History / Culture: Cambodia has a long and eventful history. It has been a French colony until 1949 and experienced Vietnamese and Vietcong occupation, as well as the Khmer Rouge régime of Pol Pot. It has endured decades of civil war and strife. 90% of the population is ethnically Khmer, and 95% is Buddhist.

Geography: Cambodia is situated in Southeast Asia between Vietnam, Laos and Thailand. On the Eastern side is the Mekong River.

Economy / Productivity: Cambodia remains one of Asia’s least developed countries. Though the economy grew by 6.1% in 2005, it remains unstable. The GDP per Capita is $380. Currently, over one-third of the population lives below the poverty line and only 21% of the working age population is employed in a job that pays regular wages. While deprivation exists among sections of the urban population, poverty is predominately rural, associated with landlessness, lack of economic opportunities, large families and limited access to social services.
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1) http://www.indexmundi.com/cambodia/total_fertility_rate.html

Education / Socio-Economic development: Although young people seem to espouse the idea of gender equality, this is not the case in practice: women have not achieved equal rights with men as provided in the Cambodian Constitution. Gender gaps continue in education, women in decision-making positions are rare and gender-based violence, including trafficking, is a growing concern. Even within families, male children get the preference (UNESCO). Young people also face critical job situations and lack money. A survey on out-of-school adolescents from the province having very poor economic background, has shown that about a third of the girls aged 15-25 and a quarter of the boys aged 15-19 had already exchanged sex for money, and that street children were particularly vulnerable to prostitution since more than 60% of boys aged 20-25 were practicing it for a living (UNESCO). When having a regular job on work factories for example, work conditions are harsh: few money, long hours and few social rights, but people fear loosing their job if they complain.

Health and Knowledge on Sexuality and Reproductive Health: SRH problems are many and serious in Cambodia. Young people are increasingly exposed to new cultural trends but their parents have difficulty sharing information on sexuality (*2). In 2000, a survey has shown that even among themselves, adolescents do not discuss about SRH issues, and that this could be challenge for peer education programmes ; even though this kind of discussions are more frequent when adolescents get older (UNESCO). Generally, in-school adolescents have a lower knowledge on reproductive health (including pregnancy, wet dreams and menstruation) than out-of school adolescents, and their sexual experience (3.8%) is about ten times lower than out-of school adolescents (37.3%), which can be easily explained by the high number of married out-of-school adolescents (UNESCO). However, access to health services, including reproductive health, is limited. The most common diseases are malaria, diarrhea, tuberculosis and hepatitis. The country has a generalized AIDS epidemic, HIV prevalence being the highest in Asia at 1.6% of the adult population in 2005 (*3).

Traditional values and attitudes / Marriage: The median age at first marriage among Cambodian women is 22.5 and among men it is slightly older, at 24.2. Median ages for marriage are slightly higher for both women and men in urban areas compared with rural areas, with that for females being 23.6 and that for males 26.6. However the is social pressure for women to marry between 16 years and their early twenties, if it is delayed too long there is a fear the girl will become ugly, also too much education limits a woman’s prospects of finding a husband. Marriage partners are commonly chosen by parents, with research showing that 43% of ever-married women in Cambodia met their spouse for the first time at the time of marriage, and an additional 7% knew their husband for less than one month before their marriage (*4).

Cambodian society expects adolescent girls to uphold the honor of their family by maintaining their virginity and ensuring their good reputations. For males there are no such expectations and their virginity at marriage is never questioned. Traditional social attitudes towards male and female sexuality place a higher social value on men than women, leading to unequal relationships and creating circumstances in which young men dominate the negotiation of sex and condom use, often leaving their female partners unable to exercise their reproductive health choices and human rights (*5). This is particularly highlighted by an aspect of young men’s sexual behaviour, involvement gang rape, known locally in Khmer as ‘bauk’.

Actions: Bauk first received attention in 2002 as a result of the Wilkinson and Fletcher PSI-funded study “Love, Sex and Condoms; Sweetheart Relationships in Phnom Penh” which identified the practice as ‘commonplace’ amongst male university students, this study was the basis for the CARE programme working with middle class university students in Phnom Penh.
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Ref.:
1) RHIYA mid-term evaluation - Final In-Country Debriefing Report: Cambodia (2006)
2) Young Men Like Us (2007) experience and changes in sexual relationship and RH among young urban Cambodian men – Peer ethnographic research on urban male sexual behaviour CARE
3) HIV and AIDS estimates and data, 2005 and 2003 (UNAIDS)
4) Fordham G. (2003) Adolescent and Youth Reproductive Health in Cambodia, Status, Issues, Policies and programs – Policy Project
5) Young Men Like Us (2007) experience and changes in sexual relationship and RH among young urban Cambodian men – Peer ethnographic research on urban male sexual behaviour CARE