Child sex abuse also happens to boys: NGO First Step Cambodia Steps Up
https://www.first-step-cambodia.org/who-we-are

NGOs: Child sexual abuse on the rise
Voun Dara | Publication date 27 January 2021 | 22:47 ICT
Organizations working to protect children in Cambodia have found that child sexual abuse in the country has occurred with increasing frequency over the last few years.

These organisations said more needs to be done by the government and NGOs to prevent such abuse from taking place and to increase public awareness of the issue.

First Step Cambodia programme manager Yourn Sarath told The Post on January 26 that from 2010-2020 the number of child sexual abuse cases they have dealt with for both boys and girls totalled 830. The boys were aged eight to 17 years old.

He said that in general the children most at-risk to become victims of sexual abuse were those who did not have regular caregivers or a stable family situation.

The parents often worked long hours and could not pay enough attention to their children and so they often had no knowledge the abuse was taking place.

Their parents would often trust the care of their children to others far too readily due to a lack of other options while they worked.

He said First Step Cambodia is making efforts to educate the public and train them to recognise signs of abuse and be aware of the available resources to help protect children whom they suspect are being abused such as non-governmental organisations or police authorities.

Sarath continued that First Step Cambodia has been cooperating closely with state institutions such as the ministries of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation; Women’s Affairs; Education, Youth and Sport; and the Ministry of Interior’s National Committee for Counter-trafficking.

He said the organisation also provides services directly to minors, usually in cooperation with the local authorities.

Child protection NGO Action Pour Les Enfant (APLE) executive director Samleang Seila said four years ago the authorities were not willing to discuss investigation of child sexual abuse cases, so awareness of the issue was low.

But currently, he said efforts to spotlight the problem had begun to increase.

“One problem is providing services to boys because in Cambodia they don’t think of this as being a problem for boys like it is for girls. But we know that it is. Boys who are victims of abuse are suffering right now due to a lack of services for them,” he said.

Seila added that APLE had received more reports of child sexual abuse of boys than those about girls.

Some of the offenders were identified as foreign travellers and tourists, while cases with Cambodian abusers often involved family members and tended to be drastically under-reported.

“When we looked at our data from 2003 to 2020, it actually showed that out of a total of 980 child sexual abuse cases we had worked on, 56 per cent involved abuse of boys and 44 per cent were girls,” he said.

Seila said child sexual abuse of boys was less frequent five years ago but over the last few years the cases have been on the increase including a worrisome trend of more cases involving Cambodian nationals molesting boys.

Social affairs ministry spokesman Touch Channy acknowledged that child sexual abuse on boys did happen in Cambodia but he claimed that most of the abuse was committed by foreigners visiting Cambodia.

“We don’t know if the number of cases with boys has increased or decreased. But we know they were happening before and are still occurring today,” he said.

Channy said the ministry is committed to stopping child sexual abuse and has instructed its anti-human trafficking department to stamp out such offences in cooperation with relevant partner organisations.

First Step Cambodia, on its part, has recently published a pamphlet entitled “Child abuse: It happens to boys.”

The pamphlet points out that boys are equally affected by sexual abuse, but for many reasons the cases were under-reported. Only six per cent of cases involving boys were reported compared to 40 per cent for girls.

First Step Cambodia said its goal is to have all cases of sexual abuse of children – of either gender – reported and investigated 100 per cent and will continue to work towards achieving that.
https://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/ ... abuse-rise

Is" First Step Cambodia" NGO the new Branch of APLE ?
As evil as any form of Child abuse is and MUST be condemned, NGO's of the Childprotection Business here have made it a successfull business model for themself.

APLE's founder, french national Thierry Darnaudet who claims to be no longer associated with APLE and uses different names like Dadouet, Darandet and even Thiry Donaldi came here as a Backpacker literally was able to go into early retirement and now enjoys the luxurious life of a whitie in places like Dubai and of course India where he still keeps a foothold in Calcutta where he created a Home for Street Children. It didn't take long before he, too was accused of child abuse but got away with it because it's India. Even when he tried to commit suicide back in July 2007 a day ahead of a Conference he and his Spanish Buddy from Global Humanitaria organised no consequences were drawn. The former Khmer Country Director of APLE Hang Vibol who left aple to run his own NGO "Our Home" was convicted of sexual child abuse and sent to jail in Cambodia.

just google these characters and you will find tons of info.

Cambodia should follow the Vietnamese System which largely keeps that kind of NGO tightly integrated into their own legal system which is perhaps why you don't hear that much from them there.

Foreigners that have no degree of any kind in Child Caretaking/Protection shouldn't be allowed to run such a business at all. Leave the Khmer kids to the Khmer and by this in their own culture.

So for me "First Step" is just another NGO that tries to cash in, now that Cambodia is much better than back in 2003-2010.

When I come back to live in Cambodia again I would love to work with an NGO to help track down and catch these pedophiles.

michael.pelosi wrote: ↑Sat Jan 30, 2021 12:13 pm When I come back to live in Cambodia again I would love to work with an NGO to help track down and catch these pedophiles.

Good idea. You can start to track them within NGO.

It's a tad suspicious when foreign men in Cambodia are so anti-APLE.

@by MustardBlu
Perhaps you would find it less suspicious if you knew anything about APLE.
Just google it and than come back. The rant wasn't menat to be exclusively about APLE but the entire foreign funded Child Protection Industry in Cambodia. Now that funding is drying up they have to reboot the Child Abuse Ruse which has changed quite significantly over the past decade or two. Since i do not run a .org which also does the statistics i have no proof of that statement but if you follow the News in Cambodia closely the impression you get is that it has significantly improved. I believe you have no problem that APLE's ex Country Director Hang Vibol was jailed for child sex offenses and the founder travels around the world using aliases. Go ahead and Google it.

Both the orgs in the OP seem to be on track.
Looking at and explaining the totality of the problem.
Aple looks like it has maybe got its act together since the bad guy was removed.

I never want to criticise any efforts in this field, but it did seem that many of the concerns about Aple were in fact true.

On the other hand - there was once a bloke in my town who was always banging on about how bent they were, and how they set innocent people up. It turned out he had been caught up in a raid one time himself.
(Possibly/maybe not a pedo himself, but was a regular in a backroad bar in S'ville where it was a thing)

For what it's worth:
Thierry Darnaudet aparently checked into the Hotel under Thierry Darandet. This name was posted initially by the Times of India Newspaper back in July 2007 and later after someone alearted the Paper to the incorrect name and had it changed to the real name.
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cit ... 239881.cms