Abigail Haworth, in The Guardian, draws attention to a devastatingly sad but very real state of affairs in Cambodia - the trade in virgins. Work that seeks to simplify the issue, even if it is does bring in donor money, as demonstrated by the recent Somaly Mam story, fails to provide long term solutions, because it fails to tackle underlying causes. In a society in which poverty and destitution is high (three quarters of the population live on the poverty line), especially among women (who earn 27 cents for every dollar earned by a man, despite often doing equal or more amounts of work), rule of law is weak, corruption is rife especially among powerful men and where culture and attitudes dictate that children exist for their parents' benefit, women exist for men's benefit and sex with a virgin increase male vigour and gives them magical powers to ward off illness, there are many interwoven social, economic and cultural factors that play into the situation and progress is slow. But let's keep making sure there is some.
|
AuthorArchives
July 2014
Categories |