The real housewives of Cambodia

'Ugly Betty' actor America Ferrera with Tep Vanny, who was given a Vital Voices Global Leadership Award for her campaigning against forced evictions. Photo: Vital Voices/Kate Hauschka

Housewives in Cambodia have turned into tenacious activists as they campaign against forced evictions from their homes in the face of mass development, writes Dr Katherine Brickell.

04 Apr 2013

By Dr Katherine Brickell, Lecturer in Human Geography at Royal Holloway, University of London

The Telegraph (UK)

"Khmer Rouge times might have even been more equal because all citizens were evicted from their homes regardless of whether they were rich or poor. Nowadays, the authorities only evict the poor" - Tep Vanny

This week has seen the gaze of Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden fall on a group of ordinary Cambodian women who have entered the media spotlight as human rights defenders confronting forced evictions. At the gala event held in Washington DC on Tuesday evening, a Vital Voices Global Leadership Award was presented to Tep Vanny, a foremost activist who has campaigned for more than five years against the devastating losses of home being felt in the Southeast Asian country.

The women housewives-cum-activists who Vanny unofficially leads, come from the Boeung Kak area of Phnom Penh, a community quite literally sunk by a phony vision of progress, and captured in an upcoming film. In 2007 municipal authorities granted a 99-year lease to the lake and surrounding area to Shukaku Inc. The government-backed real estate developer proceeded to fill the lake with sand, forcibly evicting and involuntarily relocating thousands of residents with little to no compensation.

Stood looking over the sunken homes of Boeung Kak, the capital city reeks of inequality. From the new build housing development ‘Elite Town’ to billboard advertising for ‘five star’ homes in Singapore-style high-rises, the pursuit of ‘development’ has become toxic for the average Cambodian. And it is a toxin that is being felt from continent to continent. As Vital Voices notes: "Anyone who has worked in a developing country in the last decade will have heard a similar story. Developers seize a valuable piece of land, throw the existing community out, and after protests ebb away, a new development arises: apartments, a mall, restaurants and stores for the newly wealthy."

But the protests have not all ebbed away, in large part because of the Cambodian women activists who are continuing to wage their non-violent campaign against forced evictions. While feelings of depression and hopelessness are undeniably present, their determination has remained resolute. Srey Pov, a founding member of the group told me, "I have been told that villagers are eggs, and those powerful are rocks, that we cannot win against them. But I don’t think that way. We have to clash against the rocks even though we might be crushed."

By engaging support from NGOs and taking to the city’s streets, the women have publically highlighted the profound impacts that forced evictions are having on peoples’ lives, robbing women in particular, of their right to care for their homes and children. A dedicated United Nations mission to Cambodia in 2012 highlighted "that the human cost of such concessions has been high".

The report details that for communities resettled often debilitating distances from the city, multiple challenges can be found. These include inadequate housing, lack of access to health and education facilities, the breakdown of marriages and families, and the difficulties of securing livelihood options. Indeed, as the community sing during their protests, "national development is causing people to lose everything", leaving women to sleep only with tears, and ask themselves "where is the right of the mother" to provide her children a safe home?

The women have also made compelling analogies between their living situations now and those under the Khmer Rouge. The genocidal regime (1975-1979) emptied the country’s cities and resulted in the death of approximately 1.7 million people. As Srey Pov continued, "In 1975, citizens faced forced eviction, and now it's the very same in 2013". In fact, award-winner Vanny goes as far to suggest that "Khmer Rouge times might have even been more equal because all citizens were evicted from their homes regardless of whether they were rich or poor. Nowadays, the authorities only evict the poor".

The personal costs of challenging such injustices have also been high, as evidenced in my academic research and in NGO videos. The women have variously experienced harassment, intimidation, police brutality, physical injury and mental illness. Many are battling with the guilt of leaving their children at home, while engaging in civic activism to protect this very foundation of family life. Such separation has also been more long-term.

In May 2012, 13 of the women, including Vanny, were convicted and sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison. While the sentences were reduced and the women released, one of the activists, Youm Bopha, is currently imprisoned for alleged ‘intentional violence’. Amnesty International has argued that her detainment demonstrates the ‘dire state of justice’ in the country and last week again denounced the charges as bogus.

While it is inevitable that the gazes of the political heavyweight will soon avert from the award ceremony this week, it is important that Cambodian women’s efforts in defence of their human rights remain fixed within international view.

Dr Katherine Brickell is Lecturer in Human Geography at Royal Holloway, University of London. She tweets @k_brickell.