I was lucky enough to have the company of a few friends with me here in Cambodia over the last few weeks - hence the lack of blog posts. Sorry! Having some of my favourite people here to experience this city was the BEST and receiving a new stock of licorice all-sorts should sustain me for the next 6 weeks ahead.
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| Jess and Mel in town for Easter to deliver Big Books and Literacy Assessment for ISF - thanks girls |
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| Katherine and Jess visited and we escaped to Kep and Siem Reap for a holiday |
My gorgeous friend Jess was in town at the time of a seminar I was keen to get to - so she came along. It's not your typical holiday when you attend a forum with about 20 Cambodian NGO workers based on pornography...
The forum itself was set up to connect Chab Dai partners in a discussion on pornography in Cambodia and the impact it's having on the children, women and men in the services each NGO provides. Glenn Miles (the research advisor for Chab Dai) presented research that had been conducted (mostly based on research from World Vision Cambodia) in the country over the last 10 years which included the following:
Research shows that men accessing pornography that was particularly violent, demonstrated more aggressive behaviour in attacks on women and rape of children.
There is no restriction on the sale or viewing of pornography in Cambodia. It is available for purchase at news stands on every street and without age restrictions, can be purchased by children. One third of all sales take place within close proximity to a school.
And the most confronting fact about pornography in this country - it is used as an educational tool. Pedophiles and pimps purchase pornographic DVDs that depict children having sex and force children in their 'care' to watch this footage. They then tell these children that what they're watching is 'OK' and 'what all children do', normalising sex with adults. The really sad part of this is, quite often this will be the child's first instance of sex-education.
The Cambodian Ministry of Education was approached in recent years with concerns that children in school needed some form of formal sex education. This was quickly denied - as the government was concerned that any talk of sex would promote it.
Mmmm...
So now, kids are left without any formal teaching on what sex is, what safe sex is and what safe sex ISN'T.
The thought of a child taken from a rural province and brought into town, sitting frightened in an unknown room and being forced to watch explicit footage is disgusting. But knowing that having the child watch it repeatedly and being coerced into performing what they see as 'other kids do it' breaks my heart.
I don't like pornography. I don't like the images of the perfect woman and perfect man - capable of all things in bed. It's setting normal people up to fail. But I understand that I'm a woman, and it's a little different for men (or so I'm told). Discussions with my male friends at home have led me to understand that perhaps magazines including Cosmo Bride or films like The Notebook are the girl's answer to porn setting a standard that is unrealistic and absolute fantasy. The perfect wedding which we'll never be able to replicate/afford, and Ryan Gosling - the perfect man no woman will ever meet.
But these versions of 'girl's porn' aren't being used to educate vulnerable children around the world and rope them into a life of sexual slavery. Obviously it's a certain audience that would actually watch the sort of footage that includes children or violence and I'm not suggesting that pornography is THE cause of human trafficking, sexual abuse of children and violence against women BUT - it's worth noting that the industry itself has some pretty serious and dangerous links to these crimes.
For those of you interested - here's the link to Love 146, the organisation Glenn Miles is a part of who partner with Chab Dai. An amazing, international organisation committed to the abolition of child trafficking and exploitation.
By the way...for anyone else visiting in Phnom Penh - licorice allsorts are always appreciated xx
