Munching on creamed scallops and tender beef stew Thursday at the Cambodiana Hotel, the four young university students chatted about a subject with which they were well-informed: Gang rape.
“They know it’s wrong, but because they’ve been drinking and they’re filled with passion, they can’t control themselves,” said one 21-year-old man, speaking of his friends.
“At a brothel you may have to pay a lot of money. This way you spend less money and can have sex two or three times, or more,” the man added.
“It’s for security,” said another young man, who admitted that he and his friends had gang-raped prostitutes several times. “A girl may cheat or steal from a boy if it’s just her and him. But not if there are several of us.”
“The girl may plead with the men [to stop], but the boys are drunk and want to have more sex,” said a 25-year-old man who also admitted to participating in several gang rapes.
The young men were subjects and researchers in a disturbing new study that indicates that gang rape is both commonplace and socially acceptable among young men in Phnom Penh.
Presented on Thursday, the report by the NGO Population Services International was designed to explore condom use by men in so-called sweetheart relationships.
The gang-rape findings, however, were discovered as part of a pattern of “unexpected and alarming information about widespread sexual violence against women,” said Barry Whittle, country director of PSI.
Part of the research involved 10 university students who were trained in interview techniques and told to interview a few friends each about their sexual habits, researchers said. The information about gang-rape—colloquially known as bauk or “plus”—came out of reports on those interviews, in which the students often included information about their own lives.
Gang rape was found to be “commonplace,” the study found. “None of the male students appeared to find anything wrong in this practice,” it states.
The assault usually involved inviting a woman back to a guest house, where four to 10 other men lay in wait. The men would have sex with the women throughout the night, sometimes without condoms.
The finding was confirmed by interviews with so-called indirect sex workers like karaoke girls, all of whom reported experiencing violence or threats of violence.
“We don’t mean to imply that all Khmer men are inconsiderate and disrespectful,” report author Gill Fletcher told an audience of health, aid and government officials Thursday. “This is just an area that needs to be explored further.”
Some of the peer researchers who attended the presentation Thursday said that the gang rapes should not be objectionable because they usually involved sex workers.
“There’s nothing wrong with it because we pay for it,” said the 25-year-old man, who said he picked up girls in front of certain restaurants and hotels or in parks. “Nowadays the girl knows that our friends are at the guest house.”
Asked if he would tell the girls, he said, “No, but she knows.”
All coercion decreases women’s ability to keep themselves safe from disease or unwanted pregnancy, said Mu Sochua, minister of women’s affairs, in a speech at the conference Thursday.
“What is most alarming is that the male youth think all this is so natural, that they can abuse, threaten or penetrate, all that is their right…. All these behaviors are actually against the law.”
Not all gang rape victims were sex workers, but women thought to be “modern,” sexually available or merely vulnerable, Fletcher said.
Reinforcing earlier studies, the study suggested that awareness of HIV risks is spurring expanded demand for sex outside of brothels, both from indirect sex workers like karaoke girls and from sweethearts.
The problem is that in both circumstances condoms are used less often because risks are perceived as lower. In sweetheart relationships, sex partners are seen as pure, virginal or trustworthy and introducing condoms would “imply infidelity” on behalf of either partner, the study reported.
But such relationships were often not as trustworthy as expected, said David Wilkinson, another report author. “Generally but not always, the woman said she felt love for the man, but the man said he would rather just run away.”
Cambodia’s decreased incidence of HIV infection has been partially credited on PSI’s success in “social marketing” of its condoms and birth control pills through flyers, posters, and advertisements. The goal of the research was to find new ways to convince sweethearts to protect themselves, Whittle said.
The NGO hopes to produce a new advertising campaign and possibly a new condom brand oriented toward sweethearts by next year, he said.
PSI is now developing a television show focusing on the sexual temptations faced by rural youth after they travel to the city, said Nop Sotheara, director of communications for PSI. The show, scheduled for airing in November and funded by the US, will focus on sweetheart relationships, he said.
