Sex for school

Please imagine that you are a sixteen year old girl living in Cambodia. You grew up in the country side and you have never been to a big city. You love your family very much. You want to work hard and make them proud. Your family is poor and you feel responsible to help provide as you are the oldest. Besides being responsible for your family you have your own dreams. You desperately want to go to school so that one day you can be a teacher and help the other children in your village. You don’t know how this dream could come true because your family is so poor. 

 

One day you find out about an opportunity to go to school but the school is very far from your house; making it impossible to go. You wonder if you will ever be a teacher since it seems impossible for you to study. Then a friend tells you about an opportunity to live in a house with other boys and girls so that you can attend school. You are so excited and can’t believe that you will get the chance to attend school.

 

You gather your few belongings and head to your new home a few hours away. But when you arrive you are confronted with a problem: The man who owns the house also owns a beer garden and he wants you to work there. You find out that the other girls attend school but also work in the beer garden making it possible for them to save money; which they send back to their parents. 

 

Working in the beer garden means drinking beer, getting groped by customers and perhaps sleeping with them. You don’t want to do this. You are scared of the customers and feel ashamed of the work. You tell the man that you don’t want to work in the beer garden, you just want to go to school. The man gets angry with you and makes you feel ungrateful as he provided a place for you to stay. The other students make you feel bad as well for not giving in to the man. You tell your parents but instead of encouraging you to not work they pressure you to agree. They make you feel guilty  and ask you why you are so selfish? They ask you why you would not want to support them? Don’t you know what that money could do for them? All of the other girls care about their families and send them money, why can’t you be like them? You feel so sad and hopeless. All you want is to be a teacher and for your family to be proud. 

 

So what are you to do in this predicament? This is a lot of pressure for a young girl to face. This story may seem very unfamiliar to you but this kind of situation is very common in Cambodia. Kone Kmeng has been working with various projects in the provinces of Cambodia and this hypothetical story that I had you imagine is actually a problem that a real girl is facing right now. She is being pressured to work in a beer garden in order to attend school and provide for her family. Her situation seems very grave and many of us, including myself, cannot relate to that kind of pressure. 

 

Kone Kmeng wants to help this girl as well as other children at risk. Children must be fought for and that is why their work is so important. They want young people in Cambodia to have a chance to attend school and live in a safe environment. They want to help support children in their studies and speak value into them. It is their desire and hope that the children come to know Christ as their personal Savior and give their lives to him. You can help.  If you would like to get more involved please contact us. The lives of many children are on the line and we have the opportunity to help them now. 

http://www.kone-kmeng.org/