Posted on 01/19/2005 7:28:26 PM PST by wagglebee
Wow.
Wow, that's terrific. One girl with a *legitimate* marketable skill and a reasonable future may not seem like much, but God values every person immeasurably, and will reward Mr. Kristof for his kindness.
Yep, it's a very powerful story.
Good for Kristof. This is the way that the truly good things are done in Cambodia.
And good luck to Srey Neth. It's very easy for these girls to get sucked back into the abyss.
It seems to me that there are some cultural issues at play that lead girls into that situation.
now if only all (or most) male western tourists to SEA would
cultivate this attitude and behavior . we owe it to these long suffering people to help them and not try to take advantage of them.
Here's another related story that Kristof had the other day
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1321527/posts
It's called slavery.
It's a lot.
Getting even one of these girls out of the brothels, and then affording her a skill, also means that her family might have other options. Maybe she'll pay for her brother to go to school, maybe pay for Mom's cataract operation. Maybe both. For certain she'll warn other girls not to be taken by the traffickers and their lies.
I saw that article. It's horrible. And the sexual abuse of girls and boys by Moslems in Africa and Arabia is horrible. And there's not much I can do about it except pray. Very frustrating!
That's a cheering line of reasoning. Thanks!
I would be looking at Europeans as the biggest customers for the sex trade in that region. Southeast Asia seems to be the biggest tourist destination of Europeans.
The sex trade wouldn't exist if there weren't any consumers.
I'm just happy to see that a liberal like Kristof actually DOES SOMETHING about these tragedies, most of the others just go and take pictures and try to make us feel guilty for it.
It reminds us that all liberals aren't evil. Some are just ... deluded, or something. But this man obviously has good instincts, and perseverance. And a girl owes him her chance in life.
It's a terrific story. I hope the next installment isn't a tragedy!
Looks like Kristoff took Sam Kinneson's advice about poor people being filmed for the Sallie Struthers special, "Why doesn't the cameraman feed them?" It was a very noble effort, but it shows what do gooders are up against trying to solve these horrible situations. The law of unintended consequences set in when they staked her in a business and it was a failure. Then they retrained her and seem to have succeeded. What this really shows is that the only way to eraidicate this barbarism is through implementing capitalism. When investment is freed up and the market is allowed to function, things like this stop happening. Thailand had many similar forms of white slavery, but since it became more developed these practices stopped. Now they import these people from Cambodia.
Just send Kofi some more money. He'll fix it.
cripplecreek: I would be looking at Europeans as the biggest customers for the sex trade in that region.
Wrong and wrong.
The biggest brothel customers in Cambodia are Cambodians; in Thailand, Thais; in Macau, Chinese; and in Vietnam, Vietnamese.
In Cambodia, at least, Westerners are the only people taking really effective action aginst the traffickers. And note that Nick Kristof needed an onsite American NGO to do followup on Srey Neth.
Yes, Westerners avail themselves of the brothels, but not in the percentages that the Western media likes you to believe.
That is because all the sex tourists were in Phuket. Don't you read FR? LOL!
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