I shot this young sex worker in a brothel in Poipet Cambodia back in 2003. The series that I shot of 7 or 8 girls who worked the brothel was hardest photographs I have ever tried to make. The lives of these poor girls who were basically sex slaves was very tough to be around, they sat there in front of their brothel on cheap plastic chairs day after day, night after night waiting for customers. To see the girls sitting there is something I will never forget, the memory of them all painted up (to much make up for their ages) , empty, sad, so so vulnerable is burned into my soul, something I will never forget.
This girl Hung is photographed in one of the rooms the customers took the girls to for sex. The room was tiny basically a closet with a single mattress type bed in it. The workers all shared the rooms, at night I think the girls slept their as well. One thing I thought rather strange and in a way beautiful was how they placed pop star-singer pictures on the walls of the room to try to brighten the space up a bit. It was a pretty touch to a small cramped room filled with insects and the smell of semen.
Most of the girls at this brothel were Vietnamese, probably trafficked across the border into Cambodia to work in the sex industry. The customers were 95+% local Cambodian men, I was told and read that each girl went with up to 10 men a day but cannot confirm that number. I would see Cambodian guys coming in two at a time on small motorbikes right off the street then take a girl sometimes 1 to share and pay $2 USD each for shortime sex.
A terrible place, a destructive existence, a waste of lives. The memory of the girls sitting on the chairs is what draws me back to this subject again, maybe doing a portrait series on this subject called "Lost Innocence"will help tell their stories, help raise awareness. It is probably unlikely that project will happen but if I continue to be haunted by the memories of making photos like the one below of Hung, I might be pulled back into that world again, it might be inevitable.
Just remembered one more thing about the brothel. Cambodia and Vietnam have a long history of animosity and hatred, lots of invasions, lots of killing, war, and fighting along their shared border. I was told that when the Cambodian guys wanted to go to the brothels for sex they would use a slang saying, "Lets go invade Vietnam!". Then the men would go to the brothels in groups and use-abuse-exploit the Vietnamese workers.
Tech Stuff: Contax G2 and probably a 28mm lens, direct flash, on Agfa Optima film. These photos were made in autofocus mode in a very dark room (almost complete darkness).
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| Hung Vietnamese brothel worker, Poipet Cambodia 2003 |
