First person

Mei, a 19-year-old-prostitute in Phnom Penh, tells her story.

At the time, I was living in a room with other factory workers, and one of them had a friend who worked in a beer bar. My friend said she was earning good money from this and that I could do it too, so I went there to work. At first things were OK as I earned more money. I would sit outside the bar and ask men to come in and drink. The men would ask me for sex but I always said no, I wouldn’t sell my body. Sometimes they’d grab me or fondle my breasts, which I hated, but if I complained the boss would shout at me.

A man called Sothy used to come to the bar a lot. He was so nice to me, he spoke to me romantically. One night, he offered to walk me home. I went with him, and he asked me to his room. I really liked him so I said I would, we sat and talked. When I wanted to go, he wouldn’t let me. He pinned me to the bed and raped me. I was a virgin and the pain was huge and I bled a lot. He told me he would beat me if I told anyone and that no-one would care anyway as I was a beer girl.

I was so scared after this and so ashamed that I wasn’t a virgin anymore. The owner of the bar said he had a friend I could stay with, somewhere safe, and he took me to a guesthouse in the Toul Kork area. I realised it was a brothel when we arrived, but he said I didn’t have to sell sex but could work as a cleaner. He lied.

Mei was talking to writer Claire Colley, who elsewhere offers a few numbers.

Historically, the UK has failed to deal with the human rights implications for women involved in prostitution (WIP). However, the realitites of prostitution evidence that women involved are chronically vulnerable. 75% of women become involved in prostitution under the age of 18, 70% of WIP have spent time in care as children, 80% are involved to fund drug addiction and 68 % of WIP meet the criteria for suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

That’s in the U.K. Similarly shocking numbers, if not worse, seem likely for Cambodia. That’s not the kind of life anyone chooses.

Failure to explore the widely held contention that prostitution is the oldest ‘profession’ has served to prevent investigations into its exact nature. This has occured because of notions of choice, that is that men have a right to buy sex, and that the women who are involved in prostitution do it out of ‘choice’. However, most WIP do not ‘choose’ to become involved in a life of addiction and abuse, routes into prostitution are awash with sexual and physical violence and it is the very lack of choice which results in women selling sex.