Condoms are lucky in Cambodia!
01 May 2007
Peer outreach worker Run Sakuon is calling for all Cambodian men who have sex with men to use condoms and take no chances with the HIV epidemic. “I would like to appeal to all men who have sex with men to use condoms so they cannot infect each other,” he urges.
Until he tested HIV positive Sakuon never used condoms. “Men who have sex with men feel that when they carry condoms they will be unlucky and unable to find customers or a partner to have sex with. So they never carry condoms and they never use them during sex,” he explains. “I want to change this dangerous practice among men who have sex with men otherwise they will get into trouble like me.”
Unofficial estimates put the number of men who have sex with men in Cambodia at 7,000, although the actual figure is thought to be higher. There is also no precise figure for the number living with HIV, although unofficial estimates range from 7 to 8 per cent.
Sakuon lives in Siem Reap in Cambodia where tourism is booming. “I sold sex to survive and I sometimes had sex with as many as five men a day,” he says.
Sakuon first began to feel unwell in 2002. “I sold my six buffalos to treat myself but my sickness could not be cured. Then one of my friends took me to have a blood test and I found out that I was HIV positive,” he explains.
Embarrassed and fearing stigma and discrimination, Sakuon left his home in Thnol village in Siem Reap to live in another province. However, he returned a year later when his elderly widowed mother persuaded him to come home. “I feel normal now and the villagers do not discriminate against me,” he says.
Sakuon has since become a peer outreach worker for local non-governmental organisation (NGO) Men’s Health Cambodia. The NGO is based in Siem Reap town and is a partner of Alliance linking organisation Khmer HIV/AIDS NGO Alliance (KHANA). KHANA has managed so far to reach more than 4,000 men who have sex with men in Sihanoukville, Siem Reap and Battambang provinces.
In October 2006, KHANA offered financial and technical support to a group of Cambodian men who have sex with men to launch a national network, Bandanh Chaktomuk. The network aims to mobilise men who have sex with men nationally to become aware of their social rights, the danger of HIV, drug use and other social issues.
