The 2008 crackdown led to significant decreases in the number of sex workers attending health services. Carrying condoms was used as evidence to justify many arrests.381 According to Human Rights Watch:
Cambodia
violations were reported. Sex workers alleged assaults, rape, deaths in custody and lack of access to medical care.380
Throughout 2008 HIV/AIDS activists, health workers, and sex worker groups voiced concerns about increased abuses by authorities, and their difficulty in accessing sex workers – many of whom were driven underground because they feared arrest.382 The Cambodian Alliance for Combating HIV/AIDS (CACHA) conducted a study on the right to work of entertainment workers. Data was collected from 1,116 sex workers in 2008. Findings included:383 •
The Trafficking Law contributed to a shift from brothel-based transactions towards independent work and there was increased mobility among sex workers. This may be attributed to the law, which increased fear of arrests. FHI reported that in one area, 7 percent of ART patients were lost to follow up.
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Many entertainment workers were afraid to talk openly about their activities and were afraid to access HIV services. CARE reported that, as a result of the drive to close brothels, visits to STI clinics by entertainment workers in one target area “became even less frequent and for many women, totally stopped.” During the first two quarters of 2008 there was a 26 percent reduction in the number of women seeking STI diagnosis and treatment at FHI360 clinics.
A joint position statement of public health agencies, UN agencies and NGOs stated that the crackdown was raising the risk of HIV spreading further by reducing their access to sex workers, and highlighted the following developments:384 1. An increase in the number of women selling sex on the street – many of whom are HIV positive – which further increased their vulnerability to trafficking, exploitation and HIV/STI infection and transmission. 2. A reduction in the sale of condoms and the availability of condoms in entertainment establishments increased the risk of HIV transmission through unprotected sex. 3. A 26 percent reduction in the number of women seeking STI diagnosis and treatment at family health clinics. 4. A 10 percent reduction in contacts by NGO outreach workers, which decreased entertainment workers access to information and condoms.
380 Overs C. (2009) op cit., p.8; Keo C., (2009) op cit., p.8; In 2010 there were reports that Phnom Penh’s municipal Social Affairs office continues to detain some sex workers at the detention centre at Prey Speu, which houses homeless people: Pearson E., (2010) Towards a More Humane Treatment of Sex Workers, Homeless, Human Rights Watch, available at: http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/08/03/towards-more-humanetreatment-sex-workers-homeless. 381 Keo C., (2009) Consultancy Report to Cambodian Alliance for Combating HIV/AIDS (CACHA) Hard Life For A Legal Work: The 2008 Anti-Trafficking Law and Sex Work. CACHA. 382 Human Rights Watch, (2010) op cit. p.23. 383 Low S. (2009) op cit. 384 United Nations, Donor and Civil Society Position Statement, Protecting Cambodia’s HIV/AIDS Gains: The Public Health Effects of the Kingdom of Cambodia’s Trafficking Suppression Campaign and Law on the `Suppression of Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation, quoted in Overs C., (2009) op cit. p.17.
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