Cambodian capital to expel foreign sex workers
PHNOM PENH -
Authorities in the Cambodian capital
plan to expel foreign prostitutes, the
majority of them from neighboring
Vietnam, in an effort to cut crime, a
senior city official said Thursday.
``We don't want to see any disorder
from illegal immigrants working as
sex workers,'' deputy governor of
Phnom Penh Chea Sophara told
Reuters. ``The more disorder there
is, the more crime increases.''
There have been occasional
campaigns against prostitution in
Phnom Penh in recent years but the
business continues to thrive.
Chea Sophara said there were an
estimated 3,000 prostitutes from
Vietnam in Phnom Penh, about half
the total number, with smaller
numbers of sex workers from other
countries.
``We want to protect our culture
from the flood of foreign prostitutes,''
he said. ``They come to Cambodia
without passports or even
identification papers, that's illegal.''
City authorities will coordinate their
campaign with the foreign and
interior ministries. Foreign prostitutes
will be expelled, he said.
Prostitution is illegal but widespread
in Cambodia.
The sex business has been linked to
one of the fastest spread rates of the
virus that leads to Acquired Immune
Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) in the
region.
Health authorities estimate at least
150,000 of the country's 11 million
people are infected with the human
immunodeficiency virus (HIV), most
of them from having unprotected sex
with infected people.
Recent research found that nearly 50
percent of women in brothels
nationwide are infected with the HIV
virus and men are passing it on to
their wives. Of all married women in
Cambodia, 2.4 percent are infected,
health officials say.
Reuters - August 05, 1999.
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