Six Vietnamese sex workers were extricated from a massage parlor in Sihanoukville on Monday night, while a pair of older Vietnamese women were arrested for running the establishment as a brothel, a police official said Tuesday.
Pen Kanha, deputy chief of the Preah Sihanouk provincial anti-trafficking police, said officers raided the massage parlor in Sihanoukville’s Pi commune at about 9 a.m. Monday on orders from provincial police chief Chuon Narin.
“Police arrested two madams—Nguyen Thituyet, aged 40, and Pham Thiphuong, aged 57—and rescued six Vietnamese women, who were between the ages of 20 and 24,” Ms. Kanha said, explaining that while the six were allowed to keep a portion of their earnings, they had initially been made to work at the brothel against their will.
Ms. Kanha said the madams would be sent to the Preah Sihanouk Provincial Court today, while the younger women would be transferred to the city’s social affairs office in the hope that an NGO would provide them with job training.
“My colleagues are investigating to find the boss, the brothel owner,” she added.
