Beer Girls Advocacy Project

There are an estimated 4,000 “beer promotion girls” in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. These young women are recruited by beer companies to promote and sell specific brands of beer in bars, nightclubs and restaurants. In essence, these young women are waitresses. Though these girls can make as much as $2 per day from commissions, they are largely presumed by bar patrons to be indirect sex workers and thus face extensive sexual harassment, aggression and violence. Many of the girls are pressured into drinking with patrons and some have even suffered gun violence for refusing sexual advances. The extent of their maltreatment does not end after work hours: 70% have faced public harassment and even physical abuse from their larger communities by virtue of the perception that they are involved in sex work.

Lotus Outreach recently began supporting an advocacy project to help combat the extensive mistreatment and discrimination these girls face on a daily basis. The Beer Girls Advocacy project will work to increase public awareness on the importance of respecting the rights and dignity of these women through media campaigns including radio talk shows, TV spots, posters and music. It will collaborate with beer companies, distributors, bars, and restaurants to ensure zero tolerance of abuse and sexual harassment. Lastly, this project will lobby for regulations, policies, agreements, mechanisms, and enforcement of existing laws to help put an end to trafficking in women and children, and alleviate the abuse faced by beer promotion girls.

Partner: Cambodian Women`s Crisis Center