Three women were yesterday charged with allegedly prostituting a 13-year-old girl on numerous occasions to clients in Phnom Penh guesthouses, a municipal deputy prosecutor said.
Keo Thea, chief of the municipal anti-human trafficking police unit, said yesterday that the three women-Keo Socheat, 56, Mam Pheap, 46, and Sorn Sarin, 29- were arrested in Tuol Kok district’s Phsar Depot III commune on Monday.
“The suspects confessed that they had been trafficking humans many times by bringing an underage girl to have sex with their clients,” Mr Thea said, adding that the women had earned $1,000 prostituting the 13-year-old.
Mr Thea alleged that Ms Savin, the victim’s aunt, had tricked her niece into having sex with clients at a guesthouse in Tuol Kok district. Mr Thea declined to name the guesthouse.
Phnom Penh Municipal Court Deputy Prosecutor Kry Sok Y said the three suspects had been charged with soliciting a child prostitute, adding that the suspects had been placed in pre-trial detention at Phnom Penh’s Prey Sar prison.
“The three women confessed to exploiting a 13-year-old girl by offering her for sexual services,” Mr Sok Y said by telephone.
Sawada Chan Krisna, head of the women and children’s rights program for local rights group Adhoc, said that her organization had recorded 16 cases of child human trafficking in Cambodia so far this year.
Ms Chan Krisna said that some poor people were lured into selling their children to human trafficking “ringleaders” for the promise of large amounts of money.
Mr Thea, the police chief, said he did not believe that there had been an increase in human trafficking in Phnom Penh in 2010.
“It’s occurred, but not too much,” he said, adding that police had other human trafficking suspects in their sights.
