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Chai Hour II Hotel Trial Shows Discrepancy in Trafficking Laws

Aarti Kapoor, Director of AFESIP International, wrote a letter to the Editor of The Cambodia Daily about the outcome of the CHAI HOUR II Hotel Trial.

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Referring to the decision made by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on 2006 Feb 17 regarding the case commonly known as the Chai Hour II Hotel trial, I would like to make the following observations.

Firstly, the Feb 17 trial followed the second, not the first, raid on the Chai Hour II Hotel on Sept 7, 2005. Two male defendants were convicted of "opening a place for obscene acts" (prostitution) and two female defendants were convicted of "selling another into prostitution."

Cambodian law states that those "selling another into prostitution" are punishable by a harsher sentence than those "opening a place for prostitution." Thus, the two female traffickers who arranged the sale of their friend's virginity were prosecuted and sentenced fairly according to the law.

They were sentenced to 10 years each, the minimum mandatory sentence for this offence. Those who "opened a place for prostitution"-the two male defendants-were given four years each, five years being the maximum mandatory sentence for this offense. Thus, the case was prosecuted and judged fairly.

However, when looking at the facts of the case, we can see that the two managers (or pimps) of the Chai Hour II Hotel deserved a harsher punishment due to the fact that they were operating a business that fueled the illegal business of selling the virginity of minors. They were creating a cause for the demand to exist. Where demand exists, supply will follow. Furthermore, these businessmen, or more accurately traffickers, represent the core of organized criminal networks.

Once such a place is established a whole host of further criminality will build up and establish itself around it: selling of children and women, soliciting. Trafficking is defined under the UN Convention on Organized Transnational Crime and has been explicitly referred to as an issue of organized crime, involving corrupt and complicit officials.

Therefore, in a place where there will always be vulnerable people to exploit, we must be careful as to who we hold more accountable when cases of exploitation arise. Where the brothels, karaoke bars and

restaurants that sell sex are controlled and owned by bigger business people-who attract those desperate for money and those greedy to abuse-we can see clearly who are the bigger culprits in society. In Cambodian society, we should take a stand against those looking to exploit poorer people, especially women and children, and to cater to the undesirables in society that fuel the sexual exploitation industry.

With this in mind, we would suggest that sentences for those opening places for the commercial sexual exploitation of women and children-having more economic power and creating the hub for organized criminal activity-should attract at least as high as a sentence as the go-betweens, if not higher.

In this case we support the Cambodian courts in their duty. However, on a more global scale we should re-evaluate the approach we take in responding to trafficking, and refocus our energies on where the most organized criminals are. Undoubtedly, they are the people who own the places of exploitation and not those who act as go-betweens.

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Adapted from: Aarti Kapoor. "Chai Hour II Hotel Trial Shows Discrepancy in Trafficking Laws." The Cambodia Daily. 24 March 2006. (Source: UNIAP Cambodia).