Low pay and wandering hands: protecting Cambodia’s ‘beer girls’

Throughout Cambodia, the “beer girls” work in beer gardens and karaoke bars, going from customer to customer, employed by the breweries or by distributors to promote their beers and other alcoholic beverages.

Most are under the age of 25, working in a sector defined by low wages, poor working conditions, frequent sexual harassment, alcohol-related health problems and high rates of HIV transmission. Now several NGOs and workers’ unions have developed programmes to address some of these issues, such as Care Cambodia, which targets approximately 6,000 beer promoters, and the Cambodian Food and Services Workers’ Federation (CFSWF), a union that counts around 600 beer promoters among its members.

With fixed salaries averaging at just $100 for working an average 160 hours per month, according to the president of CFSWF, Sar Mora, many beer promoters are unable to cover their cost of living. As a result, incentives to earn additional income, such as sitting and drinking with customers in expectation of tips, are high despite resulting in dangerous levels of alcohol consumption and frequent sexual harassment.

“We are fighting for the $177 [minimum] salary [because] we know it’s really hard to fight for more. In Siem Reap you need $200-250 per month, and we would fight for that, but it’s too hard,” says Sar Mora.

In 2006, several beer companies, including brands such as Tiger and Heineken, formed the Beer Selling Industry Cambodia (BSIC) alliance, which established fixed salaries for the beer promoters working for them. With the support of Care Cambodia, BSIC also introduced a code of conduct for its members with clear guidelines for the protection of workers, including prohibiting workers from sitting and drinking with customers. Stav Zotalis, country director of Care Cambodia, says the beer promoters they work with report that the guidelines have been very effective in deterring harassment.

In response to these issues, both Care Cambodia and CFSWF have implemented programmes to organise workers. In 2008, Care Cambodia created the Solidarity Association of Beer Promoters in Cambodia (SABC), as an independent, membership-based organisation that encourages the long-term sustainability of Care Cambodia’s activities supporting beer promoters. SABC, which now counts 565 members “brings together volunteer beer promoters to share problems, encourage behaviour change and work together rather than in competition”.

Each year, SABC holds a three-day intensive training course that covers issues related to gender-based violence, legal rights and facilitation skills for women to become peer educators, who will then go on to share this information in informal settings with other beer promoters. In 2014, SABC trained 202 peer educators, who then went on to speak to 3,063 other women through peer-to-peer awareness sessions. Jenny Conrad, programme communications adviser at Care Cambodia, says the trainings have raised the confidence of the women involved and consequently enable them to stand up to sexual harassment in their workplace.

In 2012, Care Cambodia set up a hotline in collaboration with the Cambodian ministry of interior for people to report instances of gender-based violence. Although many of the calls are related to domestic violence, the free 1288 hotline is promoted by the organisation and by SABC to beer promoters as a way to seek redress for the abuses they suffer in the workplace.

Because these problems are often rooted in the establishments themselves, working directly with owners and the beer companies is key. Care Cambodia regularly organises meetings with owners to talk about labour and women’s rights and to train them on relevant laws. Conrad says that as a result of this the owners are more willing to call the police in cases of sexual harassment on their premises.

Despite these efforts however, sexual harassment is still prevalent throughout the industry. CFSWF helps its members file complaints to the police and the courts. But Sar Mora says most cases do not go forward as the women do not trust the Cambodian judicial system and know that the courts are corrupt. These worries are compounded by the fact that in many cases their abusers are high-ranking officials.

Moreover, explaining labour and women’s rights issues to establishment owners can be difficult, as they are often part of the problem. Sar Mora says:

“They encourage the women to go out with the customers, because they want the customers to be satisfied. They have links with high-ranking officers [and] they don’t care about complying with the law.”

While programmes run by NGOs and unions such as Care Cambodia and CFSWF and the implementation of the BSIC have had a positive impact on the situation, resulting in increased wages and reduced instances of sexual harassment, there is still a long way to go.

The issues are particularly prevalent in those establishments not under the purview of the BSIC, where most of the women worked on commission rather than on a fixed salary. Perhaps most important of all, progress is still lagging in changing the attitude of customers, who often see beer promoters as little more than sex workers.

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