Sex trade. The words don’t get easier to say or understand. There are karaoke bars everywhere as we drive through parts of the city. Girls, all done up, sometimes looking to be teenagers, sometimes a dozen or more sit at the entrance to one place.
But once in the karaoke bar men may have a line of women come into their private room. The girls are numbered, they don’t even have the dignity of having a name. They are chosen based in the man perverted lusts and desires. They are not just singing companions.
I’ve learned that they ship girls in from “the province” (meaning, villages) by the truck loads to work in these places. Prostitution is illegal, so these girls accompany men to the bar. Corruption in the legal system prevents anything coming to light. It’s disgusting and so sad. And so complicated it would be a novel to begin to talk about all the issues surrounding it. The country was torn apart from the inside only a generation ago during the Khmer Rouge Regime in the 1970s. The total destruction of the country and its people have deep wounds stemming from that era. The sex trade is just one piece of evidence of the wounds that need healing and restoration in Cambodia.
So with that in perspective let me tell you a story about a girl on Siem Reap. When we were in Siem Reap for debrief at the beginning of the month some of my squad mates got to know a 12 year old kid named Linda. She went to school during the day and sold bracelets in night time on Pub Street, sometimes until 2am. She told one of the girls that her family needed $40 to pay rent. People from the squad chipped in a total of $40. Someone else on the squad gave it to her. I had the opportunity to witness her receiving this gift from a stranger. It was so beautiful. She was so confused as to why a stranger would give her exactly what she needed. Her mother questioned where the money came from, asking her what she did to get $40, insinuating she had done ‘something’ to get the money. This incident made me so sad that a mom fears her good kid will sell herself out of desperation for her families’ need. It made me come to a place of grief for Cambodia. Linda is learning English. She now has a bible and started reading it. Pray she continues to reads it and that she comes to know Christ.
And pray for Cambodia. Pray for girls and women who get into the sex trade while searching for life, only to find death. Pray for the families who are so desperate they sell their girls for sex. Pray for families, that they fight for their daughters purity, safety, and future. Pray for hope in this amazing country and for these beautiful people.
