During
my life doing social documentary photos the ugliest place I have ever
made photographs in was a brothel in Poipet Cambodia. The memories of
the young women who worked there (Cambodians and Vietnamese) haunt me to
this day. They would beautify the ugly sleeping/sex rooms where they
took their customers to with torn out pictures of movie and singing
stars.
I have photographed my father as he died from pancreatic cancer, desperate men shooting heroin in Oakland California, prostitution in Thai, slums in Bangkok and Cambodia, migrant workers, street kids and leper homes in Nepal, Burmese refugee families working a garbage dump in Mae Sot Thailand but the thing that bothers me most, the thing that haunts me still are the faces of the young women in the Cambodian brothel. They were so lost, so defeated, so gone. They would sit up front of the hovel like brothel they worked on cheap plastic chairs, under pink lights, waiting for the next customer. Their customers were mostly Cambodian men who would arrive sometimes 3 at a time on motorbikes and pay $2 each.
I have photographed my father as he died from pancreatic cancer, desperate men shooting heroin in Oakland California, prostitution in Thai, slums in Bangkok and Cambodia, migrant workers, street kids and leper homes in Nepal, Burmese refugee families working a garbage dump in Mae Sot Thailand but the thing that bothers me most, the thing that haunts me still are the faces of the young women in the Cambodian brothel. They were so lost, so defeated, so gone. They would sit up front of the hovel like brothel they worked on cheap plastic chairs, under pink lights, waiting for the next customer. Their customers were mostly Cambodian men who would arrive sometimes 3 at a time on motorbikes and pay $2 each.
One young girl (everyone told me they were 18 but I doubt it) showed me
large welts on her back and legs where the mama son would beat her with
a hanger. Terrible ugly shit that goes on all over the world to this
day. Hung the Vietnamese girl/woman in this photo could be dead now of
HIV-AIDS, not sure what happened to her. I went back a few years later but
could not find the brothel, her or any of the people who worked there.
https://gerryyaum.blogspot.com/…/haunted-by-lost-innocence-…
https://gerryyaum.blogspot.com/…/haunted-by-lost-innocence-…
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| Hung Vietnamese Brothel Sex Worker, Poi Pet Cambodia 2003 |
