Phnom Penh - A Cambodian mother and her female friend have been charged with selling her daughter and another young woman, local media reported Saturday. Som Vanny, 42, a karaoke shop owner, and her friend Sour Sarun, 55, were arrested after reports she had sold her 17-year-old daughter and another 20-year-old girl to a foreigner of unspecified nationality for sex, local newspaper Koh Santepheap reported.
The Khmer-language daily quoted Sun Bunthon, anti-trafficking police chief of the northern province of Siem Reap, 400 kilometres from the capital, as saying the two women face up to 20 years in jail if convicted. It did not say how they had pleaded.
Impoverished Cambodia, notorious for human trafficking and sexual exploitation, has made serious efforts to shake off its seedy reputation and made dozens of arrests in recent years. Karaoke shops are often thinly veiled fronts for prostitution in the country.
