"Fear and worry about the debts made me ill," Rotana says. Often, they are former trafficking victims or sex workers themselves. "She said she felt sorry for me and promised me big money if I sold Keo's virginity." The virgin trade recruits local women to lure girls because they can befriend mothers easily. A female neighbor working as a broker, or middlewoman, approached Rotana. His creditors threatened violence when I couldn't pay," Rotana says. "He died a few years ago, leaving gambling debts. (Keo is the youngest.) Her husband drank and played cards. Three of her children died from fever, and she earned as little as $1 a day as a trash recycler to support the remaining three. She was unable to marry earlier because romantic relationships and family life were banned under the bloody communist regime of the Khmer Rouge, during which an estimated 2 million people died in the 1970s. Rotana married relatively late, in her 30s, and had six children. Uy sold her daughter\'s virginity when she was 18.' 'Vannith Uy, 41, holds a photo of herself (right) and her daugther, Chamnan Sok. Quiet-spoken Rotana, 62, says the decision to sell her daughter's virginity was a "last resort." Outside, babies wail and hammers bang, and the walls shake as people traverse the slum's rickety pathways. Keo and Rotana tell their story inside the tiny room on stilts they rent for $10 a month. If you drop cloth, the stain never comes out." As a result, it is often hard for girls to marry or get regular jobs if they admit what happened to them. "If you drop gold in the dirt, it washes clean and still shines. "There's a national saying that men are like gold and women are like cloth," says Tong Soprach, who does independent research on Cambodia's youth for nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and government bodies. SHE HAD DONE SOMETHING UNSPEAKABLE: SHE HAD SOLD HER DAUGHTER's VIRGINITY TO A RICH, POWERFUL MAN.įemale chastity in Cambodia is enshrined in a code of obedience known as Chbab Srey ("Women's Law"), and the girls suffer unjust shame. "Everyone knows, but nobody talks about it." Keo says that here, almost every teenage girl is sold for her virginity at some point. Home to more then 1,000 people, the Phnom Penh riverside slum where I meet Keo and her mother is a splintering jumble of wooden shacks alongside rancid water. "The men know they can get away with it." "They travel here on business and have everything prearranged by brokers: a five-star hotel, a few rounds of golf, and a night or two with a virgin," says Eric Meldrum, a former police detective from the United Kingdom who now works as an anti-exploitation consultant in Phnom Penh. In addition to rich locals, men from neighboring countries such as China, Singapore, and Vietnam are regular customers in Cambodia. The North Korean regime allegedly keeps elite troops of virgins ages 14 to 20 known as "satisfaction teams," who are forced to provide sex to senior party officials. People's Republic of China founder Chairman Mao had a well-documented love of virgins. The belief that sex with virgins can prolong lifespan, originally from Taoist thought, has long been popular with Asian leaders. 'Worldwide an estimated 4.5 million people are trafficked for sex or forced into prostitution, 98 percent of whom are woman and girls.'
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