Posted on 01/19/2005 7:28:26 PM PST by wagglebee
BATTAMBANG, Cambodia
A year ago, a pimp handed me a quivering teenage girl. Her name was Srey Neth, and she was one of the hundreds of thousands of teenagers who are enslaved by the sex trafficking industry worldwide.
Then I did something dreadfully unjournalistic: I bought her.
I purchased Srey Neth for $150 and another teenager, Srey Mom, for $203, receiving receipts from the brothel owners. As readers may remember, I then freed the girls and took them back to their villages.
Now I've come back to find out how they coped with freedom.
At first, it turns out, everything went well for Srey Neth. Our plan was for her to start a shop in her village, near Battambang. She invested $100 I had given her to build a shack and stock it with food and clothing. For a few months, business boomed.
The problem was her family. Srey Neth's parents and older brothers and sisters had a hard time understanding why they should go hungry when their sister had a store full of food. And her little nephews and nieces, running around the yard, helped themselves when she wasn't looking.
"Srey Neth got mad," her mother recalled. "She said we had to stay away, or everything would be gone. She said she had to have money to buy new things."
But in a Cambodian village, nobody listens to an uneducated teenage girl. Indeed, the low status of girls is the underlying reason why so many daughters are sold to the brothels. So by May, Srey Neth's shop was empty, and she had no money to restock it.
"It was our fault," her father told me, looking ashamed. "It was not Srey Neth's fault."
Srey Neth worried about her father, who was coughing up blood from tuberculosis. She also worried about her older brother, who could not afford to get married, and about the family debts, which could cost her family its land.
It was that kind of concern for her family that had led her, at the suggestion of a female cousin, to sell herself to the brothel in late 2003 and send the proceeds home.
This time, she thought about looking for work as a dishwasher in neighboring Thailand for $1.50 a day. A trafficker said he could smuggle her into Thailand and get her a dishwashing job, but only if she promised him $100.
Some 700,000 people are trafficked across international borders each year, and that's often how they end up in the sex industry: they assume debts and then, when they cannot quickly repay the money, gangs force them into brothels - where they are stuck until they are dying of AIDS.
Fortunately, I'd arranged for American Assistance for Cambodia (www.cambodiaschools.com), an aid group, to keep track of Srey Neth. It offered her something less risky: a move to Phnom Penh to learn to be a beautician. So, with money sent to the group by New York Times readers a year ago, Srey Neth started in the beauty school.
That's where I met her again. She was beaming, and she proudly told how she had learned to give manicures and haircuts. She placed third in her class in applying makeup, and she's even studying English. She bubbles with happiness in the way a teenager should.
"I'm happy with Srey Neth," said the beauty school's owner, Sapor Rendall. "She studies hard."
Ms. Rendall added that there was only one problem with Srey Neth: "She doesn't want to do massage. ... I've talked to her about it many times, but she's very reluctant."
Massages are routine in beauty shops in Cambodia and are not sexual, but for Srey Neth, they scream danger. I'm delighted.
Srey Neth cut my hair - I was her first paying customer - and she is excitedly talking about starting her own beauty shop so she can support her family again. She says she'll call it Nick and Bernie's, after me and Bernard Krisher, the chairman of American Assistance for Cambodia.
Today Srey Neth steers clear of the boys trying to flirt with her - she's still deeply distrustful of boys and men - but she has learned to laugh again. She is a happy, giggly, self-confident reminder that we should never give up on the slaves of the 21st century. I couldn't be more proud of her.
That's the good news. In my column on Saturday, I'll tell you about Srey Mom.
Do not defend Western sex tourists.
Not defending prostitution. Disagreeing with you is NOT defending prostitution.
It is happening right here in New York City.
No one has. Pointing out the real facts is not the same as defending the Western sex tourists. They are scum as far as I am concerned. But exaggerating their numbers is just useless.
Writing that sex tourists are engaging in a "perfectly legal activity" is defending prostitution.
Your fight is with President Bush, his wife Laura, his Cabinet, and me.
the cost of a house and half the his savings so she can go away and start over. (/womens lib impression)
Not at all. It was said in response to your boneheaded declaration that death was the proper response for those banging hookers.
Your critical skills are deficient.
The others have not exaggerated the numbers and tried to make it appear as though this "business" exists only because of the Westerners. That is FALSE. It has existed for hundreds, if not thousands, of years before the Westerner even set foot in these countries.
This is a problem caused by the social systems of these countries not by Westerners. Those participating in it certainly are not helping but unless you understand the dynamics of it you cannot understand or counter it.
But you seem determined NOT to understand it.
It does not matter what it was in response to.
It revealed his, and apparently your, view that while it may be sin to some, this prostitution is a completely legal activity. The President knows it is slavery and is going to fight to stop both it and the slavers.
Your spiritual skills are deficient.
BTW, what "beautiful women" do you profess to love ?
Do you know how to click on a link and read ?
When were you there ?
Nice story. Kind of reminds me of the movie "Pay It Forward".
Makes you wonder what they think of Oscar Schindler and his beautiful, successful efforts to free many of the condemned.
I daresay that the married men who frequent these places expect their wives to remain faithful.
So, I take it that you don't see Asian sex slavery as an issue at all, and these sex tours that are advertised on the internet are just make believe.
You are apparently the World's Champion at Jumping to Unwarranted Conclusions.
Commenting on the legality of something in another country to your twisted mentality is APPROVING of it? What a joke.
I am a bigger supporter of the President than you I would wager.
What is a spiritual "skill"? LoL.
What is your concern about my love life? Looking for tips?
Talk about dense! How did you ever come to the conclusion I am unaware of the sexual exploitation of children? What deluded meandering of your mind led to that absurdity?
Do you just post stuff at random and hope it is applicable to the discussion? Throw darts at a board and post whatever article it hits?
Well sorry try again since your links have no bearing on anything I have been discussing.
What does having been there have to do with anything?
Are you completely unaware of the FACT that sexual slavery and exploitation have been a major custom in Asia FOR MILLENIA? Long before the Roung Eyes arrived. Has this escaped your attention? Is your historical knowledge THAT deficient?
decent feller
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.