In Vietnam, Virgins Bring a Mighty Price for Curing AIDS
Mon, June 15, 2009 
It’s often parents — and mom over the objections of dad — who sell their daughters into sex slavery in Vietnam. This summer YaleGlobal Online Magazine reports on modern-day sex slavery in Rach Gia.
“In the Eastern way of thinking, the children have to obey their parents: ‘I have my body. I will do this for my family,’” said Nguyen Kim Thien, director of Ho Chi Minh City’s Little Rose Warm Shelter for sexually abused girls. via YaleGlobal Online Magazine
via Flickr’s Lon&QuetaSome Asian men are willing to pay as much as $600 to have sex with a virgin, believing she will restore their youth, give them good fortune or even cure them of AIDS.
In a quick examination of the daily lives of people living in this garbage-infested slum where getting food on the table today is parents’ primary concern, it’s difficult to resist strangers who arrive in the village with promises of a good job for young women.
Catalyst Foundation co-founder Caroline Nguyen Ticarro-Parker tries to convince parents that their girls will be raped repeatedly by strangers, but even Nguyen agrees that for those living in brutal conditions like Rach Gia, the selling price for virgin girls is a lot of money. Read Globalization’s Ugly side: Sex Slavery
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