Not By Choice

Conversations With A Sex Worker  

A young Cambodian relates the appalling events that led her into prostitution.

It was the sort of day that made you want to really seize all opportunities.
There was a beautiful blue sky dotted with white wisps of clouds and the kind of sun benevolent enough not to burn your skin.
It was 8am in Cambodia and the adventure at hand was a trip through Angkor Archaeological Park.
My guide?
A 22-year-old sex worker named Samnang, the Cambodian word for Good Fortune.

“You can call me Sam,” she said, smiling shyly.

I had met Sam two days earlier, by accident, when I got lost meandering through the streets of Siem Reap.
At first, she tried giving me directions, but when I failed to comprehend, mostly because I’m not good with maps, Sam offered to walk me back to where I was staying during my week-long visit.

When we arrived, I asked Sam to have dinner with me, but she declined, saying she had to work.
When I asked what she worked as, she explained in halting English that she was a sex worker.
I tried to sound casual, telling her why I was in Cambodia and that I was looking for someone who could show me around.
I asked if she would be interested.

And so, two days later, on a gorgeous day in Siem Rep, Sam takes me on a journey very different from the one I had in mind.

As we walk down Sivatha Road, we talk about our lives and I ask her if she would tell her story for me to share with others.
She agrees but asks that no photographs be taken.
We find a restaurant and seat ourselves for a meal.
Spicy chicken rice at 8.30am is indeed the breakfast of champions. 

The Journey Begins

Sam’s life began as a rather happy one, but it quickly turned into a horrific series of events.
Born in Vietnam, she went to Thailand when she was 17 in search of a better life.
She found a job as a waitress.
One day, she met a foreigner named Gerard who was very pleased to learn that she was a Vietnam native.
He was a businessman who was enthusiastic about importing cheap scooters into Vietnam.

After several lunches and dinners, Sam agreed to take Gerard to Vietnam to help him start his business.
Felicitations of love followed soon after, and a promise of marriage was extended.
One thing led to another and Sam found herself pregnant two months into the relationship.
The business was also warming up.
But Gerard’s ardour toward her cooled drastically.

“He began ignoring me and wasn’t shy about doing it openly,” she shares.
Gerard also turned out to be a paedophile, having his way with many underage girls.
“In Vietnam, if you have money, you can get away with anything; you just pay the police to keep them quiet,” Sam says, frowning.
I tell her that this happens around the world.

Gerard left Sam in her third month of pregnancy.
“I tried asking him to help me and the baby with some money, but he said it’s not his problem anymore,” she says, her voice thick with emotion.
“He told me that I should get an abortion, which he was willing to pay for. I didn’t want to do this and I had nowhere to go. One day, while I was looking for odd jobs, I met an old friend who was working as a seamstress. She took me in without question.” 

On the Run

Months later, Sam gave birth to a beautiful girl and named her Maelea, which means Flower Garland.
Soon after this, she found a job as a cleaner and life seemed better for a while.

About a year later, while she was out with her baby, Sam bumped into Gerard at the local market.
The man who initially wanted to get rid of the baby now wanted her for himself when he saw how cute she was.
“I refused of course,” Sam says.
“I knew what he did with the other young girls. I didn’t trust him anymore and I was afraid that he would hurt my baby.”

But Gerard got his way through his connections and by using corrupt officials.
But after a month, Sam got Maelea back with the help of a visiting social worker from the United States.

“I cried for days after I saw what he had done to my baby. Her private parts were swollen and discoloured. She was only one year old.”
Sam’s petite body shook with heavy sobs from this terrible memory.

When confronted, Gerard rejected the accusations and threatened to hurt Sam and the baby if she continued to pester him.
But he still wanted Maelea.
“He would come to the house that I shared with my friend and send thugs over to threaten us. I was afraid for our safety and decided that I would leave and hide out in Cambodia.” 

Starting Anew

After a difficult journey, Sam found herself in a foreign country.
She couldn’t speak the language, and had a little child to feed.

“I tried for three months to find a job. No one would hire me. I had to beg on the streets with my daughter in my arms. We were staying at bus stands and wherever else that we could find shelter. I thought that if feeding my daughter and providing her with a roof over her head meant that I had to sell my body, then it was a small price to pay.”
And so she turned to prostitution.

“I will never forget the first time I did it. I just kept my mind on the food that I will be able to buy for my child and me. That made it easier.

“I have been doing this for four years now and have met many women like me. In the early days, one of them told me that I would get used to it, that it would get easier. This is not true. I have never gotten used to it and I will not be doing this for much longer.”
There was conviction in her voice.

Sam says she will give it another half a year.
“What will my daughter think?” I am stumped for a reply.

“Soon, she will be old enough to start asking me questions,” she adds.
Later, I ask her if she would ever tell Maelea of her past.
Sam takes a long pause and says, “Right now, I don’t know if I will. I want to be honest, but I also think that she doesn’t have to know the ugly side of my life.”

I ask what she would like to do for a living.

“I am saving some money to go back to school and study. I want to become a teacher.”
And then she asks shyly, “Do you think I can?”

I am too overwhelmed to say anything and I nod my answer.

At the time of writing, Sam has already started her classes.
After so much misfortune, it does look like she is going to live up to the meaning of her name after all.

Source: Cambodia Today - June 2011

The Catalyst, Mohamed Bouazizi

A Fruitseller Ignites A Revolution

The Star visits the family and village of Mohamed Bouazizi, a poor fruit seller who set himself on fire to protest against official harassment. The incident triggered a revolution in Tunisia and also sparked off protests against autocratic governments in several Arab countries.
IT was early Friday, just before 8am. After picking olives from a farm, Manuobya looked in on her 26-year-old son Mohamed Bouazizi, who was still asleep and something stirred inside her.
“I felt a kind of love and affection that I never felt before. I said to myself: ‘Mohamed, you are so tired. May God give you a car and another job,’” she tells Sunday Star during an interview at her home in a village near Sidi Bouzid.
Just the night before, Manuobya recounts, Mohamed Bouazizi, who sold fruits from a push cart, was talking about working harder to earn enough to buy a pick-up truck which would make it easier for him to transport his produce. And that night, he gave his mother quite a lot of cash.
“He told me: ‘You know, mother, I’ve never got so much money as I have this week.’

Painful reminder: Manuobya caressing a giant poster of her late son Mohamed Bouazizi who has become a hero in his country and the Arab world.

“He told his sister Leila: ‘If you succeed in school, I will pay for your education.’
“He said to his brothers: ‘If you do well, I will buy you what you want,’” Manuobya relates, looking both sad and proud at the same time as she talks about Mohamed Bouazizi.
Her son, she remembers, was in such good spirits that Thursday night.
And he was teasing, playing and laughing with his eight-year-old half-brother Ziyad a lot more than usual before they went to sleep.
Manuobya says she even ticked them off for making “so much noise” for fear it might disturb the neighbours.
Before he went to bed, Mohamed Bouazizi told his mother of his plans for the next few days.

Where it all started: A view of the Government building in Sidi Bouzid where Mohamed Bouazizi set himself alight on Dec 17.

He said he was getting nicer fruits and would work on Friday and Saturday, and rest on Sunday to go to Sfax (a town in Tunisia) to see his elder brother Salem.
But a few hours later, things changed forever for Mohamed Bouazizi, his family and Tunisia.
On that fateful Friday of Dec 17, after Mohamed Bouazizi had woken up, dressed and gone to his usual spot in the small of town of Sidi Bouzid to sell fruits from his cart, a municipal inspector, Faida Hamdi, and her three aides came after him.
Manuobya says Mohamed Bouazizi was the happy sort but the “police and the government always want money from him and won’t let him do his job”.
“They say he is selling fruits illegally. They want a rasuah (bribe) from him, so he is always fighting to do his job,” Manoubya elaborates.
When Mohamed Bouazizi refused to pay the bribe, Faida and her aides tried to seize the fruits. He then phoned his uncle, who is also his stepfather, for help.
But this angered the municipal officers even more.
“Faida told him that she would leave the other fruit sellers alone but not him and that she would come after him every day.
“She grabbed the fruits but when she wanted to remove the weighing scales, Mohamed Bouazizi wouldn’t let her because the scales were not his.
“That was when Faiza slapped him on the face, spat at him and said terrible things about his dead father,” relates Manuobya, who heard details of the incident from eye witnesses, including her son’s friends.
She believes the public humiliation – being slapped and spat on by a woman who also insulted his late father – was too much for her son to bear.
“He was so shocked and utterly humiliated. It was so shameful and, to him, a loss of dignity.”
When Mohamed Bouazizi, who wanted to seek justice, knocked on the municipal office door, the people there would not entertain him.
“Nobody would listen,” his grief-stricken mother says.
That was when Mohamed Bouazizi made his desperate and last cry for help.
He drenched himself with petrol and then lit himself up – right in front of the government building.
People rushed to douse the flames with their jackets, and someone even grabbed a fire hydrant but found it empty.
It was too late. Within seconds, Mohamed Bouazizi was charred but still alive. And that was how his stepfather Omar found him.
“I couldn’t recognise him because he was totally burnt. Then he uttered the Kalimah Shahadah (a Muslim declaration of faith).
“And I knew from the voice that it was Mohamed Bouazizi. Those were the last words he spoke,” says Omar, adding that both of them were supposed to have gone for Friday prayers that day.
Mohamed Bouazizi was rushed from one hospital to another because they could not treat the severe burns. He lived on for another 18 days and died on Jan 4.
By this time, news of what had happened to the poor fruit seller who just wanted to make a living spread through Tunisia like wildfire. His town, Sidi Bouzid, was the first to rise up.
Noha Farah left her children at home and went to the government building every day to protest and shout for change and for the president to quit.
She says she knew Mohamed Bouazizi personally.
“I always bought fruits from him. He was a very nice person. I cried when I saw what had happened,” she shares.
Through Facebook and Twitter, word spread and the protests grew all over Tunisia, shocking the world.
Here was Tunisia– an educated, moderate and stable country.
Yet its people, fed up with poverty, unemployment and a rotten corrupt system, spontaneously rose up to kick out their leader of 23 years, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
They wanted to reform their government which made it tough for people like Mohamed Bouazizi to make a living.
And soon, the Tunisian revolution caught on in other Arab countries.
Egypt managed to chuck out its strongman Hosni Mubarak who ruled the country with an iron fist for 30 years.
Libya is still in the process of trying to oust its leader of 41 years, Colonel Muammar Gaddafi.
The spark for change has also been lit in Bahrain, Yemen, Jordan, Iraq and even Saudi Arabia. And although Manuobya wishes every night that Mohamed Bouazizi’s death is just a bad dream because she misses him dreadfully, she believes what he did was for a greater good.
“It is unbelievable what has happened. I thank God that things are better for all of Tunisia. I’m happy that He has opened the door for a lot of Arab countries. Freedom is a good thing,” she adds.
Manuobya followed the events in Egypt closely until Mubarak fell and her focus now is on what is happening in neighbouring Libya.
She wants the “evil” Gaddafi who has killed too many of his people to be replaced.
“God help Libya,” she says.
A neighbour, Alfiyah, tells how women, including strangers, drop by to visit Manuobya from time to time and offer words of comfort because they know how painful it is to lose a child.
“The women say ‘thank you for your son and for changing Tunisia’. The situation in Tunisia is still not all that we have hoped for but it is still early days yet,” she adds.
Noha Farah, however, feels something is still missing.
“We are happy but our happiness will not be complete until the Libyan revolution ends and the people there are also free,” she says.
Overnight, Mohamed Bouazizi has become a hero in his town, country and the Arab world.
Muhammad Han Zuli, 31, who speaks flawless English and lives in Sidi Bouzid, has tremendous respect for the fruit seller who triggered off a revolution.
“He gave us the best things in the world – freedom and democracy.”

Source: The Star - Sunday, March 14, 2011

Ramadhan Kareem, Bless Us All

Ahlan waSahlan Marhaban ya Ramadhan.

The ninth and holiest month is here again.
Many of the world's one and a half billion Muslims has started performing their terawih, the annual month-long night prayer.

An Egyptian vendor display traditional lanterns for sale in Cairo, Egypt Tuesday, Aug 3, 2010, in preparation for Ramadan.

When life is made easy for me and the rest of us, having the choice of  where to perform our terawih  and  where to get our porridge,  at just our fingertips, there are others out there who are struggling for a decent and proper living. They are deprived of the basics in life. I wonder how those people in countries under landslides, flood and fire going to spend their Ramadhan.

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In Pakistan 

   

People in Pakistan are reeling from two weeks of flooding that has killed 1,500 and affected nearly 14 million people. There are those who are now trapped by the high water. Villages along the motorway from Peshawar to Islamabad are inundated and women waded through knee-high water. This flood is one of the worst natural disasters in the history of Pakistan. Pakistanis are trapped by the floods. Dozen of bridges destroyed and roads washed out. The floods destroyed dozens of buildings and hotels. There are no food in the market and no electricity. This torrential monsoon rains flooded Pakistan has sparked massive humanitarian crisis. Religious charities moved fast - Faster than the Pakistan government that worried US. A number of organisations highly visible in the battle to help provide relief to millions of flood survivors to fill the void created by the perceived failure of the civilian government to mobilise and fears are growing that such charities are using soft power to propagate extremism. The battle for hearts and minds has been drawn.    "So far we have helped 250,000 people," AFP was told by a man at a camp set up by Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation, a welfare organisation in the district of Nowshehra, where dozens of bearded volunteers dished out food. Pakistan's government, cash-strapped, have been accused of infighting. The government gave the flood victims tents and nothing else. Six million people are now dependent on help to survive and enormous number of local and highly reputable NGOs and the international NGOs have already mobilised for this crisis. All goods and help have been supplied by affluent, ordinary citizens and private organisations.

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In China Fresh heavy rains fell for about four hours overnight today brought more misery to a town in northwest China, devastated by mudslides that had already levelled an area five kilometres long and 300 metres wide. 1,117 people were already confirmed dead, another 627 residents went missing, and three more disappeared overnight. At least 45,000 people have evacuated their homes, and 30,000 tents were delivered with thousands more on the way. Zhouqu has a population of 134,000, Xinhua news agency reported the shortest route used by relief crews into Zhouqu, a town nestled in the mountains of Gansu province, from the provincial capital Lanzhou was blocked. It turned one of the main streets in Zhouqu into a small river and flooding army tents on the roadside leading into the disaster zone.

Entire communities in Gansu province were swallowed when the debris-choked Bailong River jumped its banks early Sunday, releasing wave after wave of mud and rubble-strewn water. The water level in the Bailong river, which cuts through Zhouqu, was said to be higher yesterday. Crews using explosives and excavators rushed to drain the unstable barrier lake that was created by the rubble that, if it were to burst, could bring further destruction to areas already levelled by the torrent of mud. Floodwaters up to three storeys high have submerged half the county and the peaks surrouding the town were shrouded in dark clouds. The town was effectively split into two. Buildings were torn from their foundations, their lower floors blown out by the force of the debris-laden water. Three villages comprising hundreds of households were entirely buried and much of the county seat was submerged. Thousands of soldiers and rescuers, joined by traumatised survivors, were battling to clean up roads by using diggers, blocked by the massive avalanche of mud, cascading rocks and sludge unleashed by storms overnight, complicating the task of seeing to the needs of the living. Getting and distributing of food, water and medicine to those in need is no easy task. Clean drinking water was a primary concern, with most local sources destroyed or too polluted to use. AFP correspondent witnessed some shops in town had run out of drinking, but new supplies appeared to be trickling in. Fears of an outbreak of water-borne disease mounted, with corpses still unclaimed and residents living in the rough without proper sanitary conditions. Disinfectant crews in chemical suits repeatedly sprayed disinfectant in the area. Although there have been no reports of an epidemic outbreak, crews in protective suits sprayed chemicals across the ground and over machinery as the smell of death heavy in the air. State media reported numerous cases of dysentery, while infected injuries, a lack of sanitation, clean drinking water and accumulating garbage increased the risk of typhoid, cholera and other diseases. China Daily reported tons of garlic and Sichuan pepper, which were believed to be helpful in the prevention of certain ailments, have been sent to Zhouqu. Loudspeakers in town broadcast messages instructing residents how to protect themselves from disease. Nearly 800 medical workers, concerned about the high summer temperatures that could affect the precarious public health situation, have been dispatched to the scene. Although relatives were encouraged to cremate the remains of their loved ones as soon as possible to prevent health problems, but in the area with a population that is one-third Tibetan, traditional burials are preferred. Throughout the area, bodies were seen wrapped in blankets and tied to sticks or placed on planks and left on the shattered streets for pickup. The bad weather was expected to continue as the National Meteorological Centre warned there was a "relatively large" chance of more landslides in the coming days, as heavier rain was expected, with up to 3 1/2 inches forecast for Friday. While torrential rains were the direct cause of the flood, previous activites of mass tree cutting had left the dry hills exposed and the weakening of cliff faces by a massive 2008 earthquake were seen as contributing factors. The mudslides are the latest in a string of weather-related disasters, as China battles its worst flooding in a decade that has killed more than 2,000 people this year and 12 million evacuated before the Gansu tragedy. It has caused tens of billions of dollars in damage across 28 provinces and regions.

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In Russia

The last Russia's deadliest wildfires were in 1972 and on last Wednesday, Russian forestry official said fires have scorched forests contaminated with radiation from the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, but it was unclear how dangerous the smoke might be.

Fears of stirring up nuclear pollution from the Chernobyl disaster could take the crisis to a new level, though officials said radiation levels were normal in Moscow.
Strong winds cleared the toxic smoke that has choked Moscow for three weeks on Wednesday, and Muscovites got a glimpse of clear skies after a thunderstorm accompanied by strong winds in the early hours dispersed the smoke.

Some young Russians rejoiced in the rains, dancing in the downpour and cheering the thunder and lightning. But weather forecasters warned it could return in 24 hours.

Fires covering an area of 39 square kilometers (15 square miles) had been registered in regions with forests polluted with radiation included Bryansk province, which borders Ukraine southwest of Moscow and was polluted by radioactive dust that billowed across Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and Europe after a series of explosions at Chernobyl's reactor No. 4 on April 26, 1986.

Radioactive particles could be propelled into the air, in the event of a fire in forests in the Bryansk region said Russian Emergencies Minister, Sergei Shoigu.
Trees, vegetation and the ground that had absorbed some of the nuclear material spewed out in the 1986 accident and blazes were releasing some again into the air.
There is a remobilization of Chernobyl material. That is a side of biomass burning that is under-communicated. There is plenty of this still around.

"The sins of our fathers revisit us." Reuters was told.

The toxic smog over Moscow has some economists believe to eat 0.5% of Russia's GDP.

Russia's deadly summer heatwave, probably the worst in Russian history, had lasted for an uninterrupted 50-day.
The more than 600 wildfires had sent pollution to the highest levels in decades - almost doubled mortality rates in the capital and disrupted flights, consumer activity and even trading in Russian stocks and bonds.

However, the area of burning forests in Russia had almost halved in the past 24 hours to 927 square km (358 square miles) from 1,740 square km (676 square miles), and that nearly 166,000 people were fighting the blazes that raged.

The fire had burnt the expected 4% 2010 economic growth.
Even with the emergency pumping of 54 billion roubles ($1.81 billion) into the firefighting force, it would not fix the gutted fire-protection system and sorely lacks equipment.whose weaknesses have been exposed by the wildfires.
The sweltering weather would not abate this week and hundreds of people are believed to have died from the effects of the heatwave and smoke choking.

Then there's the aggravated drought.
Kremlin leaders are already grappling with drought that has destroyed crops after what weather monitoring officials say was the country's hottest summer in a millennium.
Nobody was to be blame but the forces of nature.

"This is a new challenge from the heavens." Russian mayor said.

The Taxi Story - You Are Not Alone

Cabbies live from hand to mouth
With reference to the letter "Cabbies have a hard time making a living," (Sunday Star, April 11), the writer was spot on that the average income of taxi drivers range from RM1,500 to RM1,800 per month.
  In my presentation to the Malaysian Productivity Corporation in 2008, I have worked out that their average income range from RM1,117 for those working 24 days a month to RM1,717 for those working everyday.
  Since then, there has been an increase in metre rates for budget taxis by 32% for distance travelled and 114% for time clocked.
  The numbers of taxis on the road has also gone up after the fare increase in August 2009.
  I have been driving a taxi since June 2000 and will not recommend anyone who wishes to raise a family to choose it as their livelihood.
  In London, black cab drivers earn between RM42,000 and RM56,000 a month.
  A Finnish taxi driver who was one of my passengers only has to work for 6 months and can afford to travel the rest of the year.
  Malaysian taxi drivers virtually live from hand to mouth and is best described by a Malay proverb "Kais pagi makan pagi, kais petang makan petang".
  Taxi drivers tend to splurge during good months instead of saving for rainy days.
  They suffer a double whammy when they have to pay a major mechanical or accident repairs coupled with the loss of income.
  As such, they are easy prey for loan sharks.
  Once they fall behind in payments for rental purchase to the taxi company or hire purchase to the bank and with Ah Longs breathing down their necks, their struggle for survival will unfortunately be at the expense of the unlucky passengers.
  However, it is still wrong to lump all taxi drivers in the same boat, as the public tend to treat them, including the honest ones, with scorn.
  Caring passengers like the writer from Penang can induce them to provide a better service.
  One of the reasons why enforcement of errant taxi drivers has not been effective seems from the fact that CVLB paints all taxi drivers with the same stroke.
  The CVLB director was reported to have said "If they are budak baik (good boys), we don't need to come up with the sticker rules".
  They should instead target the unscrupulous drivers who are like touts who park their taxis by the roadside at popular areas such as KLCC in Kuala Lumpur.
  Some taxi drivers who station their cars near nightspots are opportunistic pimps.
  Used to earn easy money, they also tend to fix the fare at several times more than the rate to rip off passengers.
  CVLB does not have to take measures against all the 31,000 taxi drivers.
  Their 100 enforcement officers are more than sufficient to catch the hard cores operating in full view of the public.
  Publicising specific actions taken against errant taxi drivers through various newspapers will be an effective deterrent for the rest of the cabbies to fall in line.

YS CHAN,
Kuala Lumpur               

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This writing in views section of 'Star' newspaper last Tuesday 13th, really caught my attention.

Having many neighbours and family friends who are taxi drivers, his views are the general cabbies' grouses and their wives' woes. There's never enough to feed their families even with the men driving 18 hours a day all year round.
I've yet to meet a cabbie who entitled himself a day off on a weekly basis.

Mr YS Chan, with his 10 years experience as a taxi driver, wrote his working journeys well and me, who's depending on taxis for more than 20 years journey in JB town, will classify him as the few rare drivers who can elevate the profession to the next level.
I've came across few drivers, who admitted being degree holders with no job opportunity after years of applying.
Reading YS Chan's writing reminds me of a  Singapore scientist from China  turned taxi-driver, and I did read in Singapore's Straits Times, many years back, about a pilot turned taxi-driver too.

Not all cabbies are  'unscrupulous drivers'  and not all passengers treat cabbies as 'scorns'.
Cabbies are humans with  feelings  too, topped with their unfair share of problems and 'struggle for survival'. Some of them just need 'ears' for them to be understood.
If they are heard, if the general drivers' views are seen, if the authority do not see them as collective, then the public's collective perception of seeing cabbies as opportunists will vanish as most taxi drivers just want to earn the 'honest RM by providing their best service'.