Despite having improved over recent decades, HIV/AIDS rates remain a particular problem for sex workers in Cambodia. On Thursday, July 9th, an event at the Pulitzer Center delved into these issues, raising many questions about how to combat the crisis–including creating common sense laws to protect women who are forced into sex work. Video journalist Steve Sapienza gave an inside look at the life that sex workers in Cambodia are living through his project “The Hidden World Of Cambodia’s Sex Workers: New Risks, New Hope.” Accompanying him were Antigone Barton, a free-lance journalist who has written extensively about the AIDS epidemic in the US and abroad, and Sebastian Kohn, program officer for law and health with the Public Health Program based in New York.
Sapienza began the conversation with some background information about the situation in Cambodia. Sex workers are often, although not always, forced into this business by sex traffickers. Kohn stated that “trafficking involves threats of abusive force.” Traffickers use these women for commercial sex acts to make a profit. Because the practice is so prevalent in Cambodia, there remains a high risk for sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV.
The first case of HIV was found in Cambodia in 1991. The disease was quickly spread through sex workers, causing the country to have the highest HIV rate in Southeast Asia. In an effort to stop the spread of HIV, troops were even sent to the brothels where sex workers saw customers. In 2003 a law passed that mandated that girls in Cambodia’s brothels had to use condoms. Although this lead to a dramatic decrease in the percentage of the population with HIV, in 2008 prostitution became completely illegal. That didn’t stop the illicit sex trade, however, as there was a 46 percent increase in prostitution after it became banned. When the government decided to close these brothels, sex workers started going to bars, clubs, and restaurants to secretly continue their business. Others also recruited clients on the street. Estimates put the amount of sex workers somewhere between 20,000-100,000. Most importantly, HIV transmission still remained a problem, although it has dropped dramatically in recent decades.
Sapienza highlighted some changes that have helped to stem the epidemic. Sapienza’s video showed a quick look at programs such as SMARTgirl, which aims to prevent and lessen the impact of HIV among “entertainment workers” living in Cambodia. SMARTgirl gives out free condoms and offers free HIV screenings, but with sex workers often constantly on the go many of them are not able to be checked regularly.
Most strikingly, the event also highlighted some shocking truths that seem to run counter to commonsense. For example, Sapienza explained that Cambodians can get arrested for carrying around condoms because it is seen as evidence that they are sex workers. Sex workers that want to be safe while working have to be very careful carrying protection or they can be taken to jail. Many of these women believe that police use this as a means to get money–essentially citizens found with condoms sometimes have to bribe police officers to avoid arrest. Inconsistent policies along those lines have made it hard to improve the HIV/AIDS rate in some cases.
When it comes to considering the dangers in sex work, it’s important to remember that for many women, it was not a choice. When an audience member asked if most of the sex workers seemed to be happy with their employment, Sapienza stated, “I don’t think any expressed joy, it [prostitution] was a fallback.” Many of the women involved in the prostitution business continue working because they feel that it is one of the only ways they can provide for their family; or because they are victims of human trafficking. Both are sad realities of the sex trade in many countries.
It’s clear that things are getting better in Cambodia for sex workers in some ways, particularly when it comes to the HIV infection rate. Yet, there is still much work to be done–particularly when it comes to ineffectual laws that punish women for trying to protect themselves from sexually transmitted diseases, regardless of whether or not they are sex workers. Programs like SMARTgirl need to continue to implemented, and advocates like Sapienza need to continue bringing up the difficult conversations.