Today I asked an acquaintance from Cambodia if she and her husband see much human trafficking there. I expected her to say yes, but I wasn’t prepared for the details she provided.
She said that Cambodia has “a culture of prostitution.” Wives are expected to produce children, but for “fun sex” men go to brothels. In fact, if a wife knows “fun sex,” she is thought to be bad. Men often take their sons to a brothel for their first sexual experience. College-aged guys get together to see a violent porn movie and then act out what they’ve seen. If no brothel is handy, they might go and find someone to gang-rape as a male bonding kind of thing. My acquaintance said that even some pastors who have not had much biblical training think that prostitution is OK. That’s how accepted it is. Then there are the foreigners—from Thailand, Korea, Australia and the United States—who come looking for cheap sex, often with young girls.
Can you imagine what Cambodian girls are up against in a culture like that? Huge numbers of girls, often the poorest of the poor, are forced into prostitution within the country or are trafficked across borders to be sex slaves in other countries.
Lord, have mercy, and help us to rescue them.
The victimizers themselves are also destroyed. My acquaintance told me of a high-ranking police officer from California who came to Cambodia for a sex vacation but was caught and arrested. He committed suicide in jail. As much as traffickers and brothel owners try to convince men that this kind of lifestyle is normal and acceptable, the guilt and shame remain, and deep down, people recognize the lie. But some recognize it too late.
Lord, have mercy, and help us to rescue them.
Our culture is not much better, I think. Our laws may protect the vast majority from such horrendous acts, but people’s hearts are just as dark. We’re all sinners. Lord, have mercy. Come and rescue us.
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