The Healing Fields

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - Women in garish red lipstick lean against doorways or lounge on the porches of flimsy, wooden shacks, the rooms beyond dimly lit in red.

In twos and threes, they line the dirt road in the notorious Tuol Kok brothel district, flirting and calling to the steady stream of men.

On this Friday night in November, the city is crowded with hundreds of thousands of spectators and athletes here for the annual water festival and boat races. Boatmen, most from rural villages, roam Tuol Kok, known as a place where sex is cheap, just a dollar or two.

Health organizations blame the three-day festival for the spread of an AIDS epidemic that has hit Cambodia harder than any other Southeast Asian country. The HIV infection rate for adults hovers at 3 percent, compared with 0.3 percent in the U.S. Among Cambodia's estimated 50,000 prostitutes, the rate runs as high as 40 percent.

It is prostitutes such as these in Tuol Kok whom Setan and Randa Lee had in mind when they opened their women's center north of Phnom Penh five years ago.

So on a Saturday morning, Setan walks into a weather-beaten shack to invite three women to visit the center.

Na Lin, 36, became a prostitute to support her two children. But she paid an enormous price: Na was infected with HIV about four years ago.

Her old customers no longer visit her for sex. "Sometimes they just drop by and give me 1,000 riel (25 cents). Or if they have a big party, they bring leftover food."

Mom Sok, 30, came to the capital in 1999 to flee a husband who beat and raped her, but she had to leave her 4-year-old daughter behind with her sister. A friend who offered to get Mom a job at a restaurant instead sold her to a brothel owner.

"At first I refused to have sex," says Mom, who has a third-grade education and few job prospects. "But I had no money for my daughter."

Matter of factly, Leap Sok, 21, says she had four customers last night. A couple of years ago, Leap was kidnapped and sold into prostitution in Thailand. Eventually one of her customers helped her return to Cambodia. "I do the same work here, though," she says.

The three women climb aboard Setan's truck for the 11/2-hour ride to see the center.

Compared with the squalor of Tuol Kok, the women's center seems like paradise - serene, lush and clean. Flowers, cashew trees and palm trees dot the property.

Na, Mom and Leap tour the center and learn about the sewing and cosmetology classes. "We take care of everything . . . ," Setan tells them - food, medical care, all the necessities.

"I love how beautiful it is here," Mom says. "It was always my dream to live in a place with beautiful trees."

The trip tires Na after a while, so the women return to Tuol Kok, agreeing to come back to the center after the water festival and after they have visited their families.

"I feel lucky to meet you all," Na says. "It's destiny."

That night, Na and Mom stand on the side of the road in Tuol Kok. Another woman joins them. They say they are getting ready to go to water festival events. But as they wait, Mom works hard to catch the eye of the men passing by on foot or on motorbikes. Leap is back at the brothel.

A few days later, when the three women show up at Setan's office in Phnom Penh, they are turned away by security guards uncertain about what to do. The same happens a second time, a few weeks later. The women haven't been seen since.

"I'm disappointed in our own organization," Setan says. "Staff was not trained to know what to do. It was a lack of management on our part.

"We try our best. We are disappointed sometimes."