The Healing Fields

KAMPONG THOM, Cambodia - Three pastors walk into a brothel, looking for prostitutes.

But their business isn't the customary kind.

Setan Lee, a Cambodian-born minister from Aurora, and two colleagues have come to buy the freedom of six prostitutes, to give them a new start at a women's center founded by Setan and his wife, Randa.

On a late morning in November, the pastors arrive at the brothel outside this town northeast of the center to pick up the women.

One of the ministers, Sinoeun Chea, had negotiated the deal three days earlier.

Armed with a letter from town authorities granting him permission to visit the local brothels, Sinoeun had told the owner he was recruiting women who wanted to get out of prostitution.

The owner had agreed to let him talk to the prostitutes, and six decided to go.

Sinoeun had taken detailed notes: their names, ages, whatever background they shared and the amounts of money they said they owed the owner. Sinoeun and the owner had struck a bargain: $120 for all six women.

Now Sinoeun is back to pay the money, sign the contract and take the women to the Christian center, where they will be housed, fed and taken care of while learning job skills.

Sinoeun had told the truth to the brothel owner, but that's just one technique the ministers have used in five years of trying to help prostitutes.

Sometimes a minister poses as a pimp or a brothel owner and negotiates to buy a prostitute who has no idea what's going on. The woman finds out only later that her new "pimp" is taking her to a different life in a safe place.

Sometimes the pastor recruits the women in secret, then poses as a pimp to make the deal with the brothel owner.

"If a girl owes $100, maybe the pimp will sell her for $200. Sometimes we can get older girls for very little," Setan says.

"These are lower-class brothels. Often the women start in Phnom Penh. They come (to smaller towns) after they've been there a while, when they can't get as much money. The women are older, and they're not as attractive anymore. And the brothel owner wants new girls to keep the customers interested."

Bargaining to rescue lives

On a dusty road just outside town, the brothel sits between two others just like it: unpainted wooden shacks, dirt floors, plastic chairs.

Women sit outside chatting and eating. Flies buzz around a tub full of dishes crusted with rice and scraps of meat and vegetables. Small children in need of baths run helter skelter. About a dozen men, young women and children sit in chairs or on the floor watching TV in one room. A narrow hallway, crowded with clothes, plastic toys and a bicycle, leads to the women's cramped rooms. On this hot morning, the place smells of sweat, urine and rotting food.

Sinoeun can't find the deal-maker from three days ago.

Out of nowhere, three women walk up and confront the ministers. They represent Cambodian Women for Peace and Development, a nongovernmental organization, or NGO. They had heard that Setan's organization, Kampuchea for Christ, was coming this morning. Who told them isn't clear. They demand to know details of the organization and what these three men are planning.

Everyone drags plastic chairs into a semicircle. One of the NGO women pulls out a notebook. Sinoeun shows them his official authorization and explains his mission.

"They want to make sure we're legitimate," Setan says.

Just as pastors pretend to be pimps, sometimes pimps pretend to be pastors.

Suddenly a woman who has been sitting off to the side starts shouting.

"Talk to me," she shrieks. "I don't know what's going on, but I'm in charge here. My husband is not in charge. The girls you want are not here. I don't know where they are."

She says she is Polly Chan, 28, the brothel owner. She is also the mother of the eight youngsters racing around.

It's not uncommon in Cambodia for women to own and run the brothels.

Polly's husband, apparently without her knowledge, had negotiated the deal with Sinoeun while she was away.

And she's not happy about it. Or the amount they settled on.

"If they want to go, you have to let them go," an NGO woman warns her. "You can't keep them here."

Three of the prostitutes who had told Sinoeun they wanted to go to the women's center appear outside, but Polly says the other three have vanished.

The prostitutes charge 10,000 riel, or $2.50, for each man they have sex with. They give Polly half, and they borrow from her when they need money.

Polly pulls out a small, worn notebook. On dirty sheets of torn paper, the prostitutes have set their thumbprints in red ink, and Polly has written their names, the dates and amounts they borrowed, and what they bought.

"See?" She holds the book out for inspection. "Whatever the girls want, I give them. But they have to pay it back. They need to buy clothes and jewelry so they look good for the customers."

According to her book, this is what the women owe her:

Srey Oun Sim: 90,000 riel, or $22.50.

Dalin Chea: 249,000 riel, or $62.25.

Sokha Ud, the most at 309,000 riel, or $77.25:

$22.50 - for her parents

$8 - red pants

$5 - two pants

$2.50 - shirt

$3 - blouse

$7.50 - shirt and pants

$2.50 - pants

$2.50 - scarf

$6.25 - three shirts

$5 - blouses

$12.50 - watch

Desperation and trickery

Setan acknowledges the irony of bargaining for human life to save women who are, as he says, slaves - sometimes literally, sometimes by debt and sometimes by their belief that they have no other choice.

He and Randa grapple with the moral and ethical issues. Is misrepresenting themselves for a higher purpose justified? Is it right to pay a brothel owner who will only use the money to buy more prostitutes?

"It's a very big concern for Randa and me," Setan says. "It's so hard to pay a brothel owner."

But they believe they should do whatever they must to free these women.

"Sometimes there is no other way to get the girl out who wants to come," Setan says.

The three women at this brothel have typical stories.

Srey, 24, became a prostitute a little over a year ago because she was desperate for money and had nowhere else to go.

Dalin, 21, is divorced. She turned to prostitution to support her two children, who live with their grandmother.

Sokha, 26, says she was was tricked by her boyfriend into becoming a prostitute.

The women retreat to their rooms to pack up.

"These three girls are the only girls I have," Polly wails over the din of the TV, the other conversations and her screaming children. "They are all leaving me."

In the confusion, at first nobody notices two other young women who show up at the brothel. When Setan sees them, he ushers them to a quiet corner.

Meanwhile, a vexed Sinoeun argues with Polly over the amount she is demanding. He shows her his notes. She shows him her notebook. They add up the figures again.

Sinoeun calls for the prostitutes so he can straighten out some things with them.

"When I first came to ask you how much you owed, what you told me is very different from what you owe now," he says. "I don't trust what you are saying to me."

To Dalin, he says: "First it was 80,000 riel. But now you are saying 249,000?

"This is a huge difference in what we planned. It's just a huge disparity."

Frustrated and angry, he walks away to talk to the third pastor, Hoeun Lao. The women gather around the brothel owner, chattering.

"It's too expensive," Sinoeun says to Hoeun. "We can't afford to go ahead with it."

The ministers speculate that the women spent more money after they made the deal with Sinoeun. It's a safe bet that many items in the notebook are fabricated. The ministers also begin to suspect that the prostitutes and the brothel owner are in cahoots. Maybe Polly has told the women that if they run back to the brothel in a few days, she'll split the money with them.

It wouldn't be the first time Setan's group has been cheated. Just recently, the ministers bought four prostitutes for $600 and took them to the women's center. Three days later, the women disappeared. The staff found them back at their brothel.

"They manipulated us," says Setan, still angry at the betrayal.

Besides the ethical issues in paying for prostitutes' freedom, these financial obstacles are sometimes equally troublesome.

"That's another reason we have to find other ways to get the girls out besides paying the pimps and brothel owners," Setan says.

While Polly sits fuming, Sinoeun and Hoeun stand by the truck, whispering as they pore over Sinoeun's notes, calculating, adding, subtracting. They agree that the owner is using the women to get more money. And they just don't have it. But they hate to leave empty-handed.

Finally they make an agonizing decision: They will take the two women who owe the least. They will have to leave behind the third woman, Sokha.

Meanwhile, the two women who had been talking to Setan climb into the back of the truck. One is a prostitute from another brothel in town. The other has escaped a brothel where she was being held prisoner because she refused to become a prostitute. They both want to go the women's center.

Communication breakdown

The deal with Polly isn't a deal until a contract is signed, protecting the pastors from accusations of stealing the women.

The pastors take the handwritten agreement to a small wooden table outside, ready at last to close the deal. But as Sinoeun begins to sign it, three things occur almost simultaneously.

A woman from the brothel next door approaches Sinoeun and whispers to him that it's a bad arrangement - she had overheard the three prostitutes plotting with the owner.

Then the three prostitutes tell the pastors they have made a decision: Unless all three go, none will go.

And Polly announces loudly that she has changed her mind. She wants twice as much for each woman, or no deal.

This time, there's no hesitation. Sinoeun, looking defeated, slowly folds up the agreement and puts it in his pocket. He makes a last appeal to the three prostitutes. "If you change your mind and you want to come, you can call me anytime."

After an hour and a half of failed negotiations, the ministers pile into the truck and drive away.

But it's not a total loss. They've recruited two women they didn't even know about, without spending a cent.

They've also learned a valuable lesson. Next time they make a deal, they'll be more skeptical, and they won't delay it. They'll take the prostitutes right away.

"We learn as we go," Setan says. "We make mistakes. Some things don't work.

"We're dealing with life, with human beings. There are a lot of things we can't control."

At the brothel, owner Polly Chan sits silently in the doorway. The prostitute Srey watches the truck until it turns a bend and disappears from view.