Cambodian ‘Condom Cafe’ Offers Free Condoms and Sex Education

An organization for street children in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, opened the doors yesterday to a new cafe that will offer its customers free condoms and sex education along with inexpensive food and coffee, Reuters reports. Friends/Mith Samlanh, the organization that operates the cafe, is hoping to meet the "desperate need" for sex education by teaching homeless youth about HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases while giving them a place to "hang out." Cambodians are "naturally shy about sex issues," Khat Sopha, a social worker employed by the cafe, said, "[b]ut now that AIDS has killed so many people, they can't be shy anymore. If they stay shy, they will die." The United Nations estimates that 2.8% of Cambodia's 11 million residents are HIV-positive and that more than 30,000 Cambodians have died of AIDS-related complications (Reuters, 12/10).