In Cambodia's booming orphanage industry, children have become money-making tourist attractions, and it is suspected that sexual abuse is common in residential centres where there are few checks to identify child abusers among foreign volunteers. While research demonstrates that children in orphanages and residential care institutions suffer developmental delays, well-intentioned foreign volunteers are often unaware. A new survey conducted in Siem Reap, Cambodia found that 70% of potential volunteers at Cambodian orphanages believed that residential care is the best way for children from poor families to get access to an education; 75% were not aware that most children in residential centres in Cambodia are not orphans, and 60% did not know orphanages were sometimes run as profit-making businesses.
While several NGOs have conducted a five-year campaign warning that children should be kept in their communities, there are now seven times more children in Cambodia's institutions than there were in the early 1980s. In addition, the number of orphanages across the country has doubled in the past five years, while the number of orphans has dramatically decreased. In response, the Cambodian government is in the process of implementing a law requiring children's residential centres be approved and registered, which is intended to foce many to close.