Skip to main content

Empowering sex workers who want to leave the industry - Daughters of Cambodia


The final Project I visited in Phnom Penh was Daughters of Cambodia a organization reaching out to victims of sex trafficking in Cambodia. Looking at this project and the two other sexual health related projects in Phnom Penh has made me think about writing an awareness resources for use in British school. Not sure if this would be a lesson, a part of a lesson or an assembly. Need to put some thought into it but I'm sure it would be positive for young people to gain a broader perspective.  


Daughters of Cambodia looks to work with individuals who want to get out of the commercial sex industry but feel themselves trapped. The project outlines two areas of need for those wanting to get out of the industry, internal capacity (Emotional healing, self esteem and confidence) and external resources (being able to still provide food for a family for example). Using this two pronged approach Daughters of Cambodia seeks to help women (and a number of male ladyboy prostitutes) who want to leave the industry, to be able to leave by their own effort. This is seen as a more sustainable approach then making them dependant on charity hand outs. 


We meet Heather from Daughters of Cambodia at their shop/cafe/spa. This premises is a key employment option for the people in the project. The shop is stocked with clothes, ornaments and jewellery made by people from the project. The cafe is staffed with women from the project who are being trained in catering and hospitatly and the spa is operated by women trained in health and beauty care by the project. It was a lovely place to have lunch (great burger!). Their are a variety of employment options, all with training, to ensure the people have future job opportunities. Michelle loved the shop and bought some pretty things. 


   


The commercial sex industry is not a pleasant thing to be in and many of the women have suffered through some very cruel situation with the ladyboys in the project sometimes suffering worse then others due to social prejudices. Many of the victims of this industry are sold into it by their family  (due to extreme poverty). In a few cases women may be ticked into being sold to a brothel by a boyfriend or close friend. Sadly a family will sometimes sell their daughter into the sex industry because she has been raped, once she has suffered that trauma she is then seen to have lost her 'value' as a potential wife and is now 'worthless'. Treatment within the brothels can be horrific. The Daughters of Cambodia website has a picture drawn by a 12 year old victim detailing some of abuse she suffered. Along with the practical training the project provides counselling and support for the victims. Helping them to recover psychologically and emotional from the abuse they have suffered. 



Please visit the website to learn more about this amazing project and the good work it is doing for women and men in Cambodia desperate for a way out of the commercial sex industry. 






Comments

Popular posts from this blog

A RSE reading list

Sometimes people ask me what reading I recommend around RSE, so I thought I would put together a bit of a list.  Key (free) articles and reports  Young people’s RSE UK poll  Sex Education Forum (2018) RSE outcome variations due to facilitator differences  Young et al (2018) What do young people think about their school-based sex and relationship education? A qualitative synthesis of young people's views and experiences Pound et al. (2016) Review of sexual abuse in schools and college s Ofsted (2021) National and International RSE Guidance  UNESCO international guidance on RSE  UNESCO (2018) England   Department for Education full guidance on statutory relationships education, relationships and sex education (RSE) and health education  Department for Education (2019) Wales Curriculum for Wales guidance and code for Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE)  (Consultation stage) Welsh Government (2021)  Scotland  Guidance for teachers on the conduct of teaching relationships, sex

Sources and reading from " 5 cool things AI can do for your youth work (and what's coming next)" workshop

Thank you if you came to my workshop at NYMW 2023 about how youth workers might consider using AI within their work. Obviously there is a lot of areas we could have looked at. We only scratched the surface, especially around the ethics. But with the current attention on generative AI I hope it was useful. Below I have included both a copy of my slides and links to some further reading/research about the topic.  Slides Download a .pdf of the slides here Edited further reading and research list Atlas of AI (2022) Crawford *. A good book about ethical aspects Automating Youth Work: youth workers views on AI (2023) Pawluczuk . EU study into the attitude of youthworkers towards AI Blood in the Machine (2023) Merchant *. Who were the Luddites and why did they hate new technology  Here's What Ethical AI Really Means (2023) Philosophy Tube . Long form video essay about the ethical aspects of AI, especially in regards to the creative arts   How AI chatbots like ChatGPT or Bard work (2023) C

Review of Channel 4's Sex in Class

Review of Channel 4's Sex in Class from a relationship and sex educator's perspective. In this review I will try and bring my perspective as a relationship and sex educator to look at Channel 4's one off show Sex In Class . The show is about a Belgian sexologist Goedele Liekens  testing out her approach to relationship and sex education for 15-16 year olds at a Lancashire school. You can read some great overall reviews from Jules Hillier at Brook  and  Sam Wollaston at the Guardian   of the show. In this blog I am trying to focus specifically on my my perspective as a relationship and sex educator on Goedele's content and approach.  Goedele Liekens with her charges in Sex in Class. Photograph: Matt Squire The show starts with a pretty unsurprising statistic of " 83% of kids have seen porn by the time they are 13" (source not cited) and goes on to show how teachers at this school don't think current RSE is good enough and also gives some quotes f