In February 2008, partly as the result of pressure from the United States to crack down on trafficking, the Cambodian government outlawed prostitution.  However, rather than arresting traffickers and brothel owners, police used this new regulation to carry out often violent raids and detain all sex workers.  It is, after all, easier to reach the sex workers than those who traffic them and use their services. Sex workers and others on the streets, such as the homeless and beggars, were locked up in so-called ‘rehabilitation’ centers. Reports of abuse in these detention centers have become prevalent. Some former detainees have recalled beatings, rapes, deaths and suicides.

There has also been concern regarding Cambodia’s HIV/AIDS prevention programs, which have reduced the occurrence of HIV in the population to 0.8 percent since 2001, when the government instituted a 100 percent condom-use campaign. Since the police raids have pushed sex workers outside of established brothels, the anti-HIV/AIDS workers can no longer find them to distribute condoms.  Even more alarming, the new law provides that merely carrying a condom can be considered evidence that the person is a prostitute.

The United Nations and NGOs have expressed their alarm, and Cambodia has seen a decrease in raids and abuse, as well as some renewed success with the HIV/AIDS campaign. Many fear, however, that this is only temporary and the police will reinstitute their old methods as soon as attention has abated. In fact, sex workers, beggars and drug-users were rounded-up before a regional summit in late May and sent to one of the old detention centers.

The sex industry in Cambodia:
The traffic police-The Economist