Despite Profits, Beer Companies Do Not Provide Living Wage For Cambodian Promoters

• July, 2011 strike against Cambrew/Angkor Beer. Photograph courtesy of Cambodia Food and Service Workers' Federation.

by Michelle Tolson
The WIP
-Cambodia-

Entertainment venues are very popular in Cambodia. They are well supplied with beer and young women to serve it. Karaoke clubs and beer gardens are frequented by Khmer men who expect women to sit and drink with them. This can result in beer sellers drinking an average of five drinks a night according to independent researcher Ian Lubek. All this occurs despite assurances from beer companies that beer sellers are not expected to drink on the job.

NGOs and other organizations have done much research on women working in entertainment venues in Cambodia and the range of workplace issues that result from women working for low pay in an environment with heavy alcohol use. Sex work, for example, often becomes a parallel world for beer promoters. To meet their financial obligations, about half of these women perform sex work at a rate of about 25 USD per night according to Lubek. According to the 2011 International Labor Organization (ILO) report, the number of women crossing into sex work is actually much higher - a phenomenon attributed to client expectations coupled with low salaries in entertainment work. See more pictures and read the rest of the article at The WIP.