The Dark Trade

The sex trade in Southeast Asia continues to boom, and Cambodia is at the center. A Hot Zone video appears to reveal a dark, and all too common, side of the industry.

NOTE: The Hot Zone faced a dilemma in reporting this story: how to convey the young age of sex workers in Cambodia, without identifying and potentially endangering them. To do so we have chosen to place black bars over the eyes of the young women in the following video and photo, instead of blurring out their faces. We intend to protect their identity while at the same time show first hand evidence of what appears to be underage prostitution in Cambodia. 

The commercial sex industry bustles in Cambodia's capital, Phnom Penh, with bars, restaurants and hotels often doubling as brothels. Many brothels are simply storefronts on Phnom Penh's busy streets; pimps swing open the steel doors, revealing a room with women sitting inside, waiting for clients.

On a recent night while covering Cambodia, Kevin Sites was driving the streets of Phnom Penh with his local producer and noticed one such brothel. Kevin asked his driver to stop so that he could film the scene from the car window.

Hot Zone video appears to reveal an underage girl inside a Phnom Penh brothel » View

The video appears to reveal one of the most shocking aspects of Cambodia's sex industry.

A group of women sits inside the room, as men loiter around the door. All of the girls look young, possibly underage. One of the girls sits on the lap of another, who is brushing her hair. She appears to be no more than 14 years old. On the video she is clearly agitated and looks fearful.

"I couldn't see the girls' faces clearly when I was filming them," Kevin says. "I didn't realize how young she looks until I was screening the tape later."

The Hot Zone provided a still photo from this video to advocacy groups working in the region. Unfortunately, they say this is a common scene in Cambodia.

One advocacy worker responded, "I dare say not one of the girls in the photo is of legal age ... a raid (on the brothel) could probably be arranged but it would just be for show. When raids like these do occur, the underage girls are often brought to a shelter but they generally leave within a few days and quite often end up back at the same brothel."  

Human rights groups estimate that out of as many as 100,000 prostitutes in Cambodia, one third are underage. Cambodia's grinding poverty and social structure forces many women into prostitution. While all prostitutes in Cambodia face a number of risks, children trapped in the sex trade are particularly susceptible to horrific rights abuses and disease.

A cultural belief in Cambodia that sex with a virgin can cure sickness places underage sex workers at great risk for contracting

Additionally, Southeast Asia's tourism boom has brought an increase in sexual predators traveling to Cambodia from abroad, seeking sex with minors. The Bush administration formally acknowledged the problem in 2003 as part of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, and a number of arrests of have been made since then; alleged sexual predators have been stopped at airports en route to countries such as Cambodia, the Philippines and Thailand.

Officials say the Internet has also fueled a rise in sexual exploitation in Cambodia. But the majority of business in the sex trade, along with the abuse, still comes from Cambodian clients. And as this video shows, young sex workers in Cambodia are not hard to find.

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