Human Sciences Happy Hour in Phnom-Penh
IN MARCH 2010, wednesday 24h ...
6pm – Baitong Restaurant
(7 st 360, near Beung Keng Kang market)
“It’s Easy to Go to Phnom Penh, It is Hard to Come Back !
Cartography of Prostitutional Mobility from An Giang Province (Vietnam) to Cambodia
Nicolas LAINEZ
PhD student, Social Anthropology
Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales (France)
This paper addresses cross-border mobility for the aim of prostitution between An Giang province (Mekong delta) and Cambodia. It focuses on Vietnamese women traveling without proper documentation to Phnom Penh. At first, methodology and deontology issues will be discussed. Indeed, several barriers have been encountered in the field –complex administrative procedures to obtain research permits, police surveillance, institutionalization of lie, informant's fear and distrust when talking about clandestine issues– that call into question findings validity. Secondly, routes of mobility and means of transportation will be described using data collected with brokers, human smugglers and prostitutes. Do women cross the border by river (boat, canoe) or by land (motorcycle, bus, car)? What borders do they cross? How? What are the conditions? Thirdly, the paper will consider local perceptions about Vietnamese prostitution in Phnom Penh as well as its related risks such as labor exploitation, deception, usurious indebtedness and use of violence. These dangers either real or imagined spread by brokers and transporters ground the popular saying titling this paper “It's easy to go to Phnom Penh, it is hard to come back” (Nam Vang đi dễ, khó về). Lastly, local prostitution in Châu Đốc municipality will be described, especially during the religious period of the festival of the Lady of the Realm (Sam Mountain). Indeed, a majority of informants strongly advice against migrating for prostitution to Cambodia and suggest, instead, prostituting locally or migrating for the same purpose to Ho Chi Minh City and to industrialized provinces like Bình Dương.
This paper is based in 15-months ethnography in An Giang (from June 2008 to August 2009. It results from collaboration between the HCMC University of Social Sciences and Humanities, the University of An Giang, the NGO Alliance Anti-Trafic, the Bangkok-based Mekong Anti-Trafics Project and the Research Institute of Contemporary Southeast Asia (IRASEC). A French version of this paper will be published early January 2010.
