The New York Times
November 12, 2011
By NICHOLAS KRISTOF
My Sunday column returns to a regular theme — human trafficking — and recounts a raid on a brothel in northern Cambodia with one of my heroes, Somaly Mam. The youngest girl in the brothel had been trafficked from Vietnam a few months ago when she was in the seventh grade, meaning that she was born in 1999. That makes her about 12 years old.
Her youth made her very popular in the brothel. There were sometimes lines of men waiting to have sex with her, and she could have 20 customers a night. Of course, she didn’t get a penny of that income.
There’s a tendency in some quarters to be non-judgmental about trafficking and even to criticize the raids on these brothels as traumatic to the girls involved. Well, it strikes me as pretty traumatic for a 12-year-old girl to be raped 20 times a night, seven days a week — not including the tortures that pimps worldwide use to break a girl’s spirit. This trafficking, in other words, has nothing to do with consenting adults and everything to do with rape and child abuse. Figuring what to do with adult prostitution is a tough challenge (I favor experimenting with the Swedish model), but cracking down on human trafficking should be a no-brainer.
There’s a tendency in some quarters to be non-judgmental about trafficking and even to criticize the raids on these brothels as traumatic to the girls involved. Well, it strikes me as pretty traumatic for a 12-year-old girl to be raped 20 times a night, seven days a week — not including the tortures that pimps worldwide use to break a girl’s spirit. This trafficking, in other words, has nothing to do with consenting adults and everything to do with rape and child abuse. Figuring what to do with adult prostitution is a tough challenge (I favor experimenting with the Swedish model), but cracking down on human trafficking should be a no-brainer.
2 comments:
it break my heart to see this happening. so sad..
Ok, what is the reaction of the Vietnamese authority? Nothing right?.
The girl is a 12 years old Vietnamese brought in from south Vietnam by Khmen/Viet trafickers who made a lot of moneys. With the tender look of a white skin 12 years of age girl, I can assure you that Khmen guys are willing to die in illegal cutting trees in Thailand to get the money to visit this youngster! So sad in deed. This is the reason we Thais hate Communist regimes.
Thai girls involved in sex with style and security to say the least!
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