Phnom Penh (Cambodia). 23/08/2007: Interview with a minor in a child-friendly interview room at the Anti Human Trafficking and Juvenile Protection department of the Ministry of Interior.
©John Vink/ Magnum Two French men, prosecuted for having committed aggravated sex offenses in Cambodia against children under 15, were sentenced last week to seven years of imprisonment by the Colmar Court in Alsace, France. Both frequented Cambodia and Svay Pak in particular on a regular basis. The area, also known as “K11” as it is located 11 kilometres north of the capital Phnom Penh, is a sort of open-door supermarket of sex. The case brought the little Khmer Kingdom back to the fore, presenting it as a top destination for paedophiles and other sex offenders. However, the Cambodian government is trying hard to get rid of that negative image as it has to fight against the industry of sex which looks more and more like organised crime in the country. Svay Pak: in the shadows but still swarming
Demand concerning sexual intercourse without condoms and without any risk of being contaminated by the HIV/AIDS virus is one of the factors driving more and more children (under 15) into the sex industry. Svay Pay has indeed developed the grim reputation of “paradise” for child-sex enthusiasts, a specialty which the Internet has largely contributed to popularise. Unlike the Thai capital where red-light districts are located right in the middle of town, these areas have gradually developed around Phnom Penh, “far from schools and pagodas, and for more discretion”, as pointed out by Christian Guth, a former French police officer who has been advising Cambodia's Interior Ministry on sexual exploitation and child trafficking since 2000. “Thus, instead of 10 to 20 prostitutes in each neighbourhood, Svay Pak gathers between 300 and 400 of them, if not more. On the plus side, this concentration allowed people to have easy access to healthcare, AIDS prevention and social care, but the drawback was that paedophiles and the media could easily locate and identify the place.”
For several years, official announcements about the shutting down of the area and police crackdowns alternated following the impetus of the government, then particularly worried about being better graded by the United States. For two years now, “Kilometre 11” has sunk into a very relative sleep. Activities there have slowed down but the 1980s-built village, entirely used for prostitution, remains the main “reservoir” of young prostitutes from Vietnam.
The look of the village has changed, says Patrick Stayton, a Field Officer Director at the International Justice Mission (IJM), a Washington-based Christian NGO with a Cambodian branch office specialising on child-sex trafficking and forced prostitution. “It’s not like five years ago when as soon as you got there, they [touts] would put children on your lap with no fear of law enforcement. It’s nothing like that today. [...] Now, they bring clients inside houses where it’s difficult to find your way back. They do searches to check whether you have a hidden camera with you and the site is watched from the outside by several people…” Three weeks ago, a Cambodian-American man who organised child prostitution there was arrested together with an American client during a police raid, he says, to show that “it keeps going on”.
The new face of prostitution in Cambodia
The multiple police crackdown operations carried out in Svay Pak forced pimps to be more cautious and operate their activities underground, out of concern, and contributed to offshore prostitution. “Youngsters have dispersed to other parts of Phnom Penh, went to the town of Siem Reap [home of the Angkor temples], where tourism exploded, or ended up on the seaside in Sihanoukville, which seems to be following the same path”, Christian Guth indicates. A field study was carried out in Siem Reap at the beginning of this year by IJM and showed that 60 out of 80 brothels inspected by the team offered minor prostitutes.
The face of the sex industry has also changed in Cambodia, the French retired police officer points out, with the appearance of houses “where children and prostitutes are confined. When a hotel employee, a guide or any other person in contact with tourists wants to have a minor girl to satisfy the request of a client, they call one of these places and “order” the child, who is delivered directly at the client’s hotel, for instance.” For Patrick Stayton, the principle of it tragically comes down to ordering a take-way in a fast-food restaurant”. These sort of stockrooms for children who come from Phnom Penh, Vietnam, and, recently, from the provinces of Kampong Cham, Prey Veng and the Northwest of Cambodia, are present in the capital: In Svay Pak, still, but also in the Building – that derelict place standing on the Bassac riverfront – around the Central Market and along the busy Street 63.
Another trend has developed: prostitution is now using different names, like karaoke-bars, massage parlours, nightclubs, beer gardens, etc. These places dare not speak their name and it proves a lot harder for prostitutes to have access to the healthcare they deserve.
New law: triggering a lot of protest
On February 15th 2008, the Cambodian government promulgated a law on the suppression of human trafficking and sexual exploitation, but its enforcement aroused the wrath of sex workers and organisations for the defence of Human rights. The decision was followed by raids as part of of a “zero-tolerance” policy enforced in brothels. The U.S. Department of State’s 2008 Human rights report on Cambodia, released on February 25th 2009, cites examples of a legal system which has gradually become more moderate with paedophiles. On June 4, 2008, a Sihanoukville Municipal Court judge released on bail a foreigner who was arrested on charges of allegedly sexually abusing six children aged eight to thirteen; on July 21, the same court suspended the three-year sentence of a convicted paedophile and released him on probation after he had spent six months in prison for sexually abusing two underage boys. The suspect fled the country shortly after; on August 26, the Appeals Court reduced the sentence of a foreign paedophile from 18 years in prison, to three years in prison under the new law, etc.
The age consent for sexual activity in Cambodia is set to 15 years-old. Therefore, sexual intercourse with an under 15, consenting or not, is punished by law. For Christian Guth, the weakness of the new legislation enforced in February 2008 lies in the absence of clear definitions. “The law currently deals with only two levels of offence: sexual intercourse or molesting. But many other levels of responsibility can be determined.” Therefore, “judges now tend to disqualify cases by not taking into account the fact that penetration occurred, which reduces the sentence to only 1 to 3 years of imprisonment”.
Patrick Stayton also considers that today’s charges against sex offenders are often “incorrect” and quotes several gaps in the new law, for instance: “Possessing child pornography is not punished by law, but it is only illegal if you intend to do something with it...”
Yet, Christian Guth says, it is not that much the law, “which is, for sure, not perfect”, that one should blame, but its enforcement. This is why he encourages the adoption of the Criminal Code in full, something that the government promised to do. According to him, police services – Christian Guth, juts like Patrick Stayton, salute the progress made by the anti-human trafficking Unit, despite the limited resources that are available -, need more training courses to adapt to the new faces of prostitution. : Things have become more complex than they were before, because networks are better-organised.”
Sex tourism, but not just...
Foreign sex offenders are the centre of media’s attention, but there are many more Asians who seek the company of minors, whether they be Cambodians, rich Chinese or South-Korean, who are very present in Siem Reap where clients can give from 1,000 dollars up for virgins, Patrick Stayton says. Westerners are indeed more easily targeted because they are more visible and a lot less protected than local clients, Chinese and Korean, from child prostitution, which is still socially tolerated in Cambodia.
Those crimes should not lead one to forget the many rapes committed on minors in Cambodia, i.e. supposedly, between 400 and 450, Christian Guth says. “I campaign for people to take more interest in the struggle against such crimes, without however neglecting sex tourism which children are sometimes the victims of, or trafficking and sexual exploitation.” The French advisor does not fool himself about the consequences of the global economic crisis which is starting to affect Cambodia and might well have a social impact on the country too: this will result in an increase in crime, drug consumption... and prostitution.
The children of prostitution
If one were to list the deep causes of this evil in Cambodia, one should quote, according to Christian Guth – a former French police officer who advises Cambodia's Interior Ministry on sexual exploitation and child trafficking – poverty, the absence of education, the weakness of the judicial and police systems, the lack, sometimes, of international cooperation or the slowness of international procedures. For Patrick Stayton, a Field Officer Director at the International Justice Mission NGO, children who end up in the prostitution milieu have, themselves of their parents, been fooled, but very often, they have been sold by their relatives.
Both experts agree on the fact that better cooperation can be observed today in Cambodia in terms of child protection, especially between the organisations involved in that struggle (three big networks have been created thanks to that) as well as with the government’s development projects.
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