Reportage: Hidden Away: Cambodia’s Undesirables

In early 2010, these candid portraits were photographed at a detention center called Prey Speu Social Affairs Center, located just outside of the capital of Phnom Penh. Prey Speu is a place for Cambodia's "undesirables," from sex workers to the homeless who were arrested from police street sweeps.

The center provides vocational education and health care to Cambodia's most vulnerable people. However, human rights groups working in Phnom Penh have reported abuse, rape, torture and even murder based on interviews from former detainees. The ones who remain are those suffering from a mental illness. There are no beds, and they are allowed to leave the locked rooms twice a day for shower and toilet use.

Basic psychiatric and medical care for the poor and indigent was destroyed by the Khmer Rouge when they came to power in 1975. Even today, only one percent of the Cambodian government's health budget goes to mental health, although clinical training and outpatient services have improved in recent years.