Migrant abuse claims skyrocket five fold

Domestic migrant maids being held against their will at an SKMM Investment Group training centre in Phnom Penh cry while speaking to reporters from the Post in October last year. The women were freed the following day during a police raid. Photograph: Pha Lina/Phnom Penh Post

Friday, 06 July 2012
Bridget Di Certo and David Boyle
The Phnom Penh Post

Complaints of rights violations of migrant workers had increased more than 500 per cent in the first four months of 2012 compared with the same period last year, rights group Adhoc said yesterday.

The number of individual victims of rights violations, mainly migrant workers in Malaysia and Thailand, had increased by nearly 650 per cent, the group said in its report on the situation of migrant workers, obtained by the Post yesterday.

“Forced overwork, little or no rest time, untreated illnesses, torture, severe physical assault, underpayment, threats [of] being jailed, being forced to continue to work illegally and the cut-off of relationships with family members” were the main violations migrant workers suffered, Adhoc said.

Licensed abuses, rapes and murders of Cambodian maids in Malaysia

More Cambodian maid abuse revelations

Thursday, 05 July 2012
David Boyle and Phak Seangly
The Phnom Penh Post

A Cambodian maid in Malaysia has committed suicide, another was allegedly raped by her employer and a third tortured, according to rights groups and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which is investigating the cases.

An 18-year-girl is being sheltered at the Cambodian embassy after she was rescued from an employer who allegedly raped her in April and was arrested on Monday, Moeun Tola, head of the labour program and the Community Legal Education Centre said yesterday.

“She was only 16 when she was sent to Malaysia,” he said, adding that she had been sent by the recruitment firm T&P, which has since been shut down following a raft of exploitation and abuse scandals and was “famous for falsifying documents”.

Human trafficking rackets thrive [in Thailand]

Chawalit: Abuse is increasing

Foreign workers are still being targetted

19/03/2012
Wassayos Ngamkham
Bangkok Post

The cruelty inflicted on them can be extreme. Pol Maj Gen Chawalit recalls a recent rescue of a Cambodian boy in Pattaya who had lost his tongue, after traffickers cut it out to ensure he could not identify the gang.

Human trafficking rackets thriving on deception, fraud and brutality target largely foreign nationals from neighbouring countries and are responsible for placing Thailand on a US watch list, police say.

The Anti-Human Trafficking Division has found the human trafficking rackets smuggle people and supply them as slave or forced labour to the flesh trade, fishing industry, and gangs of street beggars.

Pol Maj Gen Chawalit Sawaengpuet, the division commander, said the traffickers use various methods for luring their targets.

Most common are the rackets which con young girls, most of whom are from Laos, to work as prostitutes.

Cambodians jailed for torturing 11-year-old maid

2010-02-20
Associated Press

A Cambodian schoolteacher and her husband were sentenced to lengthy prison terms for torturing an 11-year-old girl they had purchased to be their domestic helper and held captive for more than a year, an official said Saturday.

Meas Neary, 41, was sentenced to 20 years in prison, and her husband, Va Sarouen, a 62-year-old retired Ministry of Education official, will serve 10 years behind bars, said judge Chan Madina.

Police arrested the couple in October, acting on a tip from neighbors that their young maid was being abused.

Officers found that the girl's body was covered with more than 200 wounds that the couple said they had inflicted with coat hangers, brooms, electric wires, and sometimes used pliers to pull her flesh, police said at the time.

The Phnom Penh Municipal court convicted the couple on Friday on charges of torture and human trafficking. Each had faced a maximum of 25 years in prison.

The couple had paid $400 to the girl's 62-year-old guardian in early 2008 for the girl to help with domestic chores, authorities said. Both of the child's parents were deceased.

Desperately poor Cambodia has been working to crack down on the buying and selling of children for domestic work, brothels or street-begging rings inside and outside the country.

The court also sentenced the girl's former guardian, Thoeng Reth, to five years in prison for human trafficking, the judge said.

All three were also ordered to pay a combined 20 million riel ($2,000) in compensation to the victim. The girl, who was not identified, is now in the care of a Swiss-based Christian organization, Hagar International, which provides assistance to victims of trafficking and exploitation.

Couple held for torturing girl

Oct 19, 2009
AP

PHNOM PENH - A CAMBODIAN schoolteacher and her husband have been charged for repeatedly torturing an 11-year-old girl they bought to be their domestic helper and held captive for more than a year, a court official said on Monday.

Prosecutor Heung Bunchea said Meas Neary, a high school teacher in Phnom Penh, and her husband, Va Sarouen, a retired Ministry of Education official, were charged with torture and human trafficking in Phnom Penh Municipal Court. If convicted, they could face 25 years in prison, he said.

Acting on a tip from the couple's neighbors, police arrested them Friday while they were fleeing in a car with the girl, said Major Mok Hong, of the Sen Sok district.

The girl's body was covered with more than 200 wounds, which were allegedly inflicted by the suspects, he said, adding: 'The couple said that they beat the girl with coat hangers, brooms, electric wires, and sometimes used pliers to pull her flesh.'

The couple paid US$400 (S$557) to the girl's 62-year-old guardian in early 2008 for the girl to help with domestic chores, Mok Hong said, adding that the girl's parents were both deceased.

Mr Heung Bunchea said the girl's former guardian, Thoeng Reth, was also charged with human trafficking for selling the girl to the couple.

Cambodia Tribunal Must Not Use Torture "Confessions" as a Legitimate Source of Information

AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL REDRESS TRUST
INTERNATIONAL COMMISSION OF JURISTS

12 October 2009

JOINT PUBLIC STATEMENT

CAMBODIA TRIBUNAL MUST NOT USE TORTURE "CONFESSIONS" AS A LEGITIMATE SOURCE OF INFORMATION

What prisoners say or "confess" to under torture should never be admissible in any court proceedings, said Amnesty International, The International Commission of Jurists and the Redress Trust, after submitting a brief to the Pre-Trial Chamber of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC).

The brief was submitted on 25 September 2009, as part of an application to intervene as "friends of the court" (amicus curiae) in the case of Ieng Thirith, where a dispute has arisen in respect of the potential admissibility of certain statements. In it, the organizations explain that the prohibition on the use of the content of statements obtained by torture by courts is absolute. It both reflects and supports the absolute prohibition on torture and is essential for preserving the integrity of the judicial process and the right to a fair trial. It is also impelled by the moral repugnance at the prospect of using the torturer's creation -- the "confession" -- to seek justice.

Admitting the content of a torture "confession" as evidence, bearing in mind that it was extracted out of a helpless detainee through the intentional infliction of pain and suffering, would irreparably taint any court proceedings.

Article 15 of the UN Convention against Torture, which binds the ECCC, excludes all statements obtained by torture from any court proceedings, with one exception only: torture statements may be used against the suspected torturers themselves, but then only "as evidence that the statement was made." In other words, such statements may be used as part of the proof that the act of torture took place, and not in any way for the truth of its contents or any other purpose. This limitation is clear from the language of the article, which uses the word "only" to prevent any misinterpretations. It is also clear from the history of its drafting in the UN, which the brief describes. During the drafting, proposals to allow the wider use of statements obtained by torture were considered but rejected.

The brief also explains that under international law, the use of statements obtained by torture to prove that they were made, is not limited to proceedings against the actual torturer, but also against commanders and political superiors accused of bearing responsibility for the torture.

The prohibition on the use of "confessions" does not extend automatically to all related material. For instance, other documents in the same file, including registration forms, need not be excluded automatically. However, the admissibility of any such material can nevertheless be challenged, on grounds that it did form part of the statement obtained by torture, that it was obtained by torture independently of the statement, or on other grounds set out in international and Cambodian law.

The organizations urge the ECCC to ensure that its proceedings adhere to international law and standards, which would contribute to the Court's credibility and ability to leave behind a positive and long-lasting legacy. A failure to do so would run counter to the international community's fundamental rejection of torture and refusal to provide it any legitimacy, and potentially undermine the integrity of the ECCC itself.

Regrettably, procedures in the Pre-Trial Chamber involving this brief have been rendered confidential.

The text of the brief is available here: http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/ASA23/020/2009/en

Torture still endemic in Cambodian legal system, US ambassador says

Thu, 20 Mar 2008
DPA

Phnom Penh - More than a quarter of Cambodian court defendants surveyed reported being tortured or coerced into confession and ordinary people lacked faith in the justice system, US ambassador to Cambodia Joseph Mussomeli said Thursday. Speaking at the launch of an annual judicial review by local anti- corruption organization the Centre for Social Development (CSD), the ambassador said that although the figures showed some improvement, the country's notoriously fraught system was still poor.

"The CSD annual report makes clear what goes on inside Cambodia's courtrooms still falls short of what can be considered procedural justice," he said.

"CSD reported that over 25 per cent of defendants appearing in court claimed to have been tortured or coerced into giving confessions. I note that this ... is the same as reported last year, indicating there has been no significant change."

The Court Watch Project by CSD has come to be viewed as the definitive annual survey of developments in the fledgling Cambodian judicial system since it was launched in 2003.

CSD, which receives funding from a number of donors including Germany and the US, interviewed a wide range of judicial officials, witnesses, lawyers and defendants between October 2006 and September 2007.

Judicial reform of the notoriously corrupt Cambodian system has been earmarked by donors to the aid-dependant nation as a key factor in the country's development after 30 years of civil war.

The report outlined a number of concerns, including poor training of the judiciary, bribery, torture, underfunding, a lack of independence and frequent pre-trial detention of prisoners for terms exceeding the legal limit of six months.

"Not all the news is bad," Mussomeli said, but "on balance ... there remains a good deal to be done before the people of the judicial system will earn the trust of the people of Cambodia."