Rape on the rise in Cambodia: Amnesty

Meas Veasna. (Joel Elliott/GlobalPost)

Victims of rape suffer from stigma while perpetrators are rarely, if ever, held accountable.

April 16, 2010
By Joel Elliott — Special to GlobalPost

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia – For Meas Veasna, as with many survivors of sexual violence, rape brought only the beginning of the horror.

Veasna, a 20-year-old married mother of two, was allegedly raped by a monk in her home province of Prey Veng in June 2009. Her life since that time has fallen apart; because of the stigma Cambodian culture attaches to being raped, her husband’s family will not allow her to see him or her children. She has been forced to move to Phnom Penh on her own to find work. Meanwhile, the monk remains free, never having been tried in court because he refuses to appear.

All across Cambodia, this sort of impunity enables rapists and victimizes women over and over, according to a recent report from Amnesty International that found that incidents of sexual violence — especially the rape of children — have increased in recent years. Police documented 468 cases of rape, attempted rape and sexual harassment between November 2008 and November 2009, a 24-percent increase over the previous year, Amnesty reported. The portion of rapes reported to human rights organization ADHOC that involved children jumped from 67 percent in 2008 to 78 percent in 2009, and many more rapes go unreported, according to Amnesty.

ADHOC, the Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association, is an NGO that lobbies for better policies for providing health and education services, improving labor and food condition, reducing poverty and preventing land-grabbing.

The incident involving Veasna occurred a few weeks after she had given birth to her second child and went to Wat Kaley pagoda for a ritual involving holy water. While she was there, a monk allegedly drugged and raped her, fleeing only when Veasna’s husband came to her rescue.

Police took her statement, but since then nothing has happened, Veasna said in an interview last week. She wants justice, but is beginning to despair, as the monk refuses to appear in court and investigations have ground to a halt. Amnesty’s report suggests that a guilty verdict might vindicate Veasna and allow her to return to her family, but she has her doubts.

“I want the police to arrest him, but I think it’s useless for me to continue with the case; every time I go to the police, they question me, but then there is just silence,” Veasna said. “I think my husband cannot take me back, because in his eyes I am dirty.”

Her husband continues to be supportive, exerting what little pressure he can to urge police to investigate and the courts to act.

That a rape survivor would emerge from the incident with her reputation in tatters is not unique to Veasna, according to Sina Vann, team leader for Voices for Change, a program of the Somaly Mam Foundation. The Somaly Mam Foundation is an NGO that seeks to combat human trafficking through advocacy, education and by empowering survivors to tell their stories to the world.

Vann herself, now 26, was taken from her home in Vietnam at the age of 12 and sold into sex slavery in Cambodia before being rescued as a teen by AFESIP (Acting for Women in Distressing Situations), another organization co-founded by Somaly Mam. Young girls or women who are raped often turn to sex work because they see no other option given the stigma that accompanies rape, she said.

Ironically, convicted rapists who gave interviews to Amnesty International said they experienced no stigma for their crimes.

“I haven’t heard of anyone looking down on me in the village, and not here in the prison either; there are so many here who have done bad things,” one man named Meng, who was convicted and sentenced to 14 years for the rape of two girls, ages 9 and 10, told Amnesty International.

The report urged the Cambodian government to publicly condemn rape and other sexual violence, and to end the complacency that contributes to the impunity rapists enjoy. The government must change its policies to ensure that police investigate allegations of rape and that the courts hold rapists accountable, the report said. Cambodia, it said, also should address the government’s failures to provide victims with adequate reparations, including health and psychosocial services.

For now, NGOs such as ADHOC are trying to pick up the slack. When she found herself essentially homeless, Veasna went to the organization, which agreed to represent her in court, and helped her find a job in Phnom Penh working with needy children.

But Veasna longs for her old life.

“It’s hard for me now, because I used to have my children. I used to have my husband with me,” she said. “But now, I am all alone, and lonely.”

Cambodia: ending HIV stigma in hospitals

Patient in Chey Chumneas hospital

Monday, November 30, 2009
Independent Catholic News

“They turned my patient away because she was HIV positive.” Discrimination of people living with HIV is found in every layer of society. Dr Vuthy King, from CAFOD partner Maryknoll, explains how he is working to stamp out stigma in the medical profession

“Some hospitals in Cambodia do not like to operate on people living with HIV. In Phnom Penh there are eight hospitals. In my experience, only two will operate on HIV-positive patients.

“This is not hospital policy, but a decision made by the surgeons. If medical professionals discriminate against HIV-positive people, you can imagine what kind of reactions they face from the public in general.

“A few years ago, I had a patient with appendicitis. I sent the patient to the nearest hospital at 9pm. But they said they wouldn’t operate on her because she had HIV. She would have to wait until 9am the next day so they could hold a meeting to discuss her case.

“When I went back at 10am, they rejected her from the hospital. By this time she was in a critical condition. I drove her to another hospital but they also refused to treat her. Finally the third hospital I went to accepted her.

“The Maryknoll hospice opened in 2000. We were the first non-governmental organisation in Cambodia to open a free hospice for poor people living with HIV.

“Almost 1,000 patients have used this hospice since it opened. Many would have died without the care they received here. Some poor people sell everything, their land, livestock, and home, to pay for medical bills because hospital fees are expensive.

“But when they recover they have no way to support themselves. It is a vicious trap for poor people. “We treat those with opportunistic infections like TB or meningitis. We also do complicated medical procedures like lumbar punctures but we’re not equipped to perform full operations.

“Recently, we opened a specialist HIV wing in Chey Chumneas hospital. We provide consultations with the patients and assess their needs. People travel from miles around to come and see us because they know they will receive the best staff. We are teaching hospital staff to treat HIV positive people with respect and care."

The Enemy Within

April 11, 2008
Radio Singapore International

In Cambodia today, 6 million land-mines are still threatening to injure or kill anyone who comes across their way. Wounded and amputated, the survivors must face enemies buried deep within: the acceptance of an injured body, an un-certain future, social stigma and isolation.

In her new film titled, “The Enemy Within”, documentary film-maker Sarah Rodriguez immaculately captures the ravaging effects of land-mines, but at the same time, paying tribute to the memory and bravery of land-mine victims and survivors.

A decade later, what do we know about these survivors? After the war, after the genocide, after the amputation and the treaty, what do they dream of and what do they hope for?

All that and more, only on Check Out on Radio Singapore International.

I’m Michael Tan.

Sarah first tells me more about what inspired her to film a documentary detailing the ravaging effects of land-mines.

SR: Well, actually in started back in Montreal. There was a presentation done by some members of an NGO working to help land-mine survivors and I kept having the feeling that Canada wants to be a country that’s a leader in the fight against land-mines. Yet, Canadians speak a lot of the land-mines themselves and a lot about the deaths caused by land-mines. But there’re many countries that’re stuck with a lot of land-mine survivors which means a lot of social consequences for the country as well. For example, in the case of Cambodia, being the country with the most entities in the world, has big consequences for the economy and the development of the country itself. So I thought: there’s a subject there because it’s not just talking about small-arms, it’s talking about human consequences but actually, stories also of people who have survived land-mines and who are able ot take their life into their own hands.

Now the 10th anniversary of the Ottawa Treaty has just passed, and it’s an agreement that’s been signed by more than 154 countries calling for the complete ban and destruction of anti-personnel land-mines. What can you tell us, 10 years later, about land-mine victims and the physical, social as well as psychological challenges they’re currently facing?

SR: Well, that’s an interesting question because part of the interest of the documentary, this subject in itself, was actually the 10th anniversary. Because as you said, the treaty has been signed by so many countries, yet it’s the first international treaty that has an objective that’s aimed towards victims, because the treaty has three main objectives as you said: de-mining, destruction of land-mines, banning of land-mines but also helping land-mine survivors. The two first objectives: banning land-mines and destroying land-mines, have been in 10 years, very positive. Yet, land-mine survivors have been a little bit forgotten. Meaning that in most cases, they do receive prosthesis, that is when they do know that they can receive prosthesis, most of them don’t receive them, and when they do, some of them are stuck with poverty and depending on money because they cannot work anymore and if there is no social system to help them regain a positive and active life in society, most of them will actually sell their prosthesis to gain a little money and they’re back to starting point. So the 10th anniversary is a very good occasion to be able ot say that there is a third objective that shouldn’t be forgotten, which is to help land-mine survivors.

Now I understand that in shooting your documentary, you’ve met land-mine victims yourself. What do they dream of and what do they hope for?

SR: Well, I was very surprised. I was told by people who have seen the film that they think it’s actually funny in some parts and it’s not that I myself made the film funny but it’s because these characters that I have filmed are very optimistic about life. Optimistic because now they do have a role. I chose to film people not who have failed in regaining an active life but people who have really worked for themselves and for their own social rehabilitation and a lot of them, they’re very afraid for their own children of course, because they’re afraid that they will live through the same things, but a lot of them are really hoping for high expectations. I was really surprised to see some of them wanting to, for instance, there’s a volley-ball team that’s playing internationally and it’s one of the best sporting teams in Cambodia even though they are mostly people who have been disabled by land-mines and they just dream to be accepted as a normal person, normal human beings and most of them do achieve that through showing what they can do actively and positively in their communities.

Yeah, and I understand that these men and women have become real role models for their communities?

SR: Exactly, I’ve also filmed some women who have decided to take courses in repairing TVs and computers and of course there’s not a lot of women working in that field in Cambodia. And now, for three of them, being amputated meant not having a husband and not having a future. For many Cambodian women, having a future means having a family and actually two are married and one is going to be engaged because now that she has a job that’s really not a very typical female job, it raises new interest in the community as well. So that’s what I meant by role models or real heroes. These are people that are fighting enemies, that’s why the film is called “The Enemy Within”. They’re fighting enemies of social stigma, isolation and really trying to their best to regain an active and positive life.

So how does your film give voice to these thousands of land-mine victims?

SR: The third objective of the ban on land-mine treaty, the land-mine survivors, have mostly been forgotten. And from time to time, we hear NGOs speaking in the name of land-mine survivors but I was actually very surprised to see NGOs react to my documentary saying that they actually never really interviewed or never really spoke of such themes with land-mine survivors. So what I mean by giving voice is that they’re not usually able or they don’t have a podium to be able to say what they feel like. Most of them never talk about the fact that almost 60% of them try to commit suicide, so there are very big psychological consequences. There’s a lot of depression, alcoholism related to being amputated by a land-mine, but they don’t really get the chance to talk about the positive things they can do and so I wanted to give a voice to those who really decided that there are difficulties but they’re not the kind of people we usually depict them so they’re not land-mine victims but land-mine survivors. That’s the kind of message they want to put across. And that’s what I wanted to do. Give them a voice and make them able to say that they are survivors. Real-life survivors, real-life heroes.

And how has meeting these real-life heroes affected you on a personal level?

SR: In documentary filming, it’s very difficult not to have an emotional connection. Because, well first of all, you do get what we call, “into the bubble”, into the person’s intimacy and so you have to become kind of friends with these people for them to be able to talk about what they’re going through. But the emotional connection is, I think, very optimistic. Talking to you about the film, I’m having flashes of the people I’ve met and seriously, it’s a real-life lesson because I’ve never been so optimistic about what you can achieve in life until I had met these people and it’s not an exaggeration just for selling tickets to go see the show, haha, I mean that I was really driven by the humour, a lot of them had a very surprising humour about their own situation because they’ve had life so difficult and they were able ot pass through everything. Most of them valued especially knowledge and being optimistic about things. So I believe that maybe that’s what I get as a lesson. The lesson that I do get is you know, that there is always more to hope. You can always turn back and do something that you wouldn’t expect to do or people don’t expect. You can go and have, not necessarily what you want, it’s not their reality, but that if you really do want to change your life, you can always find something positive in it.

And that really puts things into perspective for all of us yeah… what more do you think needs to be done to ensure that children growing up around the world will one day run fearless through their lands and fields?

SR: Of course, well, I think the first thing is really raising awareness, but raising awareness not necessarily locally but internationally. In 1997, when people started talking about the land-mine ban treaty, there were Nobel Prizes around this, Princess Lady Diana got involved in the situation and for most of these countries, it was really a relief, because for instance in Cambodia, they were able to de-mine about 50% of the land, which is a big percentage. So in 10 years, most of it has been done in the first three to four years, where the international attention was at its highest. But now of course, it’s difficult to keep an attention internationally. There’re so many other situations in many different countries that need to be addressed, so of course there’s always a kind of a fatigue or awareness goes a little down and unfortunately, there’s lesser and lesser help and so for instance, in the situation in Cambodia, they have very little money to de-mine and even though there are awareness programmes in schools for instance to teach children to be aware, to watch out for the signs and not to go into fields they don’t know, it’s not the safest. The safest would be to really keep up with the de-mining as it was done in the first following years. Most countries have accepted that land-mines are a very threatening arm and that they mostly injure civilians, so it’s not a weapon of war, it’s really a weapon of destruction and they have accepted that and I think it would be good that countries that have signed the treaty would realize that it needs to be followed up, it needs to be addressed in the years to come.

And that was documentary film-maker Sarah Rodriguez, whose film “The Enemy Within” is now screening as part of the Singapore International Film Festival, and for Check Out on Radio Singapore International, I’m Michael Tan.

‘Til next week, stay safe and take care.