July 21, 2008
Last weekend, I traveled to Sihanoukville. A few of my fellow interns and I took a four hour bus ride to the southern coast of Cambodia. Sihanoukville is very well known by tourists for its beautiful beaches and excellent seafood. I anticipated a relaxing time on the beach. Although I did have an enjoyable time overall, a number of events occurred that continue to trouble me as I write this.
I have become accustomed to seeing children working everywhere. I often see them cleaning tables at restaurants or selling books on the street. In Sihanoukville, girls and boys walk around to the tourists in beach chairs, offering to make them custom jewelry out of string or lanyard. A few girls came to talk to me and the other interns, and offered to make us “friendship bracelets” for free. I was skeptical, since nothing is really free, and I gave the girl who made mine a dollar. They eventually left after we told them we were not interested in buying anything. Later, the other interns changed their minds and purchased jewelry from different girls.
However, this was the wrong move. The girls who had made friendship bracelets somehow found out we purchased from other kids and confronted us that evening! As we ate dinner, six or seven girls surrounded us and asked us why we would give money to other kids, after they had made us friendship bracelets first! They stood there for about a half hour, attempting to get us to buy something from them by making us feel guilty. Since I had given my girl a dollar, she did not bother me. However, it was quite odd to feel so intimidated by this gang of eight or nine year old girls. It was also disturbing to think about where the money was going. Was I naïve to think it was going towards their education, as they told me? Was the money feeding their family? Or did they simply pass off the money to an adult who was just using them?
I was also deeply disturbed by the child prostitution I noticed there. At night, we would see white men casually walking by, holding hands with girls who looked extremely young. I would not be surprised if some of these girls were twelve or thirteen. Many of the girls were clearly intoxicated, struggling to walk without falling down. It was disgusting to see these fifty and sixty year old men cavorting and flirting with these girls as if there was nothing wrong with what they were doing. I have a serious problem with anyone who would travel thousands of miles to live out the disgusting fantasy they have in their heads.
Essentially, it is about power and Orientalism. These men have ideas of docile, Asian women and children being submissive to their demands. They do not think of the woman they are violating as an individual, someone’s child, someone’s mother, someone’s sister, someone with a personality and dreams and ideas. It is absolutely appalling to know that this is going on across the world. However, it goes even further when you see it happening right in front of you and you are entirely helpless. Should I call a hotline and be satisfied when they tell me that they know about the problem and they are working on it? Am I supposed to confront one man and tell him he is disgusting, while thousands of other men are doing the same thing? Do I help the girl, who has probably been raped so many times since she was five that she cannot imagine any other life? How can I do anything?
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