Capacity Building and Education among Sex-Workers in the Phnom Penh Red Light District: Is Peer Education the Way Forward for HIV/AIDS Prevention?

There is currently a strong interest in the role of grassroots participation in health promotion and a growing influence of capacity development and related concepts of capacity building in HIV/AIDS related policy programs. Although participatory peer educational approaches have increased in both popularity and practice among sexual health promoters in Asia, they have met with varying degrees of success. A clear understanding of the processes and mechanisms underlying these approaches' successes or failures is still in its infancy. This study presents a case of a community-led, participatory peer education program that aims to reduce HIV transmission among commercial sex workers in the city of Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The purpose of this study is to consider the relevance of capacity building through peer education for HIV/AIDS prevention among high risk groups such as sex-workers. Despite the expressed commitment to community participation in the development of culturally relevant interventions, much remains to be learned about the complexities of translating theoretical notions of “community participation” and “into practice among hard-to-reach groups.”