New York Times: The Question of Rescue

A pretty good overview of an important debate, one that we're still talking about at Riverkids. Everybody agrees that being sold into sex work is a terrible crime. Being sold is fundamentally wrong. People aren't possessions.

But sex work has a long and varied history. It's been legal and illegal at different times and places, and today, it's at the heart of an argument over morals, personal rights, exploitation and more. It's painful and polarising.

I have people I love and respect in different countries who sell their bodies for sex. Some of them started by choice, some forced by circumstances.

In Cambodia, when a young woman with a family to support has to choose between long hard work in a factory or fields for $80 a month or making that much in a week as a sex worker - the decision is heart-breaking.

Add in that once you've been a sex worker, Khmer culture makes it very hard to return to 'normal' life, to get married and hold your head up socially. It's not a job you can quit easily.

At Riverkids, we don't advocate sex work. But we can't condemn it either when so many of the mothers, sisters and aunts of our kids are sex workers. Many of our staff believe sex work is immoral. But as one of them told me after she'd worked with us for a few months, never having met a sex worker previously, "I feel sorry for them now. They don't have so many choices, and they have their children to take care of. We have to understand."

We've learnt that you can't force people to make the right choices. You have to fight to give them those choices, and protect children who can't choose freely. And you hope.Understand them, work with them and help.

New York Times: The Question of Rescue