400 rape cases in 2008

26 December 2008
By Im Navin
Cambodge Soir Hebdo
Click here to read the article in French
Translated from French by Luc Sâr

The Adhoc human rights group has presented the conclusions of its study on rape cases in 2008. The situation remains similar to that of last year.

Lim Manay, an Adhoc representative, made the presentation for the conclusions of the report. “For 2008, we recorded about 400 rape cases. More than 300 involved minors, and they were perpetrated by relatives or someone close. In 2008, Adhoc helped the underprivileged seek justice in these cases. This increased the cases we accounted for, but globally, the situation remains the same as that of 2007 in the kingdom. This year, 54 suspects were brought to justice, this is a good performance for the police which is not well prepared to handle this type of cases,” Lim Manay explained.

According to the Adhoc representative, the report will be handed to the ministries involved and it will serve as a working document basis for meetings planned in 2009.

60 cases of human trafficking were also reported in the country, half of these trafficking cases involved young children. The majority of them are concentrated in Phnom Penh and toward Thailand. It appears that these human trafficking cases are on the rise.

Democracy Narrowed in 2007, Group Says

By Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
30 January 2008

The government has tightened its control over civil society in the past year, while the number of rights abuses has remained high, a group said Wednesday.

The freedom to organize and demonstrate has diminished, as has the right to life and security, the well-respected group, Adhoc, said in an annual report. In 2007, the group documented 574 personal or political rights abuses.

“While the political party in the coalition government has drifted apart and weakened, we see that the ruling Cambodian People’s Party has almost controlled the power alone, and it began to tighten the freedom of expression in public,” said Thun Saray, president of the rights group Adhoc.

“So, we have seen that the freedom of expression in public has become more and more tightened, compared to previous years,” he said. “Now that the CPP has ruled alone or shared little power with the coalition party, we are wondering how this will affect the democratic process, especially freedom of expression in public and the freedom of association.”

Government spokesman Khieu Kanharith brushed aside the report.

“I don’t know if Adhoc is going to enter politics, as Kem Sokha has,” he said, referring to the president of the new Human Rights Party.

Cambodia had not declined in freedoms, he said, but was moving toward stronger rule of law.