The second half of Tuesday’s Advocacy Walk included a peek into the sex worker industry in Phnom Penh. Into the steamy evening, our little group headed by tuk tuk to the Wat Phnom, a local tourist attraction and apparently a popular pick up location for prostitutes. Bona, our Riverkids guide, quickly made contact with a young prostitute. So, several of us made a circle around her on the park lawn and began chatting with her, with Bona serving as our interpreter. As it turns out, this girl left a rural town in Cambodia to live with her husband in Phnom Penh. Unfortunately, the girl’s husband left her and their baby high and dry. Too ashamed to return to her rural small town, she turned to the sex industry to pay for food and shelter. She said she makes about $7 a night. During the conversation, there were a couple of guys sitting along side her who were never introduced but didn’t seem to find it odd that a group of foreign people were sitting in a circle interviewing her. A motorcycle cop stopped briefly, seemingly a bit curious about our activities. But he eventually moved on, which was a relief since he had an AK-47 strapped around his shoulder.
Wat Phnom – tourist attraction by day and pick up location by night
We then headed to a karaoke bar alongside the river. These bars are well known as spots to pick up “beer girls”. We chatted with the “mom” who organizes things. She said that the girls cost $50 a night – far steeper than our contact in the park. She said that the girls get to keep the $50 or can share some of it with the bar. I suspect that the bar takes a good portion of whatever the real charge is. This lady really didn’t seem too interested in chatting with us and was more than happy to take her leave after Bona gave her $5 for her time (the same amount he paid the aforementioned prostitute in the park).
All in all, by evening’s end, I can’t say that I necessarily felt well educated about the sex industry in Phnom Penh. I can say that there would seem to be plenty of opportunities to access sex workers (there are also a lot of 24/7 massage parlors in the city). However, we didn’t get much of a chance to examine the underbelly of the system, which I think is fueled by drug use and organized crime.
dougincambodia 