Over 4000 women and girls are engaged in the promotion of beer and alcohol in beer gardens, karaoke bars and local restaurants in Cambodia. This business attracts vulnerable young women and girls.

Only 25% of beer promoters are paid a salary. 73% work on a commission-only basis. Many beer promotion workers reported they needed to sell almost at any cost to their safety to earn enough to live.

The common perception that beer promotion is synonymous with sex work puts the women workers at great risk of abuse and harassment. The low wage means many of the women are forced into prostitution, sometimes after drinking with a client to reach a sales quota. The women are also subject to appalling assaults and violence.

Cases of abuse by customers are rarely reported, as a result of the social and economic status of the women, and even when cases of rape are reported, the chance of the women receiving justice is very low. Death is an occupational hazard for beer promotion workers.

Research by a Canadian academic has found that 20% of the female beer promotion women in Cambodia are HIV positive and that local doctors estimate that within two years all of these women may be dead. The women's only chance of survival is for the international beer companies they worked for to step in and provide life-saving anti-retroviral medicines.

APHEDA beer girls campaign

ACTU - New Campaign to Lift Wages and Prevent HIV Deaths Among Beer Promotional Women