World AIDS Day 2013 and Discrimination against Entertainment Workers in Cambodia

Story and photos by Chhay Sophal

Cambodia News & New Youth

Phnom Penh (1 December, 2013): “Besides male customers, some of my neighbours also look down on and mock at me as they know that I work at a karaoke parlor at nights,” said a young lady with her firm face.

In her 20 years of age, Mei Mei (her nickname) said she really don’t understand why humans do not understand humans’ life. “I am poor with low education and I cannot find good job like other people who have high education and good living condition,” she said, adding that she sometimes really hard to bear those people’s abusive and harassed words and languages.

Mei Mei is one of hundreds of thousands of women working at entertainment places – massage and karaoke parlors, beer gardens, night clubs, bars, restaurants, snooker shops, and other resort places.

Sok Choub Chamreun, KHANA Deputy Director in charge of operation, said the female workers at such entertainment places are classified by both state and non-state institutions working in responding to HIV/AIDS as the Entertainment Workers (EW) and they are also included in the Most at Risk Populations (MARPs) – EWs, Men Who Have Sex with Men/Transgender, and Injected Drug Users.

According to the National Center for Combating HIV/AIDS and STD (NCHAD) of the Ministry of Health, there are about 37,000 EWs nationwide — some 20,000 of them are in Phnom Penh capital.

Chamreun said some EWs also sell sex – some do independently and some others do in groups with their team leaders – and based on the NCHAD survey, nearly 14% of EWs are HIV-positive that is the highest rate if compared with the general women population (about 39,000 women aged 15 and up living with HIV 39,000)

EWs in general still get stigma and discrimination from society – general population as well as some police, military police, and state health service providers — due to their working condition and HIV/AIDS status, Chamreun added.

Dr. Teng Kunthy, Secretary General of the National AIDS Authority, has said recently that stigma and discrimination against MARPs still exist in the country. He also urged the society to stop such attitude as it can cause to increase more HIV transmission and human rights abuses. At the same time, journalists play the key role to help stop the attitude of stigma and discrimination, he added.

“Zero discrimination” is one of two other “zeros” — zero new infections and zero AIDS-related deaths – that the World AIDS Day this year takes as the main THEME.  UNAIDS this year also urges the world to work together in calling for global transformation for zero discrimination. “Open up and reach out for change. Everyone has a right to live a full and productive life with dignity,” UNAIDS message read for the World AIDS Day 1 December, 2013.

Cambodia on 1 December, 2013 also join the world to fight against HIV/AIDS by raising a main theme “Zero discrimination, zero new infections, and zero AIDS-related deaths”.

For Mei Mei, she is quite happy when she learns that both government and national and international civil societies try to promote EWs’ rights and to stop discrimination against woman like her. “No woman wants to be mocked at and looked down on. All women really want honor and dignity. I work legally, not steal and rob anyone, to support my family and myself. So, please stop using bad words and attitudes to me and other ladies working at karaoke parlors as we are also human being,” Mei Mei said.