Cambodia: Destination intervention

How protecting women in prostitution can lead them out of it and deter others from entering it.

Located on the southern coast, Sihanouk Ville is economically progressive as the country’s major port, attracting sailors, fishermen, dockworkers and related factory workers. Its sandy beaches have also made it a major tourist destination (especially with Cambodians). Both aspects have encouraged a thriving entertainment industry of hotels, guesthouses, massage parlours, nightclubs, bars, brothels and karaoke establishments. Significant levels of poverty, poor infrastructure and frequent natural disasters found outside the resort areas and the port make the city a magnet for a population ready to migrate for economic reasons. Young women tend to find jobs in the entertainment sector and in a number of cases are eventually forced or coerced into prostitution. Most children and women trafficked within Cambodia end up in sexual exploitation (though many are also found toiling in garment factories, begging in the streets and labouring on construction sites or in domestic work).