On the streets Pouen fell prey to one of the pedophiles who roam this seaside community. Siahnoukville is famed as much for its sex trade as for its pristine beaches and azure waters. Then, his drug habit got worse.

Pouen's story isn't unusual in Cambodia, where 34 percent of the population survives on less than US$1 (HK$7.80) a day and extreme poverty pushes many girls into prostitution. Nearly half of all Cambodian children are malnourished and one in eight dies before their fifth birthday, largely due to preventable causes.

Estimates are that 20,000 children live or work on the streets of the capital, Phnom Penh, while in Sihanoukville, 240 kilometers south on a peninsula that stretches into the Gulf of Thailand, outreach workers have identified about 500.

"The issue of street children is a serious concern,'' said Caroline Bakker of UNICEF Cambodia.

"Whether they live or work on the streets, they are more vulnerable to sexual exploitation, violence, crime, drugs, HIV/AIDS and other health problems.''

Pedophilia is a particular problem, said Maggie Eno, founder of M'lop Tapang, which works to protect street children, who can be bought for just US$2-US$4 (HK$15.60-HK$31.20) a night.

Cambodia is notorious as a haven for pedophiles in large part because of a general climate of lawlessness and a culture of impunity after three decades of civil conflict.

Now, the government is working hard to change its image, with posters, pamphlets and city guidebooks warning in red type: "Sex with children is a crime.''

In the last few years, the United States and many European countries have introduced laws that allow child sex offenders to be prosecuted at home for crimes committed abroad.

Several Western tourists have been prosecuted but many more have bribed their way out of the Cam-bodian courts, Eno said.

"It's a frustrating problem for us,'' she said.

Although children are generally not found in the many city brothels, Eno said, the ubiquitous motorcycle taxi drivers eagerly offer to find boys or young girls for male tourists and with poverty widespread, young people can easily be picked up on the beaches.

Poverty and underdevelopment are the legacy of Cambodia's turbulent recent history, principally five years of brutal Khmer Rouge rule during which two million people were killed or died of starvation, then 10 years of Vietnamese occupation and, since the early 1990s, faltering steps toward democracy.

Seventy years of French colonial rule ended in 1953 but the country's independence was shaky as wars in neigh-boring Vietnam and Laos threw the region into turmoil.

During the 1975-79 Khmer Rouge genocide, the family structure was torn apart. Grandparents or Buddhist monks who would traditionally step in to help care for children were killed. Today there are still few fallbacks for kids and that rift will take decades to heal.

Hoping to nudge the country down the long road towards peace and stability, some of the rich nations have pumped billions of dollars into the economy. Independent aid organizations seem to have offices on every street corner in parts of the capital.

Last year, Cambodia took in about US$500 million in aid, with Japan and China setting the pace as the country's largest donors. Many economists worry the country is now overly dependent on foreign aid and loans, which account for half its annual budget.

"Poor people are poorer than they were 10 years ago and they have lost hope,'' said Francesco Caruso, country director of Village Focus International, a non-governmental group based in Portland, Oregon.

"Over 50 percent of the population is 18 or younger. The lack of hope is a recipe for disaster.''

But it's hope that M'lop Tapang wants to bring back to the poorest communities.

Khmer for "in the shade of a tree,'' M'lop Tapang over the last two years has scooped up Pouen and 250 other street children, offering them shelter, food, medical care and education. Eno believes M'lop Tapang could ultimately look after twice that number.

"When we first found Pouen he was very underweight, he had terrible bronchitis and skin infections,'' Eve Saosarin, an outreach worker with M'lop Tapang said of the now healthy boy, just back from a month with a drug counselor in Phnom Penh.

An important part of M'lop Tapang's philosophy is reintegrating children with the families they have left behind, Eno said. The group works with families to help them through crises that might end up in the loss of a child to the streets, or perhaps worse, to human traffickers.

The center also offers mothers and older sisters training in sewing, giving them an alternative to the sex industry, which even for adult women is a significant source of employment in Sihanoukville.

"If a family is in debt or a relative is sick, there are few choices for the women,'' Eno said.

"There are a huge number of brothels and they know they can always get work in one of them. Prostitution is a normal step for a girl starting at about 16 years old.''

Eno founded M'lop Tapang in June 2003 with just US$7,000 in private donations and two Cambodian employees. Now, the project operates with an annual budget of US$60,000 and 23 staff, including a full-time nurse, four full-time outreach workers and teachers.

"For poor Khmer children there are not many options,'' said Lieutenant-Colonel Tesh Chantorn.

Now a provincial deputy commissioner for the Ministry of the Interior in Phnom Penh, for eight years he worked closely with M'lop Tapang as head of a military police unit in Sihanoukville.

"Maggie is there for them, she helps them, she gives them opportunities.''

M'lop Tapang's main center provides day support for children who live alone on the streets or with their homeless families or those whose family income derives from street work such as begging or collecting cans for recycling. Children using the center range in age from six to 18.

"The challenge is to make it more fun to be at the center than on the streets, to make them want to come,'' Eno said.

"That's stiff competition. On the streets they're free to do as they please and use drugs when they want.'' A second facility provides a night-time shelter and late-night medical care.

M'lop Tapang will shortly open a third day center for older street children, many of whom are harder targets. These children often use amphetamines, the other drug of choice here along with glue. Many of them also carry knives and live in appalling conditions.

Children are not allowed into any of the centers if they are carrying knives or are high on drugs or alcohol. For the most part, Eno said, the children respect that rule and go only when they are sober.

A survey taken by the Phnom Penh non-governmental group Mith Samlanh Friends in 1998 estimated at the time that 32 percent of street-working children were using drugs and alcohol.

Some observers think that figure may now be much higher. Part of the problem is that the drugs are cheap. A tube of glue costs about 12 US cents and will last a day or more.

Cheap amphetamines in the form of crystal methedrine have become a plague throughout the region. Sold for less than a US dollar, the potent drug, known on the street as Ya Ma, or "crazy medicine,'' is priced within reach of the money kids can make on the street.

Another big hurdle facing poor Cam-bodians is HIV/AIDS, although the government has worked hard to educate the population. Statistics show its prevalence has fallen from 3.9 percent in 1997 to 2.6 percent in 2002.

Still, recent years have seen a worrying increase in husband-to-wife and mother-to-child transmission.

There are also an estimated 30,000 AIDS orphans below 15 years old in Cambodia, according to UNICEF.

Hoping to tackle these significant health issues directly, M'lop Tapang's new center is located close to where the older children are usually found - behind the city's principal market.

M'lop Tapang initially will target the 20 children who outreach workers know need help, offering them meals, laundry facilities, a shower block, medical care and activities, including a room full of computers.

"These kids have been living really rough,'' Eno said.

"They're not ready for literacy so the education will focus more on life skills, HIV, trafficking, drug use, hygiene, nutrition and child rights.

"We want them to see this as a youth center.''

Yet another part of the M'lop Tapang effort focuses on nearby slum communities. Staff and children write and perform plays designed to educate parents and others.

Teachers also host well-attended workshops for parents on subjects relevant to their family lives.

"Most of our parents are very supportive,'' Eno said.

But M'lop Tapang's main daily work involves collecting children from the streets and keeping them out of harm's way.

Each morning, a bright yellow truck picks up dozens of children and takes them from the slums to the main center, which is located in a quiet, tree-lined residential neighborhood. There, they are fed breakfast and some are given their uniforms and sent off to school.

M'lop Tapang pays for all the schooling expenses for the children it sponsors, including uniforms and books - costs that are prohibitive for many Cambodian families.

Others wait for the afternoon session at the local public school or are considered not ready for mainstream schooling and are taught at the center itself.

The children eat a lunchtime meal and, if not in school, spend the afternoon doing what other children around the world take for granted - playing volleyball, reading, drawing, watching television or playing games.

Some are sent to a private English tutor and receive a further four hours of education - again paid for by M'lop Tapang.

Still, most of the children are vital to their family's survival, earning about 50 US cents a day gathering cans and it is to that they return when at 5pm the center closes.

A day spent at M'lop Tapang doesn't guarantee they won't spend time on the streets, it simply diminishes their exposure.

Eno, a powerhouse of a woman at just 1.54 meters tall, went to Cambodia from Britain with a degree in social anthropology, another in nursing and hopes of making a difference. She ended up with a nursing job with an NGO in Sihanoukville, the nation's only maritime port.

Named after Norodom Sihanouk, the country's former king, the town was carved from the jungle in the 1950s.

Lacking the history and charm of Phnom Penh, with its French colonial villas and myriad frangipani trees, it was briefly a thriving resort area, with new hotels and many plans for the future but now its many low-rent bars and hotels cater to so-called "sexpats,'' who haunt the sex industry.

The government has worked hard to promote the city as a family destination, advertising its beaches, rimmed by thatch umbrellas and huts.

And there are sides of Sihanoukville that are idyllic - the vendors strolling along Ochheuteal beach, carrying coconuts in baskets on their heads, for example.

The seamy side of beach life is not immediately evident, although Eno recognized the dangers immediately.

She started by taking food to the children she found living on the beach, giving them basic medical care and talking to them about pedophilia.

Pouen was among the first children Eno wanted to help.

"I could see that no one else was going to do this, that nothing would happen to change these children's lives if I didn't do something,'' she said.

Although it remains to be seen whether or not M'lop Tapang will keep Pouen away from drugs, he at least is still a regular visitor to the center and he's healthy now.

It's the chance to make a difference in lives like Pouen's that keeps her going, Eno said.

"If you grow up in a slum or in the streets in Cambodia, your future is pretty clear to you and it does not look great,'' Caruso said.

"Then there is M'lop Tapang, which talks to you, keeps coming back to see how they can help, visits your family, your friends, asks what you want to do and suddenly, you have to wonder whether change is, indeed, possible. And it is.''