13 Jul, 2014
Poverty and abuse in Cambodia’s ‘virginity trade’ – The Independent
Danet* is fourteen, and lives in a house built on wooden stilts, with no walls, and only tarpaulin for shelter. There are eleven of them who live in the family home, next to a mosquito-infested pond in a poor, rural community in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. She loves to read fairy tales but she frowns a lot and her eyes have a haunted gaze.
At the age of ten, she was locked in a guesthouse bedroom for days, at the mercy of a British paedophile. Her mother sold her for a week for $750.
Her virginity was part of the allure, but surely that is irrelevant. This was a child sold by her parents to be raped by a sex offender. Unfathomable.
Danet describes Michael Leach – her convicted abuser, a former government advisor – as “big and cruel looking”. She says: “He didn’t look nice, he looked strange.” The 54 year old is now serving a twelve year jail sentence, so she is less afraid to talk about him.
Read the rest: Easy currency: Poverty and abuse in Cambodia’s ‘virginity trade’ – Asia – World – The Independent.
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