Chat with us in Facebook Messenger. Find out what's happening in the world as it unfolds. Women line outside a Phnom Penh karaoke bar where sex is sold. There are many such establishments on the road to Svay Pak, on the outskirts of the Cambodian capital.
Story highlights Mira Sorvino takes a behind the scenes look at Cambodia's child sex trade Karaoke bars are often fronts for prostitution in Phnom Penh, the country's capital When a club hostess is asked to bring in younger girls, she obliges Girls are shown messages from others who escaped life from these covert brothels. Late one night, after dark, we met up with Don Brewster -- head of Agape International Missions, an NGO fighting child prostitution -- to go behind the scenes at Cambodia's KTVs: karaoke clubs that are fronts for brothels.
I threw on some jeans and tried to look like a tourist who was up for a kinky kind of tour, with my ersatz "boyfriend"-- our cameraman, Scott. Don drove us first to an out of the way small side street, where there were tiny KTVs operating out in the open like cheap brothels. Girls sat on plastic chairs lining the entrance, all painted up and wearing short skirts, high heels and fake smiles.
We walked past a few, stopping to talk for a little while. The girls would stand up, becoming energized and engaged. We crossed the street and approached another one, as if we were sampling the wares at each one. I become less nervous as we walk to the back where an overweight young woman frantically sweeps the kitchen floor, and we are pointed up some cement and metal stairs. We pass hallways full of closed doors, in which I can only imagine the sex acts occur.
We are brought into a low ceilinged, dank room with some disgusting couches and a video screen on one wall. I am overwhelmed with the saturated smell of air freshener that apparently has gone off like an insect fogger in this room -- to cover what odor, who knows. I nearly gag and we beat a quick path out of there.
