Review Paper: Global Issue -- Perpetuation of Child Trafficking in Cambodia

To many Americans, the idea of human trafficking seems like a distant woe of the past. However, in other countries it is an all too real problem, and unfortunately Americans are sometimes involved in the perpetuation of the industry.

It’s a sad but true fact that most people are aware that men overseas in the armed forces tend to have their way with local women after being cooped up in ships for sometimes months at a time. Many of these men turn to prostitutes in foreign countries. But where do these prostitutes come from? In Cambodia, chances are they were a result of child trafficking.

Prostitution has become intermingled in urban life in Cambodia. It is estimated that 35% of prostitutes in Cambodia are under the age of 18, and to make matters worse, but not unpredictably so, it has been shown that the number of prostitutes rise when a large army or armed forces is stationed in the country. Unlike the Philippines and Sri Lanka which are known for the market of young boys, in Cambodia the predominant child trafficking is with young girls between the age of 12 and 17, which is not to say they weren’t introduced to the industry earlier in their lifetime either.

However, it is not just the foreign ‘tourists’ that are to blame. There have been laws and movements to attempt to lessen trafficking in Cambodia, however, most of failed due to the fact that there are many corrupt officials who they themselves are involved in the trafficking scene.

So how does this relate to sociology? Well, much like how Americans view Hawai’i as an exotic location, where what happens there stays there, many people have that same attitude when entering foreign countries. They enter like this dream state, where nothing they do holds consequence – including purchasing the services of a prostitute that appears to be underage. No doubt to some service men, the act of spending the night with foreign prostitute is eased by the fact that she is just that – foreign and not of his ingroup or what is familiar to him. He can see her as an outsider and thus feel more superior and not feel the guilt he would undoubtedly feel if she was of the same race and majority group as him.

There is also acceptance. The foreigners to Cambodia accept that they can have this privileged of service and the industry and many major players the Cambodian economy accept that foreigners want to buy their people’s sexual services and use this in their economic competition. This idea of acceptance by both the majority group and minority group play a role in the perpetuation of the industry.

Now, Cambodia has earned the modern day stereotype as an escape destination (along with the Philippines and Sri Lanka) for pedophiles. These countries have that have had large occupations of armed forces, and still continue to have forces to this day, have made an economical acceptance that if this is what the majority group foreigners want, this is what they’ll get.

When people mention prostitution in the United States, we scrunch our nose and think it is unthinkable. When we mention that men over seas were ‘having a good time’ or ‘he couldn’t keep it in his pants’, we don’t think much of it: it has become a social norm – that is just men being men. Domestically we rally for the rights of minorities but when it comes to issues to other countries that our people help perpetuate, we still think of it as not our problem. It can’t be helped after all, right? Best not tackle things out of our control since that’s the way it’s always been, even if what we preach nowadays contradicts it.