Hun Sen's law: Pedophiles get reduced sentenced, prostitutes are sent to torture camps

Alexander Trofimov

Cambodian court reduces Russian pedophile's sentence

PHNOM PENH, Oct. 10 (Xinhua) -- The Phnom Penh Appeal Court has upheld a child sex abuse conviction against Russian businessman Alexander Trofimov, but reduced his prison sentence from 13 to 6 years, state media said Friday.

The municipal court found Trofimov, 41-year-old executive director of the Koh Puos Investment group, guilty of debauchery in March for sexually abusing a 14-year-old girl.

The Appeal Court heard his case in absentia on Oct. 2 and ruled Thursday that under the country's new anti-human trafficking law, he should receive a lighter sentence, Appeal Court Judge Samreth Sophal was quoted by English-Khmer language newspaper the Cambodia Daily as saying.

"The new law's punishment is lighter than the old one," he said.

Trifimov is currently being held in pre-trial detention at Sihanoukville municipal prison as he is scheduled to be tried Monday for allegedly sexually abusing 18 other girls.

The businessman once established his company to develop an isolated island in Sihanoukville into a comprehensive resort.

Anger over cuts to jail time for paedophiles in Cambodia

Thursday, August 28, 2008
ABC Radio Australia

In Cambodia changes to child sexual abuse laws could mean the reduction in sentences of nearly 40 foreign paedophiles currently serving jail terms.

It has court officials, and child exploitation activists outraged.

Presenter: Bo Hill
Speakers: Samleang Seila, country director, Action Pour Les Enfants Cambodia

Click here to listen to the audio program in English

HILL: In 2006, 48-year-old Belgian man, Philippe Dessart, was arrested and charged after being found in a Phnom Penh guesthouse with a naked 13-year-old-boy. Under Cambodian child sexual abuse laws at the time, he was sentenced to 18 years in jail. But recent changes to the country's abuse laws saw Dessart's sentence reduced to just three years. His lawyer said he was satisfied by the appeal court's decision. Child sexual exploitation activist, Samleang Seila, says this case will be just the start.

SEILA: This is a new law which is protocol at every level of the courts. All the paedophiles were sentenced under the old law but the appeal has to use the new law, so all the sentences must be reduced according to the law.

HILL: That's nearly 40 foreigners convicted of what was once known as debauchery, but now has several categories under the new laws. The changes were designed to stop forms of sexual abuse going unpunished. Samleang Seila, the director of child exploitation NGO Action Pour les Enfants in Phnom Penh, explains.

SEILA: The good thing about this new law is that each offence is clearly defined. In the old law when we talk about debauchery it was very general, so sometimes for slight sexual activity it was not considered debauchery. But now if someone commit sexual exploitation with the child, the other code will apply. So if a person does not have sexual penetration he may be charged with indecent act.

HILL: The judge in the case of Belgian paedophile, Philippe Dessart, ruled that only an indecent act had taken place in the Phnom Penh guesthouse. While sexual intercourse with a minor carries a maximimum penalty of 10 years in jail, an indecent act, which does not involve sexual penetration, carries a sentence of between one and three years. Dessart is not the only one to have his sentence reduced under the new laws. An American was convicted of indecent acts against a 12 year-old-girl, and sentenced to two and a half years in prison. A convicted Swiss paedophile, sentenced last year to 11 years jail, will now serve just two and a half years. For Samleang Seila, it goes against all that he and his action group campaign for.

SEILA: I think this is a very light sentence and I am concerned that a paedophile would use this to abuse more and more children because a paedophile will not have to have sexual penetration so they just perform sexual activitiy with a child especially masturbation and physical, sexual touching, is enough for a paedophile.

HILL: Cambodia, along with several of its Southeast Asian neighbours, has for years been fighting its image of a sex tourism destination. While education campaigns have helped raise awareness of the problem, little funding and poor law enforcement resources have hampered these efforts. Samleang Seila says the new child sexual abuse laws will only encourage the paedophiles to return.

SEILA: I would make that prediction because the charges and the sentences and the new law would not give serious punishment to the paedophiles so Cambodia would become a set destination for sex with a child again.