critique

Cambodia is one of the key hubs for gambling operations in Southeast Asia. Online and offline gambling have expanded to neighboring countries, contributing to the proliferation of transnational crimes such as human trafficking, online scams, and labor exploitation. Women are the most vulnerable group to exploitation and violence. According to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), there are at least 100,000 victims of human trafficking working in Cambodia (UNODC, 2023). High poverty rates and limited job opportunities in the country increase people’s vulnerability to becoming trapped in these crimes. Many victims are offered well-paid jobs, but in reality, they are often forced to work, sexually exploited, and subjected to abuse.

Gender inequality and patriarchal structures in Southeast Asia exacerbate women’s vulnerability to human trafficking, sexual violence, and economic subordination. The Indonesian Embassy in Phnom Penh recorded 1,761 Indonesian citizens who were victims of online scams in Cambodia, with the majority of them identified as women (Sekarwati, 2024). This situation indicates that transnational crimes based on illegal gambling not only threaten a country’s economic stability and national security but also create humanitarian crises and strengthen gender inequality in the region.

Conceptual Framework

 Feminism does not interpret gender in a biological context but rather as a social construct that creates a hierarchy between masculinity—associated with strength and rationality—and femininity, which is often considered inferior. This hierarchy produces inequality between women and men (Baylis et al., 2014). Feminism also emphasizes the importance of integrating women’s experiences and voices into global political analysis (Enloe, 2014). This perspective is emancipatory, as it explains the subordination of women in marginalized positions within the patriarchal international system. Therefore, feminism can be used to analyze state policies, particularly in the areas of security and transnational crime, which have traditionally focused on state interests and control over individuals, without considering the impact on women as the main victims.

Legalization of Gambling and Reproduction of Patriarchy by the Cambodian Government

Besides being the largest gambling center in Southeast Asia, Sihanoukville is a thriving hub for fraud and human trafficking operations. In 2020, there were 193 casinos in the city, indicating tremendous growth for gambling in Cambodia (Sok, 2023). The Cambodian government is taking advantage of gambling bans in neighboring countries such as Thailand and China by legalizing casino operations in areas such as Sihanoukville. This allows foreigners who cannot gamble in their home countries to play in Cambodia. This also attracted foreign investors from China to open a gambling industry in Cambodia since the Chinese government has strict restrictions on the gambling industry. In addition, Cambodia facilitates the development of gambling by providing various facilities to Chinese syndicates, such as tax exemptions, as the government considers the gambling industry an important source of revenue. In 2019, this sector contributed US$85 million to the country. Therefore, the Cambodian government considers that the gambling industry has a corresponding effect on other sectors, such as the economy, tourism, and services (Luo, 2023).

By legalizing the gambling industry, the Cambodian government is prioritizing economic interest over human security. In this context, economic gains take precedence over women’s security and rights. From a feminist perspective, this policy reflects a patriarchal structure in which women are positioned as objects to be controlled for economic purposes. Their bodies and labor are exploited as tools to generate profit, without adequate protection or recognition of their rights. As mentioned before, the gambling industry is closely linked to the economic, tourism, and service sectors, where women are the most vulnerable group, often exploited as sex workers and servants for foreign gamblers in Cambodia. The government’s policies uphold gender inequality and reinforce a patriarchal system that subordinates women. Women are physically and sexually exploited to satisfy men’s interest, while the state, through the legalization of gambling, legitimizes this objectification. As a result, certain men and elites benefit, while social justice and gender equality are neglected.

The state plays a role as an institution that maintains patriarchy through gender-discriminatory laws, policies, and political practices (Walby, 1990). The Cambodian government fails to provide job opportunities and develop a strong economic sector for its citizens; hence, the gambling industry is considered one of the most profitable sectors. As a result, women in the region are easily trapped in these crime syndicates due to limited employment opportunities and poverty.

Exploitation and Objectification in the Gambling Industry in Cambodia

            The prevalence of gambling and other transnational crimes in Cambodia makes the country both a transit point and destination for victims of human trafficking in Southeast Asia (De Leon, 2024). Trafficked women are often subjected to gender-based violence, including being forced into inappropriate work, overworked with inadequate wages, and assigned tasks that threaten their safety and security. Women are particularly vulnerable to being manipulated into working as ‘prostitutes.’ There is even a form of unconscious ‘voluntary’ prostitution, in which prostitution is perceived as a means of earning a living. From an abolitionist feminist perspective, prostitution violates human rights, and women involved in this activity are considered victims of human trafficking. According to Kathleen Barry, women who believe they are voluntarily engaged in prostitution are, in fact, victims of manipulations by crime syndicates, which create a false consciousness as a survival strategy (Lobasz, 2009).

            Furthermore, online gambling advertisements on illegal websites often display images of beautiful women in sexy and seductive clothing. In this context, women are objectified to influence the public to visit these online gambling sites, reflecting the gender bias that places women in a subordinate position to men (Ikhsani, 2023). In the development of online gambling, women’s bodies are exploited for the economic benefit of certain elites, often men. The state overlooks this exploitation as long as it does not threaten national security as a whole. Women’s voices are rarely heard in discussions about gambling; they are often treated merely as statistics rather than as subjects who experience structural violence rooted in the patriarchal system and reinforced by socially constructed stereotypes.

The Impact of Gambling Expansion in Cambodia for Indonesia

            From Indonesia’s perspective, the impact of online gambling expansion in Cambodia is significant. According to the Indonesian Ministry of Immigration and Corrections (2024), between 2020 and 2023, a total of 1,233 Indonesian citizens fell victim to human trafficking in Cambodia. This situation is exacerbated by limited employment opportunities in Indonesia, which drives citizens to seek work abroad without realizing the potential risk of exploitation. Moreover, the Indonesian government estimates that more than 3 million Indonesian citizens are involved in online gambling activities that cost the country around USD 20 billion (UNODC, 2024). The high poverty rate in Indonesia encourages many of its citizens to play online gambling to find an easy way to earn money. This widespread practice has a negative impact on women, especially housewives, who are vulnerable to domestic violence due to a gambling-addicted partner. This addiction triggers financial conflicts as perpetrators divert funds for household needs to gambling. In many cases, the perpetrator forces his spouse to commit crimes such as stealing or even ‘exploiting’ his wife to pay all his gambling debts. According to the Central Statistics Agency of Indonesia (BPS), in 2024 there were 2,889 divorce cases caused by gambling (Revo M, 2025).

            Furthermore, women face the double burden of earning a living to meet household needs while simultaneously taking care of the home. In some cases, women endure domestic violence from their partners because they feel powerless to report it. They also face negative stigma from their social environment as a result of their partner’s involvement in online gambling. This reflects a social system in Indonesia that tends to blame the victim rather than the perpetrator, labeling women as being incompetent in managing the household, poor at handling finances, or even failing to take care of their husbands (Kamalludin, 2024).

State Security vs. Human Security

            In 2020, the Cambodian government enacted the Law on the Management of Commercial Gambling, which provides for the licensing and regulation of commercial gambling. However, the government had already officially banned all forms of online gambling in 2019. This policy was not solely aimed at protecting the interests of its citizens but rather at maintaining diplomatic relations with China. China has been exercising its soft power in Southeast Asia by collaborating with Cambodia to transform Sihanoukville into an economic city (Luo, 2023). From a feminist perspective, this policy reflects elements of masculinity, as the government prioritizes interstate cooperation over the human security—particularly women—who are increasingly vulnerable to being re-trafficked or even criminalized by the state.

            In addition, the large number of Indonesians involved in illegal gambling practices in Cambodia has prompted the Indonesian government to tighten security measures and cooperate with Cambodia through the Cambodia-Indonesia Bilateral Meeting on Immigration Matters to eradicate this crime. Feminist perspectives criticize government policies for being overly masculine, as they tend to prioritize state security and interstate cooperation. Feminist scholars also critique traditional theories that prioritize state interest over individual security, ultimately placing the safety of victims below the security needs of the state. In terms of interstate cooperation, policies developed by regional and international organizations primarily focus on strengthening borders, enhancing cooperation, improving law enforcement, and tightening the control of document production. These approaches concentrate on punishing perpetrators without addressing the structural problems that make victims vulnerable to exploitation by transnational crime syndicates. Moreover, because state policies are focused on state security, victims are often treated as criminals and deported without any support services. This lack of protection leaves them vulnerable to being trafficked again (Lobasz, 2009).

Conclusion

Feminist perspectives offer a critical space for women’s voices in international politics, especially in addressing the impact of illegal gambling and transnational crime. Gender inequality in social structures and patriarchal culture makes women the most vulnerable to exploitation, violence, and subordination. The case of gambling in Cambodia shows how women’s safety and rights are marginalized in favor of the state’s masculine interests. The state upholds the patriarchal system through policies that prioritize national security over individual protection. Therefore, it is important for governments, both at the domestic and regional levels, to consider gender-sensitive policies to prioritize human security that guarantees the rights, safety, and dignity of every citizen, ensuring protection without gender discrimination.

This article contains many spoilers for Season 3 of Netflix’s “Squid Game.”

“Squid Game” is a twisty, twisted thriller, with ordinary, financially stressed people playing children’s games to the death for the amusement of the hidden wealthy. Beneath that surface, creator, writer and director Hwang Dong-hyuk has been embedding sociopolitical commentary amid the shock and awe of protagonist Gi-hun’s (Lee Jung-jae) personal roller-coaster ride; the characters’ desperation as the saga ends forces those messages to poke through the slick, candy-colored exterior.

“It was a result of elevation of the themes and stories,” said Hwang of those ideas becoming more clearly voiced. They “became more upfront and intense just as a natural course of the story unfolding.”

The global phenomenon, still Netflix’s most-watched non-English show ever (its first two seasons are No. 1 and 2 on the streamer’s all-time list, with nearly 600 million views to date, according to Netflix), ends on its own terms with the release of its third and final season Friday. And what an arc everyman Gi-hun will have completed. How better to represent Hwang’s themes of end-stage, winners-and-losers capitalism, with its warping, destructive power, and how the ill-intentioned can exploit democracy’s flaws, than to depict an ordinary person buffeted by the unseen hand of pain for profit?

“You can say this is a story of those who have become losers of the game, and also those of us who are shaken to our core because of the chaotic political landscape,” said Hwang, who with Lee, spoke via an interpreter on a video call earlier this month from New York. “I wanted to focus in Season 3 on how in this world, where incessant greed is always fueled, it’s like a jungle — the strong eating the weak, where people climb higher by stepping on other people’s heads.”

Lee Jung-jae as Seong Gi-hun in final season of Netflix’s “Squid Game.”

(No Ju-han / Netflix)

Gi-hun’s hands become bloodied in the competition in Season 3, Hwang said. “That’s the first time he kills someone [in the games]. This person who symbolized goodness, the original sin is now on him because of what society has done to him,” he said. “How does he pick himself up from that? That’s the heart of Season 3. In a way, we’re all put in this situation due to the capitalist society and chaotic political situation. Gi-hun symbolizes what all of us go through these days.”

When we meet him in Season 1, Gi-hun is down and out, an inveterate gambler. Through Season 1’s horrific gantlet of murderous kids’ games, his exterior is scraped away with a rusty edge until all that’s left is a flawed but good man. Gi-hun is someone who sees what he believes with clarity, while becoming the suddenly rich champion of the games.

But after he reaches that peak, Season 2 plunges him back down the roller coaster as he becomes obsessed with vengeance against the elite voyeurs who fund the game and the Front Man (Lee Byung-hun), who oversees it. Righteous anger carries Gi-hun to the brink of his goal of destroying the games, only to see it all brutally dashed. Season 3 finds him a broken man, near catatonic with guilt. Without him to guide the less bloodthirsty players, the games will enter a fearsome phase of all-out mayhem, from which unexpectedly emerges a chance at redemption for the battered protagonist.

“All of those changes within Gi-hun are depicted in such minute detail” in Hwang’s writing, said Lee, “so nuanced and with so many layers. You’ll see Gi-hun have a change of heart. Sometimes his beliefs will be shaken. But despite all of that, he will continue to struggle to find hope and his will.

“All of those changes within Gi-hun are depicted in such minute detail, so nuanced and with so many layers,” Lee Jung-jae said of his character and Hwang Dong-hyuk’s writing.

(Justin Jun Lee / For The Times)

“All I can say is, I’m a very lucky man. You don’t come by characters like Gi-hun every day. It’s been a true honor,” he adds.

Lee’s public appearances in support of “Squid Game” have provided an almost comic contrast with Gi-hun. He’s movie-star handsome, elegant, always sharply dressed. On the show, especially as Gi-hun deteriorates in Season 3, he’s wrecked.

“Jung-jae went on this extremely harsh diet for over a year so he could really portray, externally, the pain and the brokenness, to really express how famished and barren he is, both mentally and physically,” Hwang said.

Gi-hun isn’t the only person the games destroy. Another hallmark of the show is its deft development of characters into fan favorites, coupled with its “Game of Thrones”-like willingness to unceremoniously kill them. Viewers will be sharpening their pitchforks when trans commando Hyun-ju (Park Sung-hoon), a.k.a. Player 120, dies ignominiously in Season 3. Hwang is already braced for the backlash.

“It’s not me who did it! It was 333,” he exclaimed, blaming the murderer.

Hwang said when he watched the first assembly edit of that death, “I wrote and directed and everything, I knew it’s coming, but it was still painful. It was like, ‘Oh, come on, come on.’ ”

“For some characters, I would see them go and I’d feel really sad … I would think, ‘Director Hwang is such a cruel man,’” Lee said.

1

2

1. Hyun-ju (Park Sung-hoon) in Season 3 of “Squid Game.” “I wrote and directed and everything, I knew it’s coming, but it was still painful,” Hwang Dong-hyuk said. 2. Jun-hee (Jo Yu-ri), a pregnant contestant in the games, was another casualty. (No Ju-han / Netflix)

When Hwang asks what death in particular made him feel that way, Lee doesn’t hesitate to cite another beloved character, pregnant contestant Jun-hee (Jo Yu-ri), calling that Season 3 death “heartbreaking.”

Lee’s sensitive, evolving turn as Gi-hun — deeply human amid the madness, paranoia and murder set in bright green and pink surroundings — has made the character the ideal litmus test for Hwang’s critique of an economic system designed to produce titanic winners and losers who face annihilation. He’s a living symbol of Hwang’s themes.

“I feel like Director Hwang is truly an artist,” Lee said. “I mean something akin to a concept artist. Because when he creates his visuals, not only are they extremely pleasing to the eye; he focuses on the meaning behind them. He [stacks] images on top of one another, almost as if building a Lego castle. Each little block has meaning: each dialogue, each editing flow and [each use of] the musical score.”

As Season 3 reaches a boil, some of Hwang’s symbolism becomes less subtle. In one game, contestants clutch keys suspiciously resembling crucifixes as one player leads others with fervor, for better or worse. One character’s moment of triumph occurs before a painted rainbow (rainbow flags are also associated with the LGBTQ+ community in Korea). And Hwang’s nuanced critique of democracy comes to the fore.

“I feel like Director Hwang is truly an artist,” said Lee Jung-jae of the show’s creator. “I mean something akin to a concept artist. Because when he creates his visuals, not only are they extremely pleasing to the eye; he focuses on the meaning behind them.

(Justin Jun Lee / For The Times)

Unlike Season 1, in which contestants had one chance to vote to end the games, in Seasons 2 and 3, votes are taken after each contest; as more players die, the pot swells larger and larger. With only a score or so of participants left, a vote to quit means all would leave alive, and with substantial cash. Voting to continue means, explicitly, they will kill to become obscenely wealthy.

“In the past, at the time of elections, despite our differences, we all came together; there was more tolerance through the process of conflict,” Hwang said. “I don’t think that is anymore the case. Rather, elections [have only driven] societies into greater divides. I wanted to explore those themes in Seasons 2 and 3; that’s why I included the voting in each round.”

Hwang loudly calls out the flaw of democracy that allows the barest of majorities to subject all to nightmarish policies — even more nightmarish for those who voted against them. The ruthless winners keep reminding the others in Season 3 it was a “free and democratic vote.”

“That is not to say that I have a different answer,” he said. “I wanted to raise the question because I believe it is time for us to try to find the answer. In Season 1, I looked at the flaws of the economic system that creates so many losers due to this unlimited competition. In Season 2, I depicted the failure of the political system.

“Coming into Season 3, because the economic system has failed us, politics have failed us, it seems like we have no hope,” Hwang added. “What hope do we have as a human race when we can no longer control our own greed? I wanted to explore that. And in particular, I wanted to [pose] that question to myself.”

And what has he found? Does he still believe in humanity?

“Well, I don’t have the answer,” Hwang said. “But I have to admit, honestly, I think I’ve become more cynical, working on ‘Squid Game.’”

WASHINGTON — White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt was already at the briefing room lectern Tuesday when Elon Musk, the world’s richest man and a special advisor to President Trump until just last week, launched into a scathing rebuke targeting his signature legislation.

“I’m sorry, but I just can’t stand it anymore,” Musk wrote on his social media platform, X. “This massive, outrageous, pork-filled Congressional spending bill is a disgusting abomination.”

“Shame on those who voted for it,” he added. “You know you did wrong. You know it.”

It was the latest, sharpest critique of the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act” making its way through Congress from Musk, who ended his tenure as a special government employee last week despite his efforts to stay on, according to an Axios report.

In a CBS interview aired last week, Musk also called the bill a disappointment. “I think a bill can be big or it can be beautiful,” he said, “but I don’t know if it can be both. My personal opinion.”

The Trump administration had already been on defense over the future of the bill, which the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates would result in a $3.8-trillion increase to the national debt over 10 years.

House Republicans approved the measure in late May. But multiple Republicans in the Senate, where the party holds a slim majority, have balked at its effects on the deficit, as well as several major proposals in the legislation that would result in millions of Americans losing access to Medicaid coverage.

One GOP senator, Joni Ernst of Iowa, drew national criticism over the weekend after responding to constituent concerns regarding Medicaid cuts at a town hall last week by saying, “well, we are all going to die.” The exchange put threats to Medicaid in the legislation back in the headlines, forcing the White House to put out a press release on Monday with the subject line: “MYTHBUSTER: No, People Will Not ‘Literally Die’ with the One Big Beautiful Bill.”

“The president already knows where Elon Musk stood on this bill,” Leavitt said at the briefing, asked to respond to Musk’s X post. “It doesn’t change the president’s opinion.”

The bill would also cut clean energy tax credits passed during the Biden administration, which have benefited Musk’s electric vehicle company, Tesla.

Trump has also bucked Musk on other matters in recent days. Despite Musk’s opposition, Trump brokered an agreement with the United Arab Emirates to build the largest artificial intelligence campus outside of the United States with the backing of Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, a Musk rival.

The president also withdrew Jared Isaacman, reportedly an ally of Musk, as his nominee for NASA administrator. Musk’s rocket ship company, SpaceX, relies heavily on government contracts.