Southeast Asia: Human Rights Watch Charges Torture, Rape, Illegal Detentions at Cambodian Drug "Rehab" Centers, Demands Shutdown

From Drug War Chronicle, Issue #618
1/29/10

In a scathing 93-page report released today, the international human rights group Human Rights Watch (HRW) accused Cambodian drug detention centers of torturing and raping detainees, imprisoning children and the mentally ill, and illegally detaining and imprisoning drug users. The centers are beyond reform and should be closed, the group said.

"Individuals in these centers are not being treated or rehabilitated, they are being illegally detained and often tortured," said Joseph Amon, director of the Health and Human Rights division at HRW. "These centers do not need to be revamped or modified; they need to be shut down."

The report cited detailed testimonies from detainees who were raped by center staff, beaten with electric cables, shocked with cattle prods, and forced to give blood. It also found that drug users were "cured" of their conditions by being forced to undergo rigorous military-style drills to sweat the drugs out of their systems.

"[After arrest] the police search my body, they take my money, they also keep my drugs... They say, 'If you don't have money, why don't you go for a walk with me?... [The police] drove me to a guest house.... How can you refuse to give him sex? You must do it. There were two officers. [I had sex with] each one time. After that they let me go home," said Minea, a woman in her mid-20's who uses drugs, explaining how she was raped by two police officers.

"[A staff member] would use the cable to beat people... On each whip the person's skin would come off and stick on the cable," said M'noh, age 16, describing whippings he witnessed in the Social Affairs "Youth Rehabilitation Center" in Choam Chao. The title of the HRW report is "Skin on the Cable."

More than 2,300 people were detained in Cambodia's 11 drug detention centers in 2008. That is 40% more than in 2007.

"The government of Cambodia must stop the torture occurring in these centers," said Amon. "Drug dependency can be addressed through expanded voluntary, community-based, outpatient treatment that respects human rights and is consistent with international standards."

Cambodian officials from the National Authority for Combating Drugs, the Interior Ministry, the National Police, and the Social Welfare Ministry all declined to comment when queried by the Associated Press. But Cambodian Brig. Gen. Roth Srieng, commander of the military police in Banteay Meanchy province, denied torture at his center, while adding that some detainees were forced to stand in the sun or "walk like monkeys" as punishment for trying to escape.

Children as young as 10, prostitutes, beggars, the homeless, and the mentally ill are frequently detained and taken to the drug detention centers, the report found. About one-quarter of those detained were minors. Most were not told why they were being detained. The report also said police sometimes demanded sexual favors or money for release and told some detainees they would not be beaten or could leave early if they donated blood.

The report relied on testimony from 74 people, most of them drug users, who had been detained between February and July 2009.

New sex law brings problems

Dec 26, 2008
AFP

Cambodia faces problems enforced new sex trafficking law

PHNOM PENH - CHANTHA said there was nothing else she could do in Cambodia but become a prostitute.

'If you don't even have a dollar in your pocket to buy rice, how can you bear looking at your starving relatives?' she said.

'You do whatever to survive, until you start to realise the consequence of your deeds.'

Chanta, in her early twenties, was working in a small red-light district west of the capital Phnom Penh several months ago when she was arrested under Cambodia's new sex-trafficking law.

Police nabbed her in a raid and charged her with publicly soliciting sex, fining her nearly US$2 (S$3). Then, Chanta claims, the arresting officers gang raped and beat her for six days in detention.

Bruises covered her body, but none of her assailants were brought to court, she said.

The Cambodian government began prosecuting a new 'Law on Suppression of Human Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation' in February after years of pressure from the United States to clamp down on sex trafficking.

Since then, authorities have conducted brothel raids and street sweeps, but rights groups complain the new law has in many ways worsened the exploitation of women.

'The law allows police of all levels to arrest and punish sex workers,' said Mr Naly Pilorge, director of local human rights group Licadho.

'The sex workers are arrested to police stations and rehabilitation centres and then they are abused.'

More than 500 women were arrested for soliciting sex in the first nine months of 2008, according to anti-trafficking organisation Afesip, with many of them forced into rehabilitation centres.

Rights groups say the new law makes women easier prey for traffickers, and could increase rates of sexually-transmitted infections as prostitutes stop carrying condoms out of fear they will be used as evidence against them.

They also allege that detainees are regularly abused at the two rehabilitation centres controlled by Cambodia's ministry of social affairs, Prey Speu and Koh Kor.

Koh Kor has the added grim reputation of being on an island which was the site of a prison and execution camp under Cambodia's murderous 1975-79 Khmer Rouge regime.

Despite Chanta and others testifying to instances of rape, beatings and extortion at the hands of police in the rehabilitation centres, authorities have repeatedly denied the abuses.

Major General Bith Kimhong, director of the interior ministry's anti-trafficking department, said he does not believe anyone has been abused under the new law because he has received no complaints from victims.

More than 100 people were arrested this year, as human trafficking prosecutions increased by 50 per cent, Bith Kimhong said.

The raids on brothels and streetwalkers proved a commitment by the government to end sex trafficking, he said, vowing they would continue.

'We'll continue to cooperate with local authorities to enforce the law,' General Bith Kimhong said.

The new law is one of several moves by the Cambodian government over the past year to show that it is cracking down on sexual exploitation.

In March it imposed ban on foreign marriages amid concerns of an explosion in the number of brokered unions involving South Korean men and poor Cambodian women, many of whom were allegedly being set up for sex slavery.

There have also been a string of arrests of alleged foreign paedophiles, as Cambodia seeks to demonstrate sex tourists are not welcome.

Ms Pich Socheata, deputy governor of one Phnom Penh district, leads 'clean-ups' of prostitution on the streets but said she empathises with sex workers.

'They are female and I am too, so I do understand no girls want to do that job. But we are only practising law,' she said.

But Ms Keo Tha, a staff member at sex workers' rights group the Women's Network for Unity, says many more Cambodian women are still being forced into prostitution as jobs dry up amid the global financial crisis.

A more sensible law, she said, would legalise prostitution.

'We are sandwiched right now - we are oppressed by the police, the law and rising living costs,' she said.

Cambodian minister promises action against sex workers' abusers

Friday, June 6
By KER MUNTHIT, Associated Press Writer
AP

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - A Cambodian Cabinet minister said Thursday he would take legal action against law enforcement personnel if there was evidence that they misused their authority to abuse local sex workers.

Interior Minister Sar Kheng made the remark a day after about 200 Cambodian sex workers claimed their colleagues had been physically and sexually abused in custody. The female and male sex workers made the allegations during a peaceful protest Wednesday against a recent crackdown on prostitution.

Police began rounding up workers from brothels, bars and parks in March, detaining them for a week to 10 days at a rehabilitation center for sex workers on the outskirts of the capital, Phnom Penh.

Cambodian law does not explicitly define prostitution as illegal, but authorities frown upon commercial sex and routinely launch such sweeps.

During the recent protest, sex workers said that many of their colleagues had been unlawfully detained and that some guards at the rehabilitation center had abused them.

In the recent protest, 32-year-old prostitute Chan Dina, a member of the sex workers' advocacy group Cambodian Prostitutes Union, said some of her colleagues "were beaten and gang-raped by the center guards." She said they did not use condoms.

Sar Kheng said the government "will take legal action against any official alleged to have abused sex workers."

"We have asked for evidence about any official or group involved in abuse or mistreatment of sex workers, but so far we have not received anything concrete about that yet," he said.

He was speaking at a news conference about the release of the Cambodia chapter of U.S. State Department's 2008 Trafficking in Persons report.

The report gave Cambodia an improved ranking of "Tier 2," up from levels it had held for the previous four years, when it had been described as "a source and destination country for trafficked persons" due to the government's allegedly inadequate efforts.

Sar Kheng said Cambodia would not allow its rating to slip down again.

Sex workers protest against alleged police abuse

A Cambodian sex worker, front, holds a banner read ' Condoms Protect Police Threaten' in a conference room during their protest in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Wednesday, June 4, 2008. About 200 Cambodian sex workers protested Wednesday against a police crackdown on prostitution and alleged that some of them had been physically and sexually abused in custody. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)
Cambodian sex workers stage a protest in a conference room in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Wednesday, June 4, 2008. About 200 Cambodian sex workers protested Wednesday against a police crackdown on prostitution and alleged that some of them had been physically and sexually abused in custody. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)
Cambodian sex workers stage a protest in a conference room in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Wednesday, June 4, 2008. About 200 Cambodian sex workers protested Wednesday against a police crackdown on prostitution and alleged that some of them had been physically and sexually abused in custody. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)
Cambodian sex workers sit in a meeting room for protest in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, Wednesday, June 4, 2008. About 200 Cambodian sex workers protested Wednesday against a police crackdown on prostitution and alleged that some of them had been physically and sexually abused in custody. (AP Photo/Heng Sinith)

Sex workers demand law amendment

Monday, June 2, 2008
Everyday.com.kh
Translated from Khmer by Socheata

On Sunday, 5,000 members of the Women’s Network for Unity (WNU), which is an organization including sex workers, have all agreed to send a letter to Prime minister Hun Sen to ask for his intervention in bringing an amendment to law on human and sex trafficking. Mrs. Keo Tha, the WNU representative, told The Mekong Times that the request for the law amendment was done to avoid abuses imposed by the police force during crackdowns on women sex workers. Mrs. Keo Tha indicated that since the anti-human trafficking law and anti-sexual exploitation law was put to use since March 2008, in order to eliminate the sex industry, clubs, bars and Karaoke bars were shut down and the industry went underground. She said that hundreds of women were arrested and sent to reform centers, and some escaped to continue the trade underground. Dozens of other women were raped and beaten up by police officers and security forces during their temporary incarceration. Keo Tha asked the government to recognize the sex trade and to agree to recognize it as a job just like any other jobs, and she asked that there will be rights protection for these workers to earn a living as well.

"Land theft and local government malfeasance" are not allowed to be discussed in Ratanakiri

Police Blockade Village to Prevent Rights Meeting, Witnesses Say

By Chiep Mony, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
27 November 2007

Armed police prevented a public forum in Ratanakkiri province Tuesday that was intended to address land theft and local government malfeasance, witnesses said.

Police used vehicles and motorcycles to block the road to a village where a group of ethnic minorities were to meet officials from the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, said Chhim Savuth, a rights worker with the agency.

About 200 people who came out to meet the rights workers 2 kilometers from the site where they originally planned to hold the meeting, he said.

Some of the crowd offered to "remove the police vehicles from the road," Chhim Savuth said. "But we told them not to do anything that could lead to violence."

No forum was held and a minority tribe chief called the blockade "a violation of human rights."

Authorities could not be reached for comment.