Engaging Men in the Margins: A Practice-Based Reflection on the GLUE Project’s Demand-Side Outreach in Phnom Penh, Cambodia (2010–2022)

This paper offers a practice-based, qualitative reflection on the GLUE (Guys Like Us Edification) Project, a long-running Christian faith-based outreach initiative that engaged men directly in red-light districts in Phnom Penh, Cambodia between 2010 and 2022. Trained volunteers held conversations with men present in areas of commercial sexual exploitation, inviting reflection on the realities of prostitution, trafficking, and sexual health. Drawing on field notes, volunteer observations, and program records, the paper addresses three aims: to describe what the conversations suggested about men’s rationalization of their presence in sex districts; to examine the relational and spiritual dynamics of faith-based demand-side outreach; and to identify lessons for future research and program design. Significant ethical limitations are acknowledged: no institutional ethics approval was obtained, conversations were conducted in the context of an active intervention, and the early pilot phase data were insufficiently standardized to yield valid quantitative findings. No quantitative data are presented. Findings are situated within theoretical frameworks of hegemonic masculinity and feminist criminology, and within the growing policy framework of the Nordic (Equality) Model, now adopted in eight jurisdictions. The paper concludes that future demand-side research must define interventions before evaluating them, use validated measurement instruments, and separate intervention delivery from data collection. This reflection contributes to a sparse evidence base on faith-motivated demand-side outreach in Southeast Asia.