PHNOM PENH, Dec 1 (AFP) - Cambodia marked World AIDS Day Saturday by applying the finishing touches to this country's first Condom Cafe amid warnings another generation could be lost to the deadly virus.
Sebastien Marot, spokesman for international aid group Friends, said the cafe would be informal and lively, designed to attract kids who are already on the streets and provide a small clinic dealing with sexually transmitted diseases.
Built in downtown Phnom Penh, aid workers have taken the lead from similar cafes in Australia, Thailand, Vietnam and elsewhere in the Asia-Pacific region.
The cafe was due to open Saturday but construction delays have pushed the formal opening back to Monday.
"Today aid organisations are going across the city with mobile shows for street kids which will include the painting of different types frescoes by children depicting the AIDS panademic," Marot added.
Marot said Cambodia had already lost a generation to war after more than two decades of conflict, beginning with more than three years of rule by the notorious Khmer Rouge in 1975, ripped apart the country's social fabric.
Civil war officially ended in 1998.
Now the next generation needed to rebuild the country is being devastated by AIDS, Marot said.
A year 2000 survey by the National Center for HIV/AIDS found 169,000 people aged between 15 and 49 years were living with HIV, a solid decline from some 184,000 infections in 1999 and 210,000 in 1997.
However, critics say the reason for the fall is because sufferers are dying, arguing they are succumbing faster because they cannot afford expensive treatment.
As a result the number of children orphaned by AIDS and living on the streets is expected to leap to 140,000 in 2004 from about 30,000 currently.
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