FOREWORD
Trafficking
of women and children is a phenomenon which has received increased attention
from non governmental organizations, governments and the international
community over the past few years. Nevertheless, the legal and sociological
discussion as to what constitutes trafficking is still at its beginning. As for
Cambodia, the study of concrete
facts of actual patterns of trafficking in migrants has only begun.
The
goal of this study was to get a more solid base of knowledge about the actual
patterns of trafficking. The study focuses especially on the recruitment
process of Cambodian women and children trafficked to Thailand. By limiting the scope of
the study to this precise aspect the publishers are trying to take a step
forward from the rather general descriptions of the phenomenon to a more solid
foundation of actual knowledge based on solid research. This knowledge will
help to design targeted strategies to combat exploitative forms of trafficking
and to promote orderly and legal migration. The research report was especially
commissioned to provide necessary information for the design of effective
prevention strategies against trafficking in women and children.
It
is understood that trafficking in women and children represents a global as
well as a regional problem. This study must therefore be seen as one step in a
broader endeavor to learn more about the phenomenon of trafficking in the
Mekong Region. This study will be immediately followed by another study on
trafficking of Vietnamese women and children to Cambodia.
The
study was financed by the International Organization for Migration (IOM),
World
Vision International (W.V.) and Catholic Refugee Services (CRS).
It
was implemented by the Center for Advanced Study (CAS) where it was coordinated
by Ms. Annuska Derks, M.A., a United Nations Volunteer and anthropologist
seconded to the CAS. IOM assisted the researchers with technical support.
It
is hoped that this report and the recommendations made will contribute to
improving efforts to tackle the problem of trafficking in migrants and its
increasing negative consequences.
Phnom Penh, October 10, 1997
Hans R. Beckers
Prof. Everett Kleinjans
(IOM
Representative)
(President of CAS)
CHAPTER ONE
Introduction
More and more Cambodian women are nowadays leaving
their villages in search for work in Thailand. The economic needs at
home, a bad family situation, the promises of the recruiter and optimistic
accounts of returnees are important factors influencing women to make the
decision to leave their village and make the journey to Thailand. The high demand for women
as workers, prostitutes, beggars, etc. together with the perceived wealth in Thailand are important pull factors.
Within this flow of women to Thailand, some have gone voluntarily
and ended up in the situation pictured to them before they left their homes.
Others, however, were deceived or forced to work under miserable circumstances.
Over the past years the phenomenon of trafficking
has received growing attention in Cambodia. International
organisations, non-governmental organisations as well as the Royal Government
of Cambodia have conducted surveys, held seminars, developed strategies,
adopted a trafficking law and set up shelters in order to deal with the problem
of trafficking. So far, the prime focus of these studies, strategies and
shelters has been women and children trafficked into prostitution within Cambodia. This study seeks to
provide more information on the phenomenon of trafficking of women and children
to Thailand not only for the purpose of
prostitution, but also for begging, or work in construction, fisheries and
domestic work. The study focuses primarily on the recruitment process, although
the follow-up phases of transportation, employment situation, and possibly
arrest and return have not been neglected.
The research team consisted of Mrs. Lim Sidedine,
Mr. Lor Monirith and was led by Annuska
Derks M.A.. The research started in Phnom Penh, collecting information and
documentation from organisations and persons working on trafficking issues and
interviewing women in shelters in Phnom Penh. There followed fieldtrips
to Battambang, Banteay Meanchey, Koh Kong and Prey Veng. During the survey a
broad range of people were approached and interviewed, such as police,
governors, women’s affair departments, human rights organisations, district, khum [commune] and phum [village] leaders, monks, nuns, brothel-owners, prostitutes,
beer-girls, (ex-) workers in Thailand, families of women who are or were in
Thailand, recruiters, as well as more informal interviews with taxi-drivers,
shop owners, market-women, guesthouse-owners, villagers, etc. I would like to
thank all for their helpful and kind cooperation in the survey.
Given the limited budget and time, it was not
possible to conduct a more extensive, in-depth survey on the recruitment of
women for trafficking and related issues. Trafficking is a very sensitive topic
and a careful approach is needed. So far, little in-depth research has been
conducted on trafficking in Cambodia. This survey could be a
starting point for more research on this reprehensible phenomenon.
CHAPTER TWO
What is Trafficking?
While conducting research on trafficking of
Cambodian women and children to Thailand, it is necessary to pay
careful attention to the question which activities or processes should be
defined as trafficking. There exist a lot of confusion and varying opinions
with regard to how the phenomenon of trafficking should be defined and
combated. Since the beginning of this century a whole range of definitions has
been developed within various national and international bodies. Each
definition emphasises a different aspect and reflects different interests based
on different agendas.
However, not only for analytical reasons, but also in the interest of finding
proper solutions to combat the phenomenon, it is important to find a clear
answer to the question ‘what is trafficking?’.
In Cambodia trafficking is often
associated with especially women and children being sold, deceived or otherwise
lured into prostitution. The Cambodian Women’s Development Association (CWDA)
describes trafficking as 'the practice of taking people outside their support
structure and rendering them powerless'.
The Global Alliance Against Trafficking in Women (GAATW) uses the following
definition for trafficking:
The recruitment and
transportation of (a) person(s) within and across national borders, by means of
violence or threat of violence, abuse of actual of perceived authority arising
from a relationship, or deception, in order to subject them to the actual and
unlawful power of (an)other person(s).
This is a very broad definition of trafficking. It
includes (1) the process of recruitment and transportation, (2) the means by
which men as well as women are recruited (violence, abuse, deception) and (3)
the final circumstances in which they end up after being recruited and
transported (often described as slavery-like circumstances). This suggests that
within what is defined as trafficking, all three elements can be found.
In reality, however, these three elements of
trafficking do not necessarily come together in all circumstances. We found
people who went on their own initiative to Thailand, but ended up in
slavery-like circumstances, as well as people who were recruited and
transported by deception, but never reached the place of work, and others who
were recruited and transported to Thailand and actually ended up doing
well-paid decent work. In order to distinguish between the 'abusive recruitment
and brokerage practices' and the 'abusive working and living condition in both
public and private spheres', Wijers and Lap-Chew
developed the following working definitions:
Trafficking in Women:
All acts involved in the
recruitment and/or transportation of a woman within and across national
boundaries for work or services by means of violence or threat of violence,
abuse of authority or dominant position, debt bondage, deception or other forms
of coercion.
Forced Labour & Slavery-like Practices:
The extraction of work or
services from any woman [or man] or the appropriation of the legal identity
and/or physical person of any woman by means of violence or threat of violence,
abuse of authority or dominant position, debt bondage or other forms of
coercion.
Wijers and Lap-Chew
state that coercion, in any possible form, is a crucial element in both
definitions. This includes, but is not limited to:
·
violence or threat of violence, including deprivation of freedom (of
movement, of personal choice)
·
deception: with regard to, amongst other things, working conditions or
the nature of the work to be done
·
abuse of authority or dominant position: this can range from
confiscating personal documents in order to place another person in a dependent
position, to abusing one’s dominant social position or natural parental
authority or abusing the vulnerable position of persons without legal status
·
debt bondage: i.e. pledging the personal services or labour of oneself
or another person as a security for a debt, if the value of those services or
labour as reasonable assessed is not applied towards the liquidation of the
debt, or the length and nature of those services or labour are not limited and
defined.
A distinction between the recruitment and the work
or services that women end up doing is made, as Wijers and Lap-Chew explain,
because trafficking and situations of forced labour and slavery-like practices
to which women are subjected do not necessarily go together. They write:
Trafficking can be a means
to bring women into slavery-like situations, but this is not necessarily the
case. On the one hand, women can be recruited and transported under conditions
of coercion but not end up in a forced/slavery-like situation. On the other
hand, women may find themselves in forced labour/slavery-like situations without
having been trafficked.
This does not mean, however, that a study, a policy
or a legal framework related to trafficking can or should ignore the working
conditions in which victims of trafficking end up. It is the practice of
trafficking as well as the forced labour and slavery-like situations that
should be combated. Therefore, this study, although making a distinction
between the recruitment and living/working conditions, will pay attention to
both.
In addition to the distinction between the abusive
recruitment and brokerage practices and the abusive working and living
conditions, this study will describe certain issues that have come up during
the research. Given the specific Cambodian context, and taking into
consideration the work that has been done so far in this field in Cambodia, it
is useful to distinguish between trafficking in-country and trafficking across
the borders (in this study limited to Thailand); between trafficking for
prostitution and trafficking for other purposes; and between trafficking and
illegal migration.
Initially this research was focused primarily on
trafficking to Thailand. The results have shown, however, that, although it is
useful to recognise the distinction between trafficking in-country (within
Cambodia) and across borders (to Thailand), this distinction is not always easy
to make. As regards trafficking for certain specific purposes, most importantly
prostitution, the actual recruitment processes do not always differ
significantly. Therefore, this study will not be limited to trafficking to
Thailand only. Where relevant, attention will be given to practices related to
in-country trafficking.
Although most of the research done so far was
focused on trafficking of women and girls for prostitution, it has been acknowledged
that women and children, as well as men, are trafficked for other purposes.
This study will make a clear distinction between the different purposes of
trafficking. Trafficking for prostitution has specific characteristics with
regards to the recruitment procedures, the target groups for the traffickers,
the working and living circumstances, and the background situation related to
this phenomenon. Therefore, issues related to trafficking for prostitution will
be detailed in chapter three, separate from trafficking for other exploitative
purposes, like begging, criminality or domestic work which will be described in
chapter four.
Related to the distinction between trafficking for
different (economic) activities, is the distinction between trafficking and
illegal migration. Not all the people in the flow to Thailand in search for
work and high salaries are victims of trafficking, although some might end up
in slavery-like circumstances. In chapter five the abusive recruitment and
brokerage practices and the abusive working and living conditions for those
working in Thailand in construction, fisheries, factories, farming or other
kinds of economic activities, will be discussed.
CHAPTER THREE
Trafficking for Prostitution Within and
Across Borders
Studies on trafficking of women in Cambodia so far
focused primarily on trafficking for prostitution. Prostitution and the
problems related to it have received increasing attention. Prostitution is not
a recent phenomenon in Cambodia. However, the increase of this practice in
recent years has followed periods in which prostitution was banned -under the
Khmer Rouge regime - or strictly controlled under the Vietnamese backed
socialist regime. Only after the economic liberalisation and opening up of the
country, and especially with the arrival of UNTAC, did Cambodia see an
explosive growth in prostitution. Although the number of prostitutes has
decreased after UNTAC left, studies have indicated that problems related to it,
like the number of young girls in prostitution, the number of trafficked women
and HIV/AIDS infection rates among prostitutes, have risen.
A recent research conducted by the Commission of
Human Rights and Reception of Complaints of the National Assembly
has indicated that over 14,000 women are working as prostitutes in brothels
throughout the country. Of these about 15,5 percent are under 18 years old.
Besides prostitutes working in brothels, the research identified women who work
as prostitutes from their own house or private rented accommodation, as well as
dancers in discotheques, beer-girls, masseuses, karaoke singers, or those
prostitutes without fixed accommodation living on the street. Those women who
are trafficked into prostitution most often end up living under the control of
a brothel-owner, but may have been recruited out of the other mentioned working
situations.
Although the focus of this survey was mainly on the
recruitment of women and girls trafficked to Thailand, we found that in the
case of recruiting women and girls for prostitution it is hard to make a clear
distinction between in-country and cross-border trafficking. The actual
procedures through which women are recruited for commercial sex work seem to
follow the same pattern for in-country and cross-border trafficking. Therefore
this section on trafficking for prostitution will describe more generally the
ways of, people involved in, and factors underlying trafficking for
prostitution.
Entering
prostitution
In a study of on trafficking of Burmese women and
girls into brothels in Thailand, Hnin Hnin Pyne is quoted for her
classification of the means by which women enter into prostitution, i.e.
voluntary, bonded or involuntary:
Voluntary indicates that the
woman, prostitute-to-be, approaches the owner/manager of a sex establishment
herself; bonded implies the involvement of parents or guardians, who receive
money from an agent or owner for giving away their daughter; and involuntary
conveys the use of deception and coercion of the women by an agent or
owner/manager.
These three different means by which women enter
into prostitution are related to the different ways through which women are
recruited for prostitution and the different people involved in the recruitment
process.
Voluntary entry into prostitution
Although the term voluntary entry into prostitution
suggests free will, it does not always mean a free choice among the economic
alternatives for those women who decide themselves to enter prostitution. Most
often these women entered because of dire economic needs within a specific
social context. A prostitute in Battambang explained that for her prostitution
seemed to be the only way to earn some money to feed her poor mother and her 5
year-old child. She was the oldest daughter of a poor family of which the
parents were divorced and she herself was divorced from her husband who left
her for another woman. She recounts:
“I heard that in this job
one can earn a lot of money. I had no other way. I didn’t tell my mother,
step-mother and sister that I came here to work as a prostitute. I just told
them that I went to Poipet to sell fruits for two months. But I decided I
wanted to do this work, because it is the only work with which I can earn much
money.”
Although she comes from Kandal province, she decided
to go to Battambang to find a job as a prostitute, while “in Phnom Penh there
are many people who know me, so I must find an empty place to work. If not, it
is shameful for me.” In Battambang she found a place to work by asking a
motortaxi to bring her to a brothel. In the beginning she felt uncomfortable
about her reputation in the future, but as she said:
“Now I am not afraid
anymore. I don’t want people to say that I am a woman who can’t find money. I
just try to work hard to get a lot of money and I will go back home to start
some business, like other people.”
Even though the voluntary entry into prostitution
can be forced by the circumstances, it does not imply the use of violence,
abuse of dominant position, debt bondage, deception or other forms of coercion
as defined in the cases of trafficking. However, voluntary entry into
prostitution can bring the women and girls into slavery-like circumstances,
such as being forced to work 24 hours a day, receiving no or very little
payment, not being able to leave the brothel, being forced to have sex without
a condom, being hit or otherwise violated, etc. Besides, those who have already
entered prostitution are easy targets for recruiters who have connections to
other brothels within Cambodia or in Thailand.
Bonded prostitution
Bonded entry into prostitution entails parents or
associates who sell a child or young woman to a person for promised employment
in return for cash. Reynolds describes this kind of entry in prostitution as a
“fairly consistent and quite distinct model of trafficking”.
Reynolds continues that the use of bonded labour to repay a debt incurred
either directly by the labourer or by an associate of the labourer was a
traditional common form of slavery in Cambodia. Osborne writes about how in the
western view the widespread existence of this practice throughout Southeast
Asia often is misinterpreted:
Western observers to the
traditional world of Southeast Asia seldom understood the difference, for
instance, between 'true' slaves, condemned to a life of servitude, and those
who had voluntarily, but temporarily, given up their freedom in order to meet a
debt or other unfulfilled obligation.
Marjorie Muecke relates this practice to the present
situation in which young women are 'sold' into prostitution. She states that
the 'historical practice of selling women' can be found in Southeast Asia and
provides an important precedent for the current practice whereby adults,
predominantly men, sell family members, particularly daughters, for economic
gain.
Most information available on trafficking in
contemporary Cambodia relates to women and girls trafficked into prostitution
inside the country. Although it is hard to get reliable data on trafficking and
prostitution, surveys of 1993-1994 conducted by Vigilance and CWDA indicated
that about half of the women and girls were sold into prostitution, mostly by
parents or other relatives.
However, as Reynolds, Osborne and Muecke have indicated, one has to be careful
in interpreting the concept of sale in these cases. In Prey Veng province, we
talked to a brothel madam and when asked how she recruited the girls for her
brothel she explained:
"The parents bring
their daughters here, but they do not sell them. They come to borrow my money,
40,000 or 50,000 or 60,000 riel.
The women usually have worked as a prostitute before. Their parents brought
them to different places. When other people come here to search for women they
want to buy from me, I do not dare to do that, because the parents of these
women trust me."
Many of the reports written on trafficking and
prostitution focus on this involvement of parents or other relatives in
trafficking of young women in prostitution. This leads to the question how is
it possible that parents are involved in the trafficking of their own
daughters? Why is it not problematic for these parents to bring their daughters
into prostitution or any other bonded labour situation? Usually, poverty is
given as the main reason to these questions. The Situation Report on
Trafficking and Prostitution of Children states: "Poor families are by
definition more susceptible to promises of jobs for their young daughters,
often desperate enough to sell their daughters or other relatives to pay of a
debt."
However important, economic reasons alone cannot explain the involvement of
parents in this practice. There are several factors coming together with the
economic factors that make it possible for parents to bring their daughters
into prostitution in order to relieve poverty.
In Thailand the problem of trafficking of young
women for prostitution has existed much longer and on a much bigger scale than
in Cambodia. Much more research has been done in order to find out the causes
and cultural background of this phenomenon. Marjorie Muecke spent several
extended periods of time since 1972 conducting fieldwork in the northern part
of Thailand. She writes about the 'cultural continuity of prostitution', which
also explains why it is possible for parents to be involved in bringing their
daughters in bonded prostitution:
[T]he economic rewards of
contemporary prostitution have enabled young women to support not only
urban-based profiteers who control prostitution, but more importantly from a
cultural perspective, to remit funds home to their families and villages of
origin. Prostitution today is accomplishing what food vending did for the young
women's mothers: both of these otherwise disparate endeavours have the effect
of conserving norms by which women support the family, village and other basic
institutions in Thai society.
As in Thailand, also in Cambodia, prostitution has
become an important possible activity through which daughters can fulfil their
expectations of providing financial support for the family. Parents will allow
their daughters to work temporarily as prostitutes to pay back the money
borrowed from the meebon
[brothel-owner] through which the family can relieve their financial burden.
Women who work as prostitutes recognise their role in providing financial
support for their families. One prostitute working in Prey Veng explained she
is the second daughter among nine children. Her parents are construction
workers, but cannot earn enough to support the whole family. She decided she
would agree with her parents to work as a prostitute:
"..because I saw the
people who work here have money and they have new clothes. They can help their
parents...I cannot save money for myself, because my mother comes every time to
take it. She takes 40,000 or 50,000 riel."
According to a meebon
in Battambang, some parents are making a lot of money by making their so-called
virgin daughters work as prostitutes in exchange for a loan from the
brothel-owner:
“When these parents came to
bring their daughters here, they assured me that they were virgins. I did not
examine them carefully at the time, but later I find out that they had already
lost their virginity. These girls were about 15 or 16 years old. I loaned their
parents some money. But after four to ten days the father and mother came back
to visit their daughters. Then they ask me to get their daughter back, because
their grandmother has come from overseas and wants to meet them. They took
their daughter back home. Later, when I started searching for them, I saw that
they brought the girls to a hotel. It is so bad..”
In order to prevent arguments about the amount of
the loan provided by the brothel-owner and about the voluntary agreement of the
woman or girl to work as a prostitute, some brothel-owners make the women sign
a contract. Another meebon in
Battambang said:
“Sometimes the women are
sold by their parents or relatives. In these cases I only accept them if the
women themselves agree to do this work... I make the contract as a proof that
the women work voluntarily and that there is no one who forced or sold them.”
Involuntary prostitution
Involuntary entry entails women who are lured,
deceived, kidnapped or in any other way tricked into prostitution. According to
surveys of CWDA,
conducted in 1994 in Tuol Kork, over 40 percent of the women interviewed (total
399) were not aware that they would be involved in prostitution. In a Human
Rights Task Force report
of 1995 based on 310 interviews with related people in 13 provinces, it was
estimated that 45 percent of the prostitutes interviewed were deceived by pimps
or abducted into prostitution. A survey on Cambodian and Vietnamese sex workers
along the Thai-Cambodian border
considers the general belief that the motives of women for following the
trafficker are often based on false promises of well paid jobs in restaurants
or hotels. The other well-known variant they mention is kidnapping or otherwise
forcing women into prostitution. Their findings did, however, not confirm these
general beliefs, since the women they interviewed had left their homes
voluntarily and with the hope of being able to earn a higher income.
There exist no reliable statistics on how many women
and girls are deceived or lured into prostitution within Cambodia, nor across
the border. More is, however, known about the way women and girls are recruited
for prostitution. The typical story is of recruiters, especially female
recruiters, who come into a village and try to gain the trust of a girl. Her
promises of a decent job with high income somewhere in a city fosters wishful
thinking that there is a way to escape poverty.
This is what happened to one informant in a shelter
in Phnom Penh, a 16 year-old girl from Battambang. She has five brothers and
sisters, of which she is the fourth. Her father used to be a meekhum [commune leader] in Bavel
district. However, the Khmer Rouge attacks made him sell his land and move to a
safer area. Now her parents do not own their own ricefield, but they rent some
land to grow rice. This is, however, not enough to feed the whole family. That
is why she went to work at Kbal Khmoch, where she cut bricks. Her parents
allowed her to work there and stay with her uncle and aunt. She recounts:
"One day, one of the
workers told me about a lady who needs a person to take care of her child. She
is willing to pay 150,000 riel per month. I think this lady was his relative. I
immediately agreed to come to Phnom Penh with this lady, because I was angry
with my uncle and aunt who were always blaming me. I did not tell my mother
that I was going with her, because the lady ordered me not to tell anybody
else.
The lady brought me to Phnom
Penh. When we arrived, she brought me to a place where I saw a lot of people
going in and out, perhaps a hotel. Here I was sold by the lady to a meebon, who was interested in me because
I was still a virgin. I do not know for how much she sold me. Then I was
brought to a room and a bit later a man came in. I asked him to help me get
away from this place, but he did not want to help me; he wanted me to sleep with
him. After that, he wanted to buy me from the meebon to take me as his wife. The meebon did not agree, because he had paid a lot for me. I had to
sleep with a lot of other men.
But soon I became very weak.
They used make-up to make me look beautiful and gave me medicine to make me
feel better. But it got worse, I was bleeding. First the meebon told me that it is just my menstruation and she hit me for
complaining. Only later, five days after, they took me to the hospital. The meebon told me not to tell the doctor,
but I decided to tell him about my situation and asked him to help me. He told
the meebon that I had to stay in the
hospital, because I was still unable to walk. Then he informed an organisation
who helped to arrest the meebon."
In order to recruit the girls, the recruiter will
take advantage of situations in which a woman or girl feels maltreated by her
parents, other relatives or boy-friend. In her ignorance and in her drive to
escape her present situation, she will easily agree to come along with an
acquaintance who promises a well-paid job, a new adventure in a big city.
Another informant from a shelter in Phnom Penh explained that she used to work
as a day labourer on a soya-bean farm, but decided one day to leave her home
not to return, because her mother blamed her for doing something wrong. On the
way she met a woman with whom she used to work at the farm. She commented:
“The woman did not persuade
me to leave home. I just met her at the market place, where the bus stops. She
asked me where I was going and I told her that I left home. She said that she
could find me a good job, so I followed her.”
The woman brought her first to a house in another
village, from where she was brought to Kampong Cham town. There she was brought
in a guesthouse and forced to sleep with a guest. When she refused, she was hit
with a stick and told that if she continued to refuse, she would be hit to
death.
Stories about the disappearance of young girls being
kidnapped for prostitution in Thailand as well as in Cambodia has scared many
parents, who have become afraid to leave their daughters unguarded. In Koh Kong
we came across several such stories and some parents have taken preventative
measures. One mother told us she has her daughters brought to and from school
by one known motodup [motortaxi] and
she has warned her daughter not to go with anyone else. From the stories we
heard, it seems that the kidnapping involves not so much girls who are simply
grasped from the street -as their parent might perceive their disappearance-
but girls who are deceived by someone who perceives when a girl is unguarded
and receptive for his or her proposals. A police official in Banteay Meanchey
remarked that for the case of child trafficking, no force is used. They persuade
the children to go with them to visit Thailand, to look for a job or to
continue studying. When the children agree to come along, their parents are not
informed and start looking for their lost child. One father in Koh Kong told us
about the disappearances of his 12 year-old daughter:
"My daughter
disappeared three times, and I did not know what happened to her. The first
time, she disappeared in the evening, while my wife and I were away. That day,
she had broken a hot water pot and her sisters told her that she would be
punished once we came back. When she heard that, she ran away. I thought she
went to the house of my brother, but when I went there to look for her, she was
not there. I could not find her, so I went to the fortuneteller. He told me
that my daughter would not be lost. She came back home later that night. When I
saw her, I noticed she had lost one earring. I asked her about it and she
replied that the person who brought her with him took off her earring. He
brought her by motorbike to a house near Psar Chah where she watched video. But
at night, she missed home and decided to go back.
The second time she
disappeared was a few months later. She disappeared for three nights. I went
out for work in the morning. She was at home, because she only had class in the
afternoon. When I came back at about eleven I didn't see her. I asked her
sisters, but they didn't know where she went. I went to the fortuneteller again
and he said that she did not disappear. She just went to play with some
friends. I continued to look for her everywhere. Only two days later I saw her
buying some bread at the market. When she saw me, she came to me and told me
that the same man as before took her by motorbike. He had given her 20 baht and
then he went to the other side of the river.
The third time she
disappeared, was when I brought her to school in the afternoon. However, she
did not go to class. When I found out she had not attended class, I first
thought she went to play in the garden. I went to look for her. When I could
not find her, I started to worry. I went to the fortuneteller again and he told
me that if I did not hit her after the second time she disappeared, she would
be lost again. If I could not find her within 10 days, she would be lost till
she was 25 years old. The fortuneteller told me that she had left to the west.
I had not hit her after the second time, because I like her too much. Someone
else told me that my daughter went to the west and it would not be possible to
take her back, because it will cost millions of baht.
However, four days later,
she came back to meet her brother and sister at school. She told me later that
two men brought her to the wharf and allowed her to go back, because she told
them that she missed her brother and sister. I think they allowed her to see
her younger sister, because they wanted her to persuade her younger sister to
come with her. When she met her brother and sister, they told her to go home,
because her mother is sick. At first she did not want to. She said she was
ashamed to go back.
At the time she disappeared
she was wearing a white shirt and blue skirt and when she came back, she was
wearing trousers and had painted her nails. When she came home, she seemed very
scared and kept herself inside the house. So my niece applied garlic on her
body, which made her feel less scared. When I asked her who took her and where
she went, she answered she did not know the people or the place. She told me
the same people of the first and second time picked her up when she was standing
in front of the video-place. They brought her somewhere in Thailand. There were
a lot of people, some older, some younger than her. They had video with
porn-movies. They gave her food and let her watch television. She was not
maltreated, but I think, by the way of her behaviour, that they gave her
drugs.”
There are stories in newspapers, magazines and other
sources about the use of drugs as a means to traffic girls for commercial sex
work. These stories tell of girls being given drugged sweets and kidnapped to
be sold into commercial sex work. We have, however, not encountered any of such
cases ourselves, although we did encounter cases of women or girls who were
deceived into commercial sex work and became addicted to drugs in order to be
able to stand the difficult circumstances of their work.
The different means of entering prostitution
-voluntary, bonded or involuntary- refer specifically to the initial entry of
women into prostitution. As such, voluntary entry does not fall under the
definition of trafficking. However, trafficking of women for prostitution
continues in the brothels, which puts all women working as commercial sex
workers in one form or the other at risk of being deceived and sold to another
brothel within Cambodia or in another country.
Recruiting women
and girls for prostitution
Different means of entrance into prostitution can be
distinguished and involves different recruiters and recruiting procedures.
According to the findings in this survey, the recruitment of women and girls
into prostitution follows the same process for trafficking whether in-country
or across the border to Thailand. These recruitment and placement processes are
often thought to be highly organised through well-established criminal
networks. Mu Sochua
quotes senior officials working with Interpol as saying "behind every
child prostitute is a web of criminals, cruelty and corruption." A survey
on Cambodian sex workers on the Thai-Cambodian border
did, however, not agree with this generally held view of an international
centrally organised criminal network of traffickers. Although it is hard to get
a real overview of the situation, the findings of this research also did not
lead to the impression that there exists such a highly organised (inter)
national criminal network of recruiters and brothel-owners. There exist links
between brothel-owners and the police, between different brothel-owners, and
between brothel-owners and recruiters. However, they seem to be based more on a
personal, sometimes familial, set of relationships than part of a
well-established criminal network.
One brothel-owner in Koh Kong explained to us how he
recruits the women who work for him:
"I go to a village in
Kampong Cham, because I have family living there. I inform them that I need to
find a prostitute and they will help me find someone. They will look for a
woman who broke up with her boy-friend, who was cheated or who has a broken
heart. Not only will my family look for me, but also some other villagers whom
I know personally help me find someone. When one woman hears that I need women
who can work for me in Koh Kong, other women want to come as well. Before I
bring them to Koh Kong I guarantee them that I will not sell them to another meebon. So I find the women through my
family. It is not so difficult to find women, because they know which women mien kue kbaal tik [have little brains].
If someone persuades them, they are easily convinced to come. Now I have five
women working here. One of them is the leader and meekcol [recruiter]. If I want to recruit new women, I can discuss
with her and give her some money. She has the ability to persuade women. For
example, I discuss with the recruiter that I want her to bring me a woman for
20,000 or 30,000 riel. Then she looks for a woman who was already working as a
prostitute. She tells them that they can earn more money in Koh Kong than at
their present place. Then usually most prostitutes want to come with her. When
the recruiter goes to one brothel to ask about a prostitute, the meebon of this brothel can help find
someone through his or her connections."
Recruiters can either recruit the girls to fill an
order of a meebon who needs new girls
in his or her brothel, or independently. In the latter case, the recruiter will
go to different brothels to offer the girls as prostitutes for a certain amount
of money. A meebon in Battambang
commented:
“Earlier there were people
who came to bring women here. They wanted to sell these women for $100 or $200
each. But I didn’t buy these women. I am afraid of getting into problems [when
I buy these women]. Sometimes they deceive the meebon. They sell the women to a brothel and the next day they come
to take them back. I am afraid of losing money.”
Another meebon
in Battambang said he usually gets his women through those recruiters who come
to his brothel and offer a woman for 3,000 to 5,000 baht.
He also borrows women from a neighbouring brothel for a certain amount of time.
Sometimes women come voluntarily to his brothel. Often they were raped by their
boy-friends [kouc sangsaa] or
introduced by an older sister who knew from experience that one can earn a lot
of money as a commercial sex worker and therefore convinced her sister to work
in a brothel.
The persons who recruit the women, by convincing
and/or deceiving them to enter prostitution are called meebon -a term also used for brothel-owner-, neak noam or meekcol
-more general terms for ‘recruiter’. A representative of the Women’s Department
in Koh Kong described how these people go to the provinces to recruit girls.
They look for the beautiful girls in secondary school, girls whose mother has a
second husband, girls who have quarrels with their parents, or girls who just
broke up with their boy-friends. They ask parents of the girls whether they
will allow their daughter to come to work, for example, in Koh Kong, as a
cleaner, food seller, etc. When they agree, the girls are brought to Koh Kong.
The most beautiful girls continue for Thailand; the less beautiful ones stay in
Koh Kong. The neak noam have
relations with the police or other authorities who can protect him. They pay
some money to the police. Some police are corrupt and will accept the money,
because they have a low salary. When the parents complain to the police about
the disappearance of their daughter, the police can try to find her back, but
only seldom will they be able to do so. Most of them disappear in brothels in
Thailand and when the brothel-owner knows the police are looking for one
particular girl, she will be sold to another brothel.
The attraction of the money that can be earned is
high for the girl or woman as well as for the parents. A police officer in Koh
Kong explained:
“There are recruiters who
divide into four or five groups, to go to Phnom Penh, Kampong Som, Svay Rieng,
Prey Veng or other provinces. This is the job for people in the provinces who
have connections with the brothel-owners. For example, there is a poor family
who has a daughter. The recruiter does not tell the parents that she will be
working as a prostitute in Koh Kong, but as a waitress. The recruiter tells
them that as a waitress she can earn 40,000 or 50,000 baht a month. When you
compare this amount of money with what one can earn as a farmer.. it maybe
equals the income of five years farming. This makes poor families decide to let
their daughters go to Koh Kong. They think she will only go to Koh Kong and not
cross the border to Thailand, because they think that will be too far.”
It is difficult to tell how extended the network of
recruiters and brothel-owners is for the recruitment of women for commercial
sex work in Thailand. Although it has become apparent that several layers of
people are involved in the process, they do not seem to be part of one huge
criminal network that extends its web throughout the country. There are many
recruiters, usually women, who follow each other up. They are each individually
related to different meebon in
Cambodia and Thailand. Those with connections in Thailand will persuade women
to go to Thailand, saying that it is easier to earn money there. The most
beautiful girls who are brought to work in border towns, are likely to continue
to Thailand. A meebon in Koh Kong
explained:
“The meebon who takes the prostitute girls [to Thailand] are mostly
women. She tells the girls that she will bring them to Thailand for work. But
when they arrive, she sells them to a Thai meebon.
The Thai meebon pays 5,000 baht for
each girl. The girls have to work till they have earned twice their price. Then
the meebon sells them again. This way
they continue to pass the prostitute from meebon
to meebon.”
Some girls or women, after hearing about the
(financial) advantages of working in Thailand, decide to go themselves. They
ask around in Koh Kong or Poipet and get information from motodup. The motodup can
explain to them how to go to Thailand. Once the motodup knows the woman wants to go to Thailand, he can bring her,
for some commission, to the people who can bring her to there because they are
very familiar with the way to Thailand and the places to work.
Recruiters who recruit women for prostitution in
Thailand are not only targeting 'fresh' girls, directly from the villages, in
the literature usually called the one-step pattern. They also try to convince
women who are already working as prostitutes, dancers, or beer-girls, called
the two-step pattern. By working in Thailand, the recruiters promise, they can
earn a lot more money than on the other side of the border. Three beer-girls
told about being approached by woman who came in their restaurant to asked them
whether they wanted to work in Thailand. The girls said they did not want to
go, because they were afraid she would sell them as prostitutes. However, the
method of the recruiters is to chliet
okah, to steal time. This means that the recruiter will come back again and
again to gain trust among the girls, till they agree to go along to Thailand.
Also several meebon have said that
they were approached by Thai or Khmer with relations in Thailand who wanted to
buy their most beautiful young women to bring to Thailand. A prostitute in
Battambang was actually brought to Poipet by a soldier-customer who told her
and her friend he wanted to bring them to Svay Sisophon for dai leeng [a trip]. However, he brought
them to his Thai boss in Poipet. His boss told them that they were sold to him
to work in his brothel. She remembered:
“I knew that I was deceived,
but I didn’t know what to do. The boss had more than ten guards and my friend
and I were locked inside the house. I didn’t know how to escape. They obliged
us to sleep with guests and threatened to hit us, but we did not agree. We
begged and cried to let us go back, and in the end the soldier who brought us
here convinced his boss to let us go.”
Crossing the border
Although the recruitment processes of women and
children into prostitution follow similar lines, crossing the border involves
more organisation with regards to transportation, relations with corrupt
officials, and more bribes to pay. Risks are higher for those involved in cross-border
trafficking.
Recruiters and receivers of trafficked women and children will therefore demand
higher profits for their activities. According to a police official in Banteay
Meanchey, the girls sold to Thailand are mostly very young, below 13 years old.
In Thailand they can be sold to a customer for 20,000 baht for one week. But
not all these girls stay in Thailand, some are sold even further. A police
official in Battambang explained that it is difficult to find the children who
are trafficked to Thailand because the big traffickers do not keep them in a
brothel. They bring them to other countries, like Hong Kong, Singapore, Europe,
etc.
As long as the trafficking of women and children for
prostitution is profitable for those individuals involved, it will be hard to
stop the practice. Besides, the lack of attention by, and also the involvement
of, police, border officials and military, make continuance of the practice of
cross-border trafficking possible. A police official in Banteay Meanchey commented
on the problem of child trafficking:
"..it is impossible for
us to solve the problem. Our armed forces are involved in this. They secretly
transport children in their personal cars and reach the border of Thailand.
They cross by the two main gates O'Prick and O Ta Chang. After the parents find
out their children have disappeared, they come to complain to us. But we cannot
take action when we only know that a child is inside some car going to
Thailand."
A police official in Battambang explained why it is
so easy nowadays to cross the border for traffickers: