Infidelity in Cambodia

As I read blogs and magazines and posts, my heart is super sensitive to articles about Cambodia. Since I will be living there all too soon, I like being aware of what's happening in the country, with its people, and the issues they face. One such issue, like so many other countries in our world, is the AIDS crisis. But it Cambodia, it is directly linked to the sex industry.

In a recent article posted on Reject Apathy, volunteers in a small village discuss one of women's greatest fears: AIDS. “Many women live with the reality that their husband is not faithful and so they are at risk of HIV,” says Joke van Opstal, the founder of World Relief’s Hope ministry, explaining that in Cambodia it is quite normal for married men to visit sex workers. “They live with the sorrow of their husband’s infidelity, but they keep their hurts bottled inside. There’s a lot of ‘saving face’ that goes on.”

The horrors of the sex trade make victims out of so many, the women who are "employed", and the men who visit them, the wives they go home to, and the children they orphan due to AIDS.

It breaks my heart to think of the girls I met in Cambodia last summer that might be living with AIDS. Or the girls I will encounter when I return. How I wish I could make this injustice go away, but since I cannot, I will just love each victim it claims.