruling against the anti-prostitution pledge. URL http://www.globalhealth.org/assets/press/app_update051906.pdf
Hughes, D. 2006. Germany rolls out welcome mat for sex traffickers and pimps: thousands of women trafficked for prostitution during world cup games. 'Buying sex is not a sport' campaign Press Statement. URL http://www.uri.edu/artsci/wms/hughes/press release worldcup/doc
Irwin, M. A. 1996. 'White slavery' as metaphor: anatomy of a moral panic. Ex Post Facto: The History Journal 5: 1-24. URL http://walnet.org/csis/papers/irwinw-slavery.html
Kempadoo, K. 1998. The migrant tightrope: experiences from the Caribbean. In K. Kempadoo and J. Doezema (eds) Global Sex Workers: Rights, Resistance, and Redefinition, pp. 124-38. New York, NY: Routledge.
Kempadoo, K. 1999. Slavery or work? Reconceptualizing third world prostitution. Positions 7(1): 225-237.
Kristof, N. 2004. I rescued these girls from sex slavery. Marie Claire March, pp. 36-40.
Kristof, N. 2005a. Leaving the brothel behind. New York Times Jan 19. URL http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/19/opinion/19kris.html?ex=1263877200 &en=7749e74b12412d83&ei=5090&partner-rssuserland
Kristof, N. 2005b. Back to the brothel. New York Times Jan 22. URL http://www.nytimes.com/2005/01/22/opinion/22kristof.html?ex=1264136400&en=1574d231c862916l&ei=50 90&partner=rssuserland
Law, L. 1997. A matter of 'choice': discourses on prostitution in the Philippines. In L. Manderson and M. Jolly (eds) Sites of Desire, Economies of Pleasure: Sexualities in Asia and the Pacific, pp. 233-61. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.
Law, L. 2000. Sex Work in Southeast Asia: The Place of Desire in a Time of AIDS. London: Routledge.
Lyttleton, C. 2000. Endangered Relations: Negotiating Sex and AIDS in Thailand. Bangkok: White Lotus Press.
Malarek, V. 2004. The Natashas: Inside the New Global Sex Trade. New York, NY: Arcade.
McKenny, B. and T. Prom, 2002. Natural Resource and Rural Livelihoods in Cambodia: A Baseline Assessment. Phnom Penh: Cambodia Development Resource Institute Working Paper no. 23.
Metha, M. 1993. Gender Dimensions of Poverty in Cambodia: A Survey Report. Phnom Penh: Oxfam.
Mohanty, C. T. 1986. Under Western eyes: feminist scholarship and colonial discourses. Boundary 2 12(3): 333-58.
Montgomery, H. 1998. Children, prostitution and identity: a case study from a tourist resort in Thailand. In K. Kempadoo and J. Doezema (eds) Global Sex Workers: Rights, Resistance, and Redefinition, pp. 139-150. New York, NY: Routledge.
Muecke, M. 1992. Mother sold food, daughter sells her body: the cultural continuity of prostitution. Social Science and Medicine 35(7): 891-901.
Murshid, K. A. S. 1998. Food Security in an Asian Transitional Economy: the Cambodian Experience. Phnom Penh: Cambodia Development Resource Institute Working Paper no. 6.
Murray, A. 1998. Debt-bondage and trafficking: don't believe the hype. In K. Kempadoo and J. Doezema (eds) Global Sex Workers: Rights, Resistance, and Redefinition, pp. 51-64. New York, NY: Routledge.
National Institute of Statistics (NIS). 2000. Cambodia Demographic and Health Survey, 2000. Phnom Penh: Ministry of Planning.
New York Times. 2006. Ahead of World Cup, US warns Germany about sex trafficking. 6 June: 16. Pall Mall Gazette. 1885. The maiden tribute of modem Babylon. 4-14 July.
Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC). 2002. Second Five Year Socioeconomic Development Plan 2001-2005. Phnom Penh: Ministry of Planning.
Sandy, L. 2006a. 'My Blood, Sweat and Tears': Female Sex Workers in Cambodia--Victims, Vectors or Agents? PhD Thesis, Australian National University, Canberra.
Sandy, L. 2006b. Sex work in Cambodia: Beyond the voluntary/forced dichotomy. Asian and Pacific Migration Journal 15(4): 449-469.
Tannenbaum, N. 1999. Buddhism, prostitution and sex: limits on the academic discourse on gender in Thailand. In P. Jackson and N. Cook (eds) Genders and Sexualities in Modern Thailand, pp. 243-260. Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books.
United Nations Development Program (UNDP). 2003. Human Development Report 2003. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
United States Leadership Against HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria Act (2003). URL http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgibin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=108_cong_public_laws&docid=f:pub1025.108.pdf
USAID. 2002. Trafficking in Persons: The USAID Strategy for Response. URL http://www.batswan.org/traffickingstrategy.pdf
USAID. 2005. Acquisition & Assistance Policy Directive (AAPD) 05-04. URL http://www.globalaidsalliance.org/Exhibit%202.AAPD.pdf
US State Department. 2004. The Link Between Prostitution and Sex Trafficking. URL http://www.gov/g/tip
US State Department. 2006. Trafficking in Persons Report, June 2006. URL http://www.state.gov/g/tip
Wall Street Journal. 2005. Brazil refuses U.S. AIDS funds due to antiprostitution pledge. 2 May: A3.
Wardlow, H. 2006. Wayward Women: Sexuality and Agency in a New Guinea Society. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
ADDED MATERIAL
Larissa Sandy, Gender Relations Centre, RSPAS, Australian National University


NOTES
1. In January 2004, Kristof bought two young Cambodian women--Srey Neth for US$150 and Srey Mom for US$203-from brothels in Poipet, a town on the border of Cambodia and Thailand. While his heroic actions led him to muse that 'maybe fairytale endings are possible after all', the New York Times columnist returned to Cambodia a year later. In a series of follow-up stories, he reported that Srey Neth had enrolled in a beauty school in Phnom Penh, with fees beyond the means of most average Cambodians being paid by readers of the New York Times (Kristof 2005a). Srey Mom, however, had returned to Poipet and was working in the same brothel he rescued her from (Kristof 2005b). His part-titillating, part-horrifying expos on sexual slavery bears an uncanny resemblance to nineteenth century narratives on white slavery, both in moral fervour and journalistic sensationalism (Sandy 2006a). See, for example, the Maiden Tribute of Modem Babylon series by William T. Stead in the Pall Mall Gazette 1885.
2. It is interesting to note that the US State Department fact sheet The Link Between Prostitution and Sex Trafficking, from which this quote is drawn, draws heavily on the work of individuals involved with CATW such as their Co-Executive Director, Janice Raymond and Donna Hughes as well as journalists such as Victor Malarek (2004).
3. A notable exception is Brazil. In May 2005, the director of Brazil's AIDS program and chairperson of the National Commission on AIDS, Pedro Chequer, rejected US$40 million in HIV funding because of the anti-prostitution pledge requirement. Dr. Chequer said they would turn down further US funding as long as the pledge requirement stayed in place (Wall Street Journal 2 May 2005: A3).
4. In colloquial Khmer, Sihanoukville is often referred to by the old place name of Kampong Som (Kampong Saom, water village or port).
5. The majority of Cambodians have little or no education, and women have considerably less schooling than men. 34 per cent of women have no education, compared to 19 per cent of men. Just over 50 per cent of Cambodians have some primary education and less than seven per cent of males and four per cent of females completed grades seven to nine (lower secondary). Seventeen per cent of men and nine per cent of women attended but did not complete secondary school. Only two per cent of men and one per cent of women have completed secondary school or higher (NIS 2000: 14-5). It should also be noted that while Champa's parents are able to subdivide their land between their offspring, with ever-shrinking land parcels, this practice will not be possible for Champa's generation.
6. P'chum Ben is observed yearly and it is a time dedicated to the remembrance and veneration of ancestors (or ancestral spirits) through worship and offerings at Wats to monks as a means of making merit, which is transferred to ancestral spirits. For Khmers, observance of these rites ensures peaceful coexistence between those who have departed and the living. The theme of these ritual practices is placation, as offerings are made in an effort to prevent ancestral ghosts from causing disharmony, mischief or even terrorising living members of the family and their future generations. Family is very important during this period, as during the extended celebrations many Khmers will travel home to be with their families and participate in ancestral rites.
7. None of the women I interviewed said they saw sex work as a life-long profession. Their involvement in sex work was seen as temporary, and ranged from three months to two years. While some women were prepared to remain in sex work for a while longer, others said they were ready to leave and find other work.

Then for the love of god man, put it in spoiler brackets or, idealy for something this long, link it.