Pierre Legros is not a fun man to talk to. His view of Cambodia’s dark side—a slave society where anyone can be bought and sold—is sobering. But his view comes from his experience over the last six years rescuing and reintegrating prostitutes in Cambodia who have either been tricked or sold into sexual slavery.
In the time he has been in Cambodia, the number of women and children trafficked from Cambodia to work in prostitution or begging rings has continued to rise, Legros said in a recent interview at the Tuol Kork district office of Afesip, an NGO whose French acronym means the Agency for Women in Precarious Situations.
“Sure there has been a big increase since…1995,” Legros said. “If you want to buy girls, it’s easy.
“Everything can be bought and sold.”
About 60 percent of prostitutes in brothels are there against their will, according to the Cambodian Women’s Crisis Center.
From electric fences to forced drug ingestion, brothel owners and the thugs they employ as supervisors keep trafficked sex workers under strict controls, forcing them to work all hours and serve as many as 15 clients a day, sex workers said in interviews.
Afesip case studies highlight some of the devastating problems suffered by girls who are trafficked to brothels.
Victims are given electric shocks or forced to eat handfuls of raw chilies if they do not obey their owner. If they try to run, they are hunted down and returned by thugs or police, prostitutes and rights workers say.
The problem is compounded by the increased participation of organized crime syndicates in trafficking from Eastern Europe and Asia, Legros said, calling it a “worldwide problem.”
The International Organization of Migration is increasing its operations in the region, expanding programs for reintegration and education.
But a weak judicial system that fails to punish traffickers and continued ignorance in rural areas about the realities of trafficking are hampering efforts to curb the practice, according to the IOM.
Organized trafficking gangs in Thailand also hamper the reintegration of trafficking victims, said Jette Bjerre Kjertum, a program manager for the IOM in Phnom Penh.
Kjertum described a virtual race to get to women and children deported from Thailand. Traffickers are organized, well informed and ready to snatch up victims in the border area before agencies can get to them, she said.
The NGO Krousar Thmey works at a Poipet reception center with the help of the IOM. Prum Thary, the director, said it is difficult for his organization to keep up with wily traffickers, who used to lure people by promising good jobs in Phnom Penh or other urban centers.
But even that has changed, Prum Thary said. “Now they play the role of the NGO worker,” he said. Sometimes, Krousar Thmey workers are threatened by traffickers and are forced into hiding, he said.
Traffickers and brothel owners don’t necessarily have to be organized, however, Legros said. Anybody with a few thousand dollars and the will to take someone can become a trafficker in a lucrative business that could net tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, he said. A kidnapped woman “can start making money in 10 hours.”
What’s more, forced drug addiction is becoming a more viable way to keep trafficked victims compliant. From brothels to nightclubs, prostitutes are reporting more and more drug use, with heavy drugs like opium and heroin playing a factor in the trafficking in Poipet.
And sex workers addicted to drugs are virtually impossible to rehabilitate, he said. “Drugs and prostitutes?” he said. “Forget it.”
