Article: http://www.xtra.ca/public/Vancouver/Stop_rescuing_sex_workers_new_film_says-12628.aspx
In a country where it is becoming increasingly difficult for anyone, let alone young women, to find work, many voluntarily turn to sex work to earn a sufficient living. Ironically, Cambodian policies on anti human-trafficking are causing more harm to many sex workers than the sex they have in their work. A joint endeavor between the Women's Network for Unity and Canadian journalist Paula Stromberg illustrate this point with the aptly named documentary "Sex Workers Hurt by Rescue in Cambodia". Featuring interviews of 'rescued' workers, the documentary presents first-hand evidence of the negative impacts caused by Cambodia's overzealous anti-trafficking policy.
The influence behind the nation's dogged pursuit of justice in sex work is primarily international pressures on the entire region to basically clean up its act. While intentions are good, the boomerang effect of human rights advocacy networks in the region has negatively affected many voluntary, evidently 'well-treated' and most importantly well-paid individuals who found no better way to make a basic living.
The WNU suggests the best way to help sex workers and combat trafficking is to "decriminalize sex work and give sex workers full human and labor rights,”. I agree. The way the issue of human trafficking is framed is fine to direct international efforts against traffickers, but it ignores and even harms the significant issue of the rights and protections of voluntary sex laborers. A possible solution to this problem is to turn this issue into one as loud and international as that of trafficking. That way, efforts can be made to establish just cause for the reformation of sex work laws in ways that have proven successful elsewhere.
Monday, October 15, 2012
Thursday, October 4, 2012
Migration and the Formation of a Youth Nation
Young people, mostly women, from all over Cambodia have been
migrating into the nation's capital city of Phnom Penh in unbelievable numbers in pursuit of education and work opportunities
they can't get anywhere else in the country. Phnom Penh has the best
schools, universities, modernity and social mobility in Cambodia.. This mass
exodus can create 'detrimental chain reactions' for local villages
now suffering a shortage of able-bodied young people. One village in
particular lost 600 people in one year. In order to combat a
situation like this, government intervention is vital in redirecting
resources to rural development, which in Cambodia has been
increasingly damaged by horrible economic concessions and land-grabs.
Even Phnom Penh sees it's fair share of dislocations, particularly
around the Boeng Kak Lake area, which I had the opportunity to personally watch
shrink from a vast, beautiful lake to a few scattered puddles
evaporating in a flat basin of misery between Summer of 2010 and
Summer of 2012. However, the condition of rural Cambodia is
substantially worse. Vast swathes of land are being sold to
international investors (mostly Chinese). I've seen some of the
concession areas from helicopter, miles of ruined earth and shattered
trees bordering deliciously lush, beautiful rainforest just waiting
to be turned into shitty rubber plantations or vacation homes. I've
spoken to people being displaced by government land-grabs and sorrowed
over the utterly inadequate compensation these populations can
expect. And I've seen the impact these policies have on local
wildlife. It's not good.
I
apologize, I got off track. This is an issue that is very close to my
heart. One additional idea, back on topic, that is important to
consider is that during the Khmer Rouge, almost 30 percent of the
Cambodian population was brutally murdered. These were the doctors,
lawyers, teachers, people who wore glasses, women in positions of
power, anyone
in positions of power. They killed all the grown ups. Cambodia is now
a nation of youth, with over 70 percent of the total population under
30 years of age. So now what happens when all these young people
abandon the remaining seniors for the city. Implications too
frightening and irrelevant-to-the-topic to get into now.
Toy Factory Employees Forced To Resign, Factory Wasn't Even Operational
From what I can understand of this somewhat confusing situation is an
American-owned toy factory employing almost entirely women, was fast
approaching bankruptcy. Strikes and worker discontent had been
building for months and the factory had lost investor confidence due
to defective orders. Unfortunately the managers never told the
workers the factory was closing, and on closing day forced them to 'thumbprint resignation letters they had not written, a plan they
feared could deny them severance pay.' Backwages and some severance
was eventually paid to those who agreed to resign, but the real
problem here is the idea of resigning from a factory that isn't
operational. I don't know too much about how businesses pay employees
in the event of bankruptcy, but I'm positive it's not a simple case
of backwages, a portion of severance, and having them quit. It seems to me the factory
management was seeking some way to cut and run with the least amount
of money invested. In Cambodia it's very easy to take advantage of
workers lack of rights, especially when your employees are women in a
country where women are extremely precariously situated in terms of
labor rights and avenues of appeal.
Brad Holes, owner and CEO of the company managing the factory, you
are a bad man. These are people's lives you're trying to cheat.
Protests Staged, Garment Workers Unable to Adapt To New Management Techniques
Article:
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/index.php/2012100259029/National-news/garment-workers-go-on-strike.html
An
absolutely incredible mobilization took place on the 2nd
of October among Cambodia's worker population. More than 2000 workers
from four factories staged protests demanding better treatment. Turns
out the innovative business technique 'fainting and low wages' is not
being
well-received by the populace. Factory managers are dumbfounded by
the implication that they might be wrong. At this point, however, it
is uncertain whether these protests will achieve any tangible
benefit; Cambodia is not a country that embraces 'deviance' gracefully. However,
in early September, a mobilization of 2500 workers managed to press
sexual harassment charges on their factory manager. This is extremely
rare, though, and even in that case the compensation was not all that
impressive. The factory's company director, Mamunar Rashid insisted
the decision to cooperate with the workers was not a result of
international attention the sexual harassment claims had received.
However, with our more developed understanding of advocacy networks
and their boomerang effect, I believe this is likely a lie. This
would mean good things may come from the more recent protests if
Cambodian policy is more effectively influenced by global opinion
than it has been historically. Fortunately this issue is very much in the
international headlights, with activists all over the world staging
'faint-ins' to protest mistreatment of Cambodian garment workers.
Labor Innovation in the Global South
Cambodian factories have been
spear-heading a revolutionary new approach to business production in
which employees occasionally faint, and are subsequently rushed to a
clinic where they get to prepare for work the following day. It's caught on
so quickly that activists around the world are fainting in stores to
advocate this sort of innovation in Western business.
But how does this approach to
management function? Doesn't worker consciousness influence
production capacity? Factory managers say no, that's ridiculous.
Quite on the contrary, in fact, because allowing your workers to
faint provides them excellent opportunities for rest and
rejuvenation, a benefit workers in Western factories don't get, which
is why they're all unhappy. The biggest bonus to this Unconsciousness
Method is that you get to pay your workers a significantly cheaper
wage thanks to the ever-present option of fainting to revitalize.
Plus, you don't need to pay them when they're not conscious. Even
better, especially evidenced in garment factories, is the advantage
of hiring women; women faint much better than men and have
astoundingly nimble fingers when they're awake. Factory managers are
consistently impressed by the passion and drive shown by female
workers, particularly in their adaptation to progressive management
techniques like this one.
Crimes of the Condom Kind
According to a recent article by the
Phnom Penh Post, Cambodia's leading English-language news group,
women caught on the street by police may, in many cases, be arrested
and detained if they are in possession of condoms. The general
(mis)understanding is that because of all the brothel closures in the
last decade, sex-workers must have moved their business to the
street. Because when you think about it, what would a woman even use
a condom for except for paid sex with strangers? It just doesn't make
sense. It makes even less sense in a less sarcastic way when you
consider the government’s imposition of the 100 percent Condom
Program, an initiative dedicated to enforcing condom use nationally.
If Diane Elson is any indication, this
is male bias of the most obvious and misguided kind. The arrests are
unlikely politically inspired, and are therefore springing forth at
the level of local authority. A disturbing tangent to this is a
startling drop in condom purchases in Cambodia from 27 million in
2008 to only 17 million in 2011. Coincidence? Probably.
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