Nicholas Kristof's Brothel Problem

[Wind Dancer]

CounterPunch Diary

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

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As readers of his New York Times columns across the past three years will know, Kristof heads into south east Asia around this time--a smart choice, weatherwise--to write about the scourge of child prostitution. One can hardly fault him for that, even though Kristof's bluff, busy-body prose is particularly irksome as he takes his pet peeve out for an annual saunter, the way A.M. Rosenthal did for years with female circumcision in Africa.

So far as I know, Rosenthal never actually bought a young African woman to save her from circumcision. Maybe they aren't for sale. In 2004, Kristof did buy two young Cambodian women--Srey Neth for $150 and Srey Mom for $203--to get them out of the brothels in Poipet, and took them back to their villages.

There was something very nineteenth-century abut the whole thing, both in moral endeavor and journalistic boosterism, though presumably there was a twentieth-first century footnote as to whether Kristof billed the Times for the purchase money and transport expenses or listed the girls as a charitable deduction on his own tax return, which could have led to sharp interrogation by some cynical IRS auditor.

In January of 2005, Kristof was back in Cambodia to report that while Srey Neth was doing well, learning to be a hair stylist, Srey Mom was back in the brothel, probably because she needed the drugs. Even in 2005 some of us had our doubts, since Srey Mom wouldn't leave the brothel until Kristof sprang not only the $203 but also some extra cash for her cell phone and some jewelry she'd hocked. Mind you, most girls would put cell phones ahead of moral renaissance.

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True to form, India hoists the western pundit's inanity to matchless levels. As Vijay Prashad, a columnist for the Indian weekly Frontline (and CounterPunch contributor) wrote to me from Chennai, after reading Kristof's column, "Imagine writing a column on the methamphetamine crisis in rural America without any mention of the death of the family farm." And indeed it is virtually unimaginable that Kristof can write about prostitution in India today and of the lot of women without one single word about the larger socio-economic context.

India has endured more than a decade of virtually unimaginable rural torment amidst the imposition of the neo-liberal "reforms", endlessly hailed by New York Times reporters and editorially endorsed. With withdrawal of subsidies, collapse of farm credit and of markets there is a gigantic rural crisis, affecting millions of families.

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http://www.counterpunch.org/ (links to article on today's front page)

[acmejack]

1. Great article!

Really good read!