16 year old girl crying (middle) after her mother (R) invited me to photograph her in her room that she also uses to receive customers as a prostitute. The room is in a slam behind "the building", a run-down appartment block occupied by squatters. When she was 13 she was raped by a Khmer man and a bit after that she started taking customers as a prostitute. Virginity is still considered very important for a Cambodian woman, making it very difficult for her to get married to a Khmer man after loosing it. One year ago she also started taking crystal meth, a drug that is comonly used by prostitutes in Phnom Penh because it helps them stay awake the nights they go to bars to pick up foreign customers. The drug also makes her look deranged and over-emotional. .On the left, a neigbor woman that also works part time as a prostitute.
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