Anti-human trafficking officials last week cracked down on a guesthouse in Phnom Penh’s Prampi Makara district that offered sexual services for a select clientele.

 

Keo Thea, director of the municipal Anti-Human Trafficking and Juvenile Protection Office at the Ministry of Interior, said a raid of the guesthouse-turned-brothel in Veal Vong commune netted a total of 14 arrests, including the guesthouse owner, two accomplices and 11 sex workers, on Saturday.

“We have been investigating this house for about a month before we took superb action in cracking down on it,” he said.

Keo Thea added that the guesthouse offered specific sexual services.

“This place is hidden and illegal and provides sexual services for [gay] men, lesbians, old ladies and foreign people in Phnom Penh.”

He said police research had uncovered that the guesthouse had been a popular destination for people seeking its specific services for many years.

The detained were being held at the Phnom Penh Municipal Police Department for questioning prior to being sent to provincial court today to face charges, Keo Thea said, though he expressed doubts about the fate of some of the people arrested during Saturday’s raid.

“We are now waiting for the order from our superiors about what we should do with these 11 people, who are sexual service providers and those who had come for sex,” he said.

“But for the house owner and the two accomplices, we will send them to court for charges.”