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A harrowing report into Cambodia’s ‘virgin trade’ has uncovered allegations that officials including politicians are buying young girls for sex for around £600-£3,000.
With many Cambodian men believing that sex with a virgin can help them stay young and healthy, it’s thought that thousands of virgins aged 13-18 are sold every year.

Shockingly, the report also uncovered a girl aged just 12 who had been sold. After her mother was paid the equivalent of £300, her virginity was confirmed by a doctor before she was kept in a hotel room for a week, being forced into sex by her ‘buyer’ two or three times a day.
“A few times he asked if he was hurting me. When I told him yes, he used even more force,” she told reporter Abigail Haworth.
Campaigners trying to crack down on this appalling trade face difficulties in getting funding, as there’s a view that if parents are willingly selling their children, it’s a moral rather than a financial issue.
But organisations such as Friends International argue that the wider picture is far from black and white – children in Cambodia are thought to exist for their parents’ benefit, and women are seen as far inferior to men.
Pay inequality also means that sex work, although illegal, is often the best way for women to earn a living wage.
With officials from the highest levels of society buying virgins – and even allegedly ‘reserving’ young girls for when they reach adolescence – the laws against sex work are ineffectual at best, and encourage official cover-ups at worse.
It’s a shocking problem – but one that is unlikely to be resolved until women in Cambodia enjoy greater rights and equality from the ground up.