Crusader takes on criminals to 'rescue' sex workers

By Marwaan Macan-Markar
December 17, 2004

Bangkok - For the past eight years, Pierre Legros refused to be cowed by the death threats that often followed his mission - helping to free girls and women trapped in Cambodia's sex industry. But now, the Frenchman has a reason to pause.

The 39-year-old Legros says he is up against the might of an organised criminal network that has spread its tentacles in that Southeast Asian nation. In particular, he asserts, it's the "Malaysian-Chinese mafia."

His fear was demonstrated Tuesday, when he appeared in Bangkok to speak out against an unprecedented attack last week on a shelter in Phnom Penh that provided protection for girls and women who had previously worked in brothels and massage parlours.

The estimated 30 armed gunmen who stormed the shelter around noon on Dec. 8 had abducted or forced on to the street the 91 sex workers who were within the building. Eighty-three of the girls and women had barely spent a full day at the shelter run by the non-governmental organisation Acting for Women in Distressing Circumstances, or AFESIP as it is known by its French acronym.

The afternoon before, the 83 women had been "rescued" during a raid on a notorious hotel in the Cambodian capital led by officials from the Anti-Human Trafficking and Juvenile Protection Department and assisted by AFESIP.

The "rescued" women were among nearly 200 karaoke and massage girls that offer sex at the Chai Hour Two hotel, said Aarti Kapoor, legal advisor for AFESIP.

"Up to half looked under 18 years, but that is not based on scientific evidence," she told the media.

This hotel, which has six floors and 25 karaoke rooms, is known for more than the sex on offer to male clients who pay between 10 to 50 U.S. dollars per night for a girl.

"The selling of virgins has been identified as one of the hotel's main features," said Kapoor. "One 17 year-old girl said she had sold her virginity there."

The death threats came soon after, said Legros, international director of AFESIP, a Spanish-funded organisation. "We have received lots of death threats," he said here Tuesday. "If I speak (about the attack on the shelter) in Phnom Penh, I'm not sure if I can live long. My family has eight bodyguards."

"Organised crime is applying pressure on the (Cambodian) government and the police not to go further with the investigation (about the attack)," he asserted, adding that the police had warned AFESIP against initiating more raids on brothels.

"The police said if we go ahead we will be dead," revealed Legros.

Phnom Penh's reluctance to aid Legros is conveyed in a statement issued by the Ministry of the Interior. For one, Cambodian officials deny that the AFESIP shelter was attacked from outside.

What happened, the ministry states, was that "there were reactions from (the 83) women and their families, husbands, relatives and parents for them to return home, subsequently resulting (in a) commotion and the breaking of the gate for their escape."

The ministry added, furthermore, that "there was no abduction of those women by armed assailants."

But such a swift denunciation by Phnom Penh may prove counterproductive in the wake of condemnation flowing from the U..S. government and the European Union about the attack on the shelter.

It also undermines the commitment made by Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen during last week's meeting of international donors to curb corruption and follow the rule of law.

The Hun Sen administration pledged to pass new laws to strengthen the legal framework and ensure justice prevails in exchange for the 504 million U.S. dollars that donors agreed to pump into that battle-scarred country's development programmes in 2005..

"The international pressure is high on Cambodia to secure justice in this case," Amalee McCoy, regional officer for East Asia and the Pacific at the global rights lobby End Child Prostitution and Trafficking (ECPAT).

"If Cambodia doesn't (do it), organised criminal gangs will feel the risks are minimum in this region," she told IPS.

What also weighs against Phnom Penh is the unprecedented nature of such an attack on a shelter. According to child rights activists, there is no parallel in countries that make up the Mekong River region.

It has, consequently, brought attention to a troubling side of this poverty-striken country - the rampant spread of child prostitution. "Cambodia has the worst record for seekers of virgin girls in the Greater Mekong Sub-region," said McCoy.

Evidence of that prevails in the karaoke bars, nightclubs and brothels in urban centres like Phnom Penh and tourist destinations like Siam Reap. Surveys conducted by the United Nation's Children's Fund (UNICEF) reveal that over a third of Cambodia's estimated 75,000 prostitutes are below 16 years.

Since it began work in 1996, AFESIP has rescued over 3,000 girls and women from Cambodia's sex industry. "Till we were forced to close the shelter in Phnom Penh last week, we had five refuges in the country," Kapoor said in an interview. "We had 200 girls and women at any one time in those shelters."

And the numbers rescued during these past raids were never as high as 83 in a single effort. Nor were the threats as severe as this month's, revealed Legros. "We are used to (receiving) death threats for raiding brothels, like phone calls from the pimps. My wife had a gun pointed to her head twice."

But as he admitted Tuesday, Legros intends to carry on with his work and fill AFESIP's shelters with child victims because there are at least 20 hotels in Cambodia where "you can find 100 to 200 girls available for sex."

What empowers his organisation is the new climate shaped by increased international awareness towards girls and women trafficked into the sex industry and the commitments made by the Cambodian government to fight such abuse, he told IPS.

Yet he acknowledges the main obstacle in the way of success. "If we want to fight against the commercial sexual exploitation of children we need to fight organised crime." - Inter Press Service

Comment on this story, click here.

Copyright 1999-2004, Asian Sex Gazette.  All rights reserved.  No content may be reproduced in whole or part without written permission.  Please contact us via the link below for re-print and syndication policies.

In denial of a human trafficking problem
12-15-2004

Thailand to seek int'l cooperation against internet pornography
12-15-2004

US urges Cambodia to support police action on human trafficking
12-15-2004

Vietnam cracks down on sex trade, targets under-18s
12-14-2004