Srey Vie (16 years old)
I am the oldest in my family. I have four siblings. My parents are very poor, very very poor. They are now in Kampong Cham. My father goes to the river fishing, but sometimes he comes home bringing nothing. Sometimes he is lucky and catches more fish. But this is seldom the case, for there is not much fish in the river anymore. My mother and one of my sister go finding woods from the bushes and sell them in the market, only to get one dollar per day. Many people in my village are like this. Many children don’t go to school. They cannot read. I am lucky I have finished a primary school and I can read.
Once my friend came home from Siem Reap. She wore nice clothes and brought some money for her parents. My mother said, “Why don’t you go to work in Siem Reap like your friend?” I asked my friend what she was doing in Siem Reap and she said she accompanied guests singing in karaoke rooms. “You can come with me if you want. You are pretty. I think Bong Pheap (the manager) will accept you. She has just added two more karaoke rooms. She needs more girls,” she looked sure with what she said. I invited another friend to go with me, srey Nie (20). She is not pretty and cannot read. She never goes to school. We arrived here five days ago. Bong Pheap also accepted srey Nie to work here.
We sleep in those two shaggy rooms. Five girls in one room. There aren’t enough mosquito nets for us, but I seldom feel the mosquitos biting me, perhaps because I always drink much beer before sleeping. Bong Pheap provides us with some rice. We take turn preparing meals for lunch and dinner.
I don’t like working like this. My friends can stand drinking much beer. I cannot. But guests always ask me to drink with them. Whenever I drink, I get headache and I want to sleep. Bong Pheap is angry if I take rest or go to bed early. Some guests are really nasty. They want to touch and kiss me. I can dance and don’t mind dancing with them. But I don’t like being kissed. Once, a guest even asked me to sleep with him. He said he would give me US$ 100. It’s a lot of money. But I did not want. I never do like that.
Last night with two other girls I accompanied three guests, as old as my father. They stayed long hours. I drank so much beer and blacked out on the sofa in the room. I lied down on the sofa. I felt the room kept turning round. I knew when a guest turned off the light. Another even turned off the television monitor and locked the door. It was dark then. I wanted to get up and turn on the light again, but I couldn’t. Then I felt the guest touching my body. I wanted to drop his hand, but I was too weak. I didn’t know when the guests left the room. When I woke up this morning, I was still in the room. Fortunately the guest didn’t do more to me. My friend told me the guests left at two in the morning.
Bong Savourn (the operator) is very kind to me. He wants me to be his girl friend. He also says he will marry me someday and will not let me work like this anymore. But now he doesn’t have enough money yet. I have saved four dollars from the tips the guests gave me, and Bong Pheap says she will give me US$ 30 after one month.***
