Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
CHILDREN AT RISK
Cambodia has an unfortunate reputation as a destination for paedophiles, and child sex
tourism has grown here as a result of crackdowns on child prostitution in other Southeast
Asian countries.
The Ministry of the Interior (National Police) asks that anyone witnessing child prostitution in
Cambodia immediately report it to the police on their national
“child-wise” hotline
(
T
023
997919). ChildSafe also has a 24-hour national hotline to report children at risk (
T
012 311112,
W
childsafe-cambodia.org). You could also consider contacting
ECPAT
(End Child Prostitution,
Abuse and Tra
cking,
W
ecpat.net).
embassy as well. In Phnom Penh, Siem Reap and
Sihanoukville, English-speaking
tourist police
will
help, but in the provinces you'll have to deal with
the local police, who are unlikely to have more
than a smattering of English, so if possible take a
Khmer-speaker with you.
Though the vast majority of Cambodian police
will do their best to help in an emergency, a small
minority are not averse to trying to elicit money
from foreigners. If you're riding a motorbike or
driving a motor vehicle, they may well deem that
you've committed an offence. You can argue the
“fine” down to a few dollars and may as well pay up,
although if you can stand the hassle and don't
mind wasting a lot more time you may feel it worth
reporting
so on are also available. Needless to say the authori-
ties take a much dimmer view of these than of
dope, and possession may well earn you a term in
the nearest Cambodian prison - and, given the
suspect quality of a lot of the drugs sold on the
street, could even be fatal. There have been cases of
travellers dying after buying what they believed to
be cocaine but which turned out to be pure heroin.
Note that in the case of any medical
complications
the
nearest
properly
equipped
hospital is in Bangkok.
Land mines and unexploded
ordnance
The UN estimates that between four and six million
land mines
were laid in Cambodia between 1979
and 1991, but no one really knows. The Vietnamese
and the government laid them as protection
against Khmer Rouge guerrillas, who in turn laid
them to intimidate local populations; neither side
recorded the locations of the minefields. To date
more than two thousand minefields have been
identified (usually through members of the local
population being blown up), and new locations are
regularly being reported. Several organizations are
actively working at de-mining the countryside, and
at last the number of casualties is decreasing; but
given the scale of the problem, it will be many years
before the mines are cleared completely (see
p.297). The
border area with Thailand
between
Koh Kong and Preah Vihear is particularly
dangerous. In rural areas, take care not to leave
well-used paths and never take short-cuts across
rice fields without a local guide. Areas known to be
badly contaminated are signed with a red skull and
the words “Beware Mines”.
As if this problem weren't enough, in the 1970s
the United States dropped more than half a
million tonnes of
bombs
on Cambodia. This
began as part of a secret and illicit plan to expose
the Ho Chi Minh Trail used by communist North
such
incidents
to
the
police
commissioner.
Road accidents
usually attract vast crowds of
curious onlookers, and if any damage to property or
injury to a person or domestic animal has occurred,
then you'll have to stay at the scene until the police
arrive. It's the driver's responsibility to come to a
financial arrangement with the other parties
involved. In spite of their general amiability, it's not
unknown for locals to try to coerce foreigners into
coughing up money, even if they are the innocent
party or merely a passenger.
Drugs
As you'd expect given its proximity to some of the
world's major drug-producing regions, drugs both
soft and hard are common in Cambodia.
Marijuana
is widely available, especially around the southern
beaches, and you'll be approached by peddlers on
a fairly regular basis in all major tourist spots.
Possession is of course illegal, and although prose-
cutions are rare, purchasing and consuming dope
always carries a risk of falling foul of the police -
and most likely having to pay some sort of
backhander in order to avoid having charges
pressed.
Hard drugs
including opium, cocaine and
