In Oakland, a center works to protect Cambodian girls from sexual exploitation

The San Francisco chronicle
December 14, 2011

A group of teenage girls gather at Oakland's Center for Empowering Refugees and Immigrants (CERI) every Friday night.

On a Friday night in December, ten girls between the ages of 11 and 20 gathered in a warmly lit, living room-esque space at Oakland’s Center for Empowering Refugees and Immigrants (CERI) on International Boulevard. They sprawled throughout the room on couches, chairs, and pillows, silently watching Very Young Girls, a 2007 documentary about girls in New York City who were coerced by pimps into working as prostitutes.

CERI is a non-profit organization that provides mental health and social services to refugee and immigrant families, mostly Cambodians. All of these girls’ parents are Cambodian refugees, and they all live in high crime neighborhoods in the East Bay. Many of them know other girls—friends, former classmates—who have become involved in “the life,” a term for the underground world of prostitution.

“The Cambodian youth in Oakland is at risk,” said Mona Afary, the executive and clinical director of CERI, who facilitates, among other programs, a support group for young girls. This particular group started its work in July, 2011, through a contract with the Alameda County Behavioral Healthcare Services with the funding from Proposition 63, the Mental Health Services Act.

Sgt. Holly Joshi of the Oakland Police Department’s vice and child exploitation unit said that her unit sees an average of 100 commercially sexually exploited minors each year. Underage girls make up ten to 20 percent of all prostitution arrests in Oakland, she said, but added that it’s hard to calculate the numbers of minors involved with sex trafficking because unless a girl or a pimp is caught, the crime goes unreported. With fewer officers and resources, the OPD has not had the capabilities of organizing stings to the extent they once did. Also, in this economic climate, Joshi pointed out, men might decide that pimping is more financially lucrative than selling drugs.

While it’s hard to find numbers regarding the ethnic breakdown for young girls who are being sexually exploited, Afary worries that this issue disproportionately affects Asian girls because some people perceive them to be “exotic.” She is also concerned that Cambodians in Oakland often live in high-crime, low-income areas where pimps are most likely prey on young girls.

Read the rest of the story by Mariel Waloff at Oakland North.

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