80 year-old Thai man charged with human trafficking in Cambodia

PHNOM PENH - An 80-year-old Thai man has been charged with human trafficking in Cambodia after police arrested him trying to take five young Cambodian women back to Thailand, officials said Thursday.

The suspect, Sathean Dy Em, and the women aged between 14 and 23 years, were detained Sunday as they tried to cross the border in northwest Cambodia's Banteay Meanchey province, police told AFP.

He was going to put the women to work in his guesthouse, provincial court prosecutor Nhoung Thul was quoted in the English-language Cambodia Daily as saying.

The suspect confessed that he had taken three of the women to work in Thailand before, "but the local police sent them back," deputy provincial police chief Cheang Son said.

The kingdom, still recovering after decades of conflict which ended in 1998, has long been a significant sender and receiver of trafficked people because of its weak border controls and poorly enforced migration laws.

Earlier this year, the United States said Cambodia had improved its efforts to arrest and convict those trading in humans, removing the country from the ranks of the world's worst offenders in an annual report by the State Department.

Source: Agence France-Presse - 16 November 2006

Had this old guy attempted to have sex with them they could charge him with Assault with a dead weapon!

Modern drugs can work wonders, or so I am told.