Cambodia’s prime minister, Hun Sen, has been giving Geraldine Cox, founder of one of Cambodia’s most busiest orphanages called Sunrise Children’s Village, some major attention.
Cambodia’s prime minister, Hun Sen, has been giving Geraldine Cox, founder of one of Cambodia’s most busiest orphanages called Sunrise Children’s Village, some major attention. To the extent that the prime minister himself has given Cox land to build orphanages, which has become one of the major income generators for Cambodia’s economy.
Pre-2005, before orphanage tourism became a booming business model for the country’s travel and tourism industry, Cambodia attracted a little over a million tourists annually. However, the demand for “voluntourism” through orphanage tourism has helped catapult the annual number of tourists to 3.5 million in 2012 and climbing. Shockingly, it has become evidently clear that most of these children living in Cambodia’s “orphanages” aren’t even orphans at all. A fact that most of these so-called “voluntourists” are not even aware of.