After two years of pressure from Women's Affairs Minister Mu Sochua, women's rights groups, and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, action was taken on the problem of child prostitution on Svay Pak. On 22 January 2003, Svay Pak's child brothels were raided by police. Dozens of pimps and clients were present during the raid, but none were arrested; the raid was "widely advertised in advance", and all but a few of the children had been moved to the towns of Siem Reap and Sihanoukville beforehand. By 29 January, Svay Pak was described as "a ghost town" by the Asian Human Rights Commission; by March, however, a joint Dateline NBC–IJM investigation found that Svay Pak was "the place to go if you're looking for the youngest girls." That year, IJM founder Gary Haugen worked with Cambodian officials to mount an operation to rescue children and arrest perpetrators; despite problems arising from police bribery, "a dozen suspected pimps and madams are in custody, and 37 girls [were] rescued, many under the age of 10." Upon returning to Svay Pak six months later, Dateline members were again offered prostituted children; Minister Sochua was not surprised by the reversion, blaming "extreme poverty and widespread corruption".
