Extra scrutiny of foreign teachers urged

The arrest on Saturday of a registered British sex offender, employed at a Phnom Penh school for the past year, has cast doubt on the screening of foreign nationals working with children in Cambodia.

With wanted sex offender Paul Prestige’s extradition pending, the British Embassy yesterday issued an online reminder about the worldwide mechanism for intercepting UK child-sex offenders seeking employment overseas: the International Child Protection Certificate (ICPC), introduced in 2013.

However, children’s rights groups say such measures alone are insufficient to address the growing international problem of Western offenders travelling with impunity to countries where child-protection laws are weaker.

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