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Shuvaloy Majumdar is Deployment Leader of The Future Group, a Calgary-based nonprofit
organization fighting the sex trade. While based in the Cambodian capital of
Phnom Penh, has brought me to Svay Pak to show the scale of the child-sex trade.
He leans out his window and lies, telling a boy he wants a girl much younger than those
on the street. Majumdar knows that children as young as four are available but kept
hidden by their pimps in an attempt to avoid police raids.
Inside, Majumdar takes a seat in a creaky metal chair beside a stained mattress.Within
seconds, two girls,who claim they’re 6 and 8, join him. Just awakened, they’re wearing
cotton pajamas and rubbing the sleep out of their eyes. At first, the girls stand silently
and rigidly together. The pimp slaps one on the back of the head and the girls begin to
awkwardly and unenthusiastically flirt with Majumdar. Shaking, the 6-year-old mumbles,
“no boom-boom, just ngam-ngam,” (Vietnamese slang for oral sex). But when a
photographer who has accompanied Majumdar begins to take some pictures, the
pimp and his bodyguards draw guns, thinking Majumdar and the photographer are
undercover informants. Thinking fast, the visitors defuse the situation by telling the angry
pimp the pictures are for their business - organizing sex tours out of Thailand. The ruse
works and the danger passes.13
Trafficking equals convenience for the perpetrators.
Pedophiles can now book their holidays online. Choosing
the child that they abuse is as easy as choosing an airline
or hotel.
“Today’s Internet has also become the new marketplace for child pornography.”
- U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft.
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