“Women Are Like White Cloth And Men Are Like Gold”

There is a saying in Khmer which translates to: women are like white cloth and men are like gold. What this means is that when you drop white cloth in mud, you are unlikely to wash away the mud as easily as you would a bar of gold. This is the mindset of women in the sex industry in Cambodia and most of Southeast Asia. Girls coming out of the sex trade have a harder time integrating back into society than boys do. This is a reality girls face in Cambodia everyday. Boys get educated, girls support the family.

But whether boys or girls, many of them are children. Of the estimated 14, 725 (from 1996) prostitutes in Cambodia, 16% are minors with an average age between 12 – 16 years old. And every year, close to a thousand new minors enter the industry.

And of that 14, 725 prostitutes, almost half are Vietnamese. There is not even a 40% proportion of Vietnamese in Cambodia which means that a massive proportion of Vietnamese in Cambodia are in the sex industry. If you are a poor Vietnamese girl between the age of 8 – 17 years old, the chances of you being forced into prostitution sky rockets.

Yet, even with the advent of the sex industry over here I have to constantly remind myself that this is NOT normal. Just because I see it everywhere does not mean that I get cynical or glaze over it.

This is what the Lord Almighty says: “Administer justice, show mercy and compassion to one another. Do not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the alien or the poor. In your hearts do not think evil of each other.”

Zechariah 7: 9

This does not mean to say we become do-gooders, superheroes or vigilantes but that acting justly comes out from an overflow of being intimately indwelled by a God who is the source of justice itself. Sometimes, nay, most times I fall short. Not that my works of service fall short in themselves but that I do not desire to be filled with the holy justice of God. In my natural desire, I have rejected God, and in so doing am unable to administer justice, show mercy and compassion in and through my own strength. 

Yet I cling on to the hope that God is able and I am not. My hands are small but His are big. And that in 1993, a mere 1% of Cambodians were Christian. 99% Buddhist. In 2003, this rose to a small 4%. But imagine this, a 4 fold increase in a decade! And I am part of that 4%.  This is not just about numbers but that change is happening in Cambodia. Like a thousand year old tradition is waking up from its slumber. Like light dawning on a country in the shadow of age-old rituals, supersitions and discriminatory injustices for far too long. 

In Him was life and that life was the light of man. The light shines in the darkness but the darkness has not understood it.

John 1:4 - 5