Sex Work.
Long read:
Criminals or victims? Cambodia’s sex workers suffer under legal limbo
In a country rife with anti-trafficking efforts, the Cambodian government’s failure to clearly define and distinguish between prostitution and trafficking creates loose standards for police and NGOs targeting sex workers, worsening exploitation in unsafe working conditions
Kiana Duncan
April 2, 2021

The women are working for free tonight, managing a small Phnom Penh bar set up like a cooler with a backroom.

It’s a good deal all-around. The bar’s owner earns profits off the drinks, a cut of which goes as commission to the young women giggling and teasing each other on the red plastic seats at the hole-in-the-wall pub in the city’s Golden Sorya Mall near the riverside. Besides their cut of the beverage sales, there’s more lucrative work to be done with the clientele – some of whom can become boyfriends, as long as they come with enough charm and cash.

On a recent weeknight, a few men stopped by, some of whom wandered with the girls to an unseen upstairs. Otherwise, the mall was quiet, most of its businesses closed thanks to Cambodia’s rising Covid-19 outbreak.

“Better to be here than at home bored,” notes the head hostess, introduced by her friends and co-workers as the “lady boss”. Nowadays, some regulars don’t want to come by the bar anymore. In that case, she explained, the women can make a house call.

Most outsiders would consider the side-lines at bars like this to be sex work, but the group doesn’t see it that way – to them, it’s more like entertaining or picking up a boyfriend. While they don’t focus too much on the legalese of their job, lawmakers and non-governmental organisations fill in the blanks.

Illegal on paper, yet common in reality, prostitution is one of Cambodia’s best-established but not formally recognised industries. Vague laws that conflate sex work and trafficking leaves those voluntarily in the industry defined as anything from criminals to victims, as they’re subject to police harassment, raids, and forceful assumptions about why they’re there.

Despite its prevalence, sex work is often so taboo that authorities, sex workers, and non-governmental organisations struggle to even discuss it in the same terms.

“A lot of local authorities still do not know what [sex work should be] called – human trafficking, sexual exploitation, sex work, prostitution, soliciting, or procuring prostitution,” said Eng Chandy, the advocacy and networking programme manager at the Gender and Development Center (GADC), which advocates for gender sensitive projects, national laws and policies in Cambodia.

“But, in all cases, police would fine or collect individual sex workers’ money or bring them to education centre.”

The life of a sex worker operates in a legal grey area in Cambodia, making it all the more difficult for people like Sok Linda, who has worked in the sex industry for eight years and is also an Organising Officer for the Women’s Network for Unity (WNU), an advocacy group for sex workers in Cambodia founded in 2002.

‘Freelance’ sex workers, or those who work on the street, face the brunt of arrests, bribes, and violence. But despite Linda’s less tenuous job at a KTV, or a karaoke parlour, she still says sex workers are treated like criminals.

“The implementation of the law has arrested sex workers more than traffickers,” Linda said, who believes security and police alike take advantage of it.
Full article: https://southeastasiaglobe.com/cambodias-sex-workers/

Neither.
It is, what it is.

-not Cambodia, but China:
Ching Shih did quite well for herself, two hundred years ago, commanding a fleet of pirate ships:

https://www.thoughtco.com/zheng-shi-pir ... ina-195617

They should be neither criminals nor victims, and it's a shame that they (often) are!

Golden Sorya Mall is nowhere near the riverside.

snoink wrote: ↑Thu Apr 08, 2021 2:22 am Neither.
It is, what it is.

Yeah I thought the headline sounded like a facile question at first, but if you actually read the article it's in reference to the often arbitrary nature of the way they're treated by the authorities:

Vague laws that conflate sex work and trafficking leaves those voluntarily in the industry defined as anything from criminals to victims

~authorities still do not know what [sex work should be] called – human trafficking, sexual exploitation, sex work, prostitution, soliciting, or procuring prostitution

It's not meant to be a discussion on the philosophical nature of prostitution, it's reporting on how the government is handling it.

They use the same law that they use to lock up opposition members. I forget what its called but something like "disturbing society". The courts have been corrupted by the government so they can arrest anyone they want with this law. Big tit ladies that post on Facebook for example.

Ideally, i am 100% for legalising sex work. i've done one job myself. (but that's another hilarious story)

On the plus side tho', in the way Cambodia handles it,
If it was fully legalised it would get as out of control as Thailand where they have institutionalised prostituting the daughters of he poor as a nation industry.
At least in Cambodia the work is available but the situation is not out of control.

but yeah, a tricky one

Sex Workers Still Victims of Abuse and Discrimination
29 December 2021 11:23 AM
Sovann Sreypich
Despite continued efforts from government and NGOs sex and entertainment workers in Cambodia remain at high risk of violence and face discrimination in many forms, women from the industry told CamboJA this month.

At an event marking the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Sex Workers, held in Phnom Penh on December 17, Chhim Sophal, who works as a project officer for Association for Vulnerable Support Women said that police are part of the problem.

When they learn women facing violence or discrimination are sex workers, they don’t take their complaints seriously and in fact often arrest the women, taking them to jail where they are humiliated and their heads are shaved.

“Sex workers are also our neighbors,” she said, adding that authorities and commuity members need to learn they are not to be discriminated against but rather helped.

Ms. Sophal said there have been numerous recent cases of vulnerable women being abused and of clients refusing to wear condoms. Her organization is launching a campaign to raise awareness of such problems in ten areas in Phnom Penh.

You Manang, 55, has been working as a sex worker since the UNTAC era and says she has encountered many forms of discrimination – from mockery to shocking violence.

“I’ve been beaten, gang-raped, robbed and abused. Thinking about it sometimes I want to die, but I think of my children,” she said.

You Manang said no-one wants a job like hers, but she had to do it because her husband was a gambler and a drunk and hit her. With seven children to support, she started waitressing at a bar.

“I escaped from my husband because he mistreated me and I raised seven children alone. I have no choice… I have to accept the harassment in order to send my kids to school,” she said, breaking down in tears.

“I am a sex worker, but I am also a human, not an animal,” she said. “When we have a problem, we go to the police and they do not want to solve it for us. They still use the word ‘prostitute’ and say we’re polluters of society.”
In full: https://cambojanews.com/sex-workers-sti ... imination/