It's the quick fixes policy by trying to put a band-aid to heal cancer. Someone will indeed make more money from this new law.

It is true that many Cambodian women have been used and abused by men --foreign and domestic men—for many years. In some cases Khmer women have been abused by evil women such as those matchmakers or brokers who arrange marriages for cash. Sometimes it doesn’t even involve love.

We see plenty of examples of such abuses, i.e. Khmer women has been lured to marry Korean men for very little money, (http://www.genderacrossborders.com/2010/03/28/cambodia-targets-trafficking-facilitated-by-marriage-brokers/) and in the United States in 2009 a Cambodian American woman in Seattle was caught in a marriage fraud ring (http://www.ice.gov/news/releases/0901/090123seattle.htm).

Every time I visit Cambodia, both strangers and acquainted individuals had asked me about my marital status--a few times by my taxi drivers. Marital status had been an open and sincere inquiry in Cambodia, but nowadays it has a different meaning. They really want to know if you are interested in a Cambodian woman or whether you are free to marry one of them for quite a bit of money. It smells like human trafficking to me, but you never know many times love can be arranged.

There are many forms of human trafficking; fake marriage is one of them. As long as the Cambodian government is sincere enough about trying to solve this problem, it should be applauded and appreciated. However, sometimes the "good" intention is also an additional room for corruption. With money, all paper woks for proper “income and age limit” could be fixed accordingly.

But the maltreatment by foreign men is just like the tip of iceberg; the real abuses, (physically and mentally) are committed by Cambodian men in general. Most of the time, the violations are done by those sugar-daddies and by the rich and powerful people inside Cambodia.

Granted that if the law is strictly enforced, it can protect some women from a few older unemployed individuals, some welfare recipients or retirees in the U.S and other countries, but it also limit the opportunity of Cambodian women who might be able to prosper and be better protected in another place but in Cambodia. Who is to say that Cambodian women are only good in the kitchen, as a housewife or as a sex object and not be able to bring more income to help raise her family?

The major problems lie in Cambodian social and moral corruption as well as in the lack of proper enforcement of the existing laws. These critical issues needed to be addressed.

In addition, the Cambodian government needs to create more good job opportunity so that human trafficking issue can be reduced or eliminated. Cambodian men or women do not want to leave their hometown to a different country if they are being treated as human being by their own kind, be able to find decent job and not being abused by the rich and the powerful ones.

The cancer of Cambodian society is the moral and social corruption. Putting limit on love with age and money is like using a broken band-aid to try to heal and hide the cancer.

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Praise for Cambodia's 'old goats' policies

Published on March 20, 2011

Re: "No country for old men and poor men," World, March 19.

I applaud the Cambodian government's new laws to protect foreign men from predatory Cambodian women. One law prohibits foreign men aged 50 or older from marrying local women.

I'm not familiar with conditions in Cambodia, but I'm told there's a large population of impoverished young women. One can easily imagine that some of them might get jobs in bars and seek out ancient foreign sugar daddies to marry in a desperate attempt to escape poverty.

Should a young woman succeed in capturing such a foolish old goat, he will find to his sorrow that she will quickly develop spending habits designed to reduce him to penury, compounded by the incessant demands of her family, relatives, assorted leeches and hangers-on, possibly her entire village, and even the surrounding province.

This new law will protect elderly foreign men from such depredations. Such men are usually lonely, hungry for love, and easy prey for calculating young vixens. I counsel such men to buy a dog. A young woman's love will be entirely simulated and dependent on continued affluence, whereas a dog will provide true and unconditional love and a loyalty that will never fail.

A second law requires a foreigner under the age of 50 to have a monthly income of Bt75,000 before he can marry a Cambodian woman.

Earlier it was only suspected that local ladies married foreigners for their money. This new law will guarantee it. But this law also has the effect of protecting foreign men, because I doubt that there are many expats in Cambodia who earn Bt75,000 a month, especially if they're English teachers.

I warmly commend the Cambodian government for its altruistic and compassionate concern for the well-being of its population of foreign men.

Horace Beasley (Mr)
Bangkok