Reprieve for group that rescues sex slaves

PHNOM PENH: Cambodia’s strongman premier said he will not force a Christian charity that rescues child sex slaves to shut after the group apologised for featuring in a media report he disliked.

Earlier this month, Prime Minister Hun Sen ordered Agape International Missions (AIM) to close after it featured in a CNN report that he described as an “insult” to his country.

“Now AIM has made an apology. The mistakes go to CNN,” Hun Sen said during a public forum.

The impoverished South-East Asian nation has long been a destination for sex tourists, with minors often the victims of a flesh trade aided by endemic corruption.

A CNN report broadcast last month featured three girls who were reportedly rescued from the sex trade by AIM, a charity founded by an American pastor and operating in the country since 1988.

The girls had first appeared in a 2013 documentary by CNN.

Until a crackdown in the early 2000s, Svay Pak hosted a huge red light district notorious for child sex slaves and the documentary showed the trade still existed a decade on.

The charity’s founder Don Brewster was quoted in the report as saying that Svay Pak was “at one point the epicenter” of the sex trade.

He said things had improved in recent years but that some trade in minors still occurred.