‘Beer girls’ underpaid: report

A beer seller refills glasses for young men at a beer garden in Phnom Penh. A report has found that beer promotion women in Siem Reap town are underpaid. (Photo by: Sovan Philong)

Tuesday, 27 April 2010
By Will Baxter
The Phnom Penh Post

FEMALE beer promotion workers in Siem Reap town earned salaries that covered only half of their living expenses last year, a fact that led some 57 percent to engage in sex work, according to a report released last week by a Siem Reap-based NGO.

The report, co-authored by Ian Lubek, a psychology professor at the University of Guelph in Ontario, Canada, is an updated version of an older report, and draws from interviews with 900 women.

International and domestic beer companies operating in Cambodia offered average monthly incomes of about US$81, but workers, often referred to around the country as “beer girls”, said they needed between US$160 and $209 to cover monthly expenses and support their families, according to the report.

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