Research in Cambodia? : a brief explanation

I am at the end of a very long, very full week of meetings and information-gathering for next week's initial fieldwork in Siem Reap.  For those of you who do not know, I am in Cambodia this summer working as a research intern with an organization called "Love146" which specializes in the prevention of human trafficking/sexual exploitation and providing aftercare for its victims.  The commercial sex industry is a thriving business in this corner of the world and much of it revolves around tourist hotspots and (naturally) the red light districts of Cambodia's urban centers.  My work this summer will be an exploratory study of the sexual exploitation of males working as masseurs in a number of these tourist destinations outside of Phnom Penh--namely Siem Reap.   

As I mentioned in my previous post, there is little-to-no research focusing specifically on men and boys in the commercial sex industry.  Most research has focused primarily on women and girls--often framing men as the predators and women and girls as the quintessential victims of exploitation.  However, men and boys are also victims.  One earlier study found that nearly 20% of Cambodian boys are sexually abused between the ages of 9 and 15--that's about 1 in 5.  However, in this climate of research, where men are solely predators and women are solely victims, it becomes very difficult for NGOs and other social service providers to take male issues seriously--thus, very few services exist to meet their needs.   This research is part of a big "first step" in uncovering a great blind-spot in our understanding of sexual exploitation.  

Next week we will begin with our preliminary fieldwork in Siem Reap.  The primary data for our research will come from one-on-one interviews with masseurs.  Some of these young men may work for legitimate spas and massage parlors, some will be prostitutes, and others may be somewhere in-between.  This first week of fieldwork will consist of four days of observation and information gathering from NGO workers in the area and impromptu conversations in a number of area restaurants and bars.   

Hopefully, this gives a bit of context to what I will be doing this summer.  I thought that it was important to dedicate a full post to a an explanation of my work, because I will--no doubt--be drawing reference to this subject in a number of posts to come, and I don't want anyone to be lost.  Hopefully, not everything that I write will be as heavy and academic as this post--I'll be posting some lighter things as well--but I thought it was important to give this brief explanation as a backdrop for my posts to come over the next few months.