Abigail Haworth goes
inside Cambodia’s “virgin trade,” the highly secretive upmarket trade a world
apart from the rowdy atmosphere presented by the country’s capital, Phnom Penh
where sex can be bought at bars and karaoke bars for $10 or more. The expose
begins with Dara Keo and her mother Rotana, who are both in tears, as a
rickshaw serving as Keo’s transportation to an unknown location arrives. The
mother and daughter pair were crying for different reasons. Keo was crying
because she was scared, while Rotana was crying because of what she had done: she
had sold her daughter’s virginity. The rickshaw driver then brought Keo to an
underground medical facility, where a doctor confirmed that Keo’s hymen was
intact and gave her a blood test for HIV infection. “”He confirmed I was
a virgin and disease-free,” says Keo, now 17. “Then I was taken to the man who
bought me. I had to stay with him for one week while he raped me many times
without a condom.”” The clientele for virgins are high-ranking officials from
the Cambodian government, military, police force and other members of Asia’s
wealthy, who dole out anything between $500 and $5000. Read more about this
extensively in the link below.
Full account available at
http://www.marieclaire.com/world-reports/cambodian-virgin-trade