Easy currency: Poverty and abuse in Cambodia’s ‘virginity trade’
Danet* is fourteen, and lives in a house built on wooden stilts, with no walls, and only tarpaulin for shelter. … The ‘virginity trade’ is rampant in Cambodia, particularly in the capital, and is “a big problem”, says Tim Huon from Action Pour Les Enfants (APLE), a non-governmental organisation that investigates child sex abuse and exploitation here. Ordinarily, ‘virgin buying’ is popular among “rich, powerful Asian men who believe that if they have sex with a virgin it will bring them good health and good luck, and some think that it will even cure diseases, like HIV”, Mr Huon explains. …
