This report presents ADHOC’s findings on issues related to women’s, children’s and migrant workers’ rights in Cambodia. It outlines four key challenges associated with these rights, based on the statistics gathered by ADHOC staff in 23 provinces/municipalities and information from other organizations documenting rights violations in Cambodia. The four key challenges are: domestic violence, rape, human trafficking, and abuses of migrant workers.
At 8 am on the morning of April 22, 2013, around 80 former Boeung Kak Lake residents staged a protest in front of the Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) headquarters in Phnom Penh. They were requesting that the party president, H.E. Chea Sim, help them solve their longstanding land conflict with Shukaku Inc., a politically connected company that has begun work on a multi-million dollar development where their homes once stood. The former residents have been given inadequate compensation and have been repeatedly harassed and intimidated by the authorities. They were also demanding the release of Yorm Bopha, a former Boeung Kak resident and prominent activist jailed in December 2012 on charges widely perceived as baseless. There is very thin evidence connecting her with the crime she is purported to have committed and her sentence is likely related to her advocacy work.
On 12 January 2013, ADHOC received a phone call from Mr. Koy Savy, 33, a fisherman who had been working in Mauritius. Koy Savy’s home is located in Chheuteal Chrum village, Chalat commune, Anlong Veng district, Oddar Meanchey province.
Savy had left for Thailand with fellow villagers across the Poi Pet border on 8 April 2010. When he arrived in Thailand, he was sent to work on a Thai boat. It took them 23 days to reach their destination. There were 27 persons on the boat, including 23 Cambodian workers and 4 Thai nationals. Savy and 22 Cambodian workers worked on the boat under the direction of a Thai boss for almost three years, without getting any wage and without having any contact with his relatives in Cambodia.
On 1st April 2013, 43 families from Thmor Da commune, including nine families from Ekapheap village and 20 families from Sangkum Thmey village, Veal Veng district, Pursat province travelled to Phnom Penh with a view to filing a complaint with the Prime Minister’s cabinet, as their plots of land were excluded from the land-titling scheme that was initiated in June 2012 and is implemented by youth volunteers. Thmor Da commune is located near the Cambodia-Thailand border at O’Plok Domrey checkpoint.
The villagers decided to submit their appeal to the Prime Minister’s cabinet after the competent local authorities joined a public ceremony to announce the results of land measurement operations [...] [The villagers] attended the ceremony, during which detailed data regarding individual plots/titles were to be presented. However, they soon realized that their names did not appear on the list.
On March 12, the Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee (CHRAC), German political foundation Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung (KAS) and the Bar Association of the Kingdom of Cambodia invited to a high-calibre Workshop on the ‘Implementation of the ECCC Legacies for Domestic Legal and Judicial Reform’. While the foreign panelists gave compelling and comprehensive reports regarding the status quo of the ECCC’s legacy, as well as regarding future possibilities within the legacy-phase, the Cambodian panelists provided valuable first-hand knowledge on the demand-side of the Judicial Reform.
On 11 March 2013, ADHOC organized a sensitization session on Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) in Tangen village, Takream commune, Banon district, Battambang province. The session, which was held from 9:00 to 11:00am, was facilitated by Mr. Yin Mengly, ADHOC’s Provincial Coordinator and ADR Officer in Battambang, and attended by local authorities and grassroots representatives from Tangen, Or Tangha and Or Phongmean villages. There were a total of 126 participants, including 44 women. [...]
ADHOC will carry out the same activities in 2013. It will select 36 communes as targets, organize sensitization sessions, and help set up communal ADR Committees to solve minor conflicts through mediation and to enhance solidarity.
ADHOC was jointly requested to mediate a land dispute in Roung Kour Deam village, Chamnoume commune, Monkulborey District, Banteay Meanchey Province. On 22th February 2013 at 8:30am, at Roung Kour Deam Pagoda, Mr. Soum Chankea, ADHOC’s Provincial Coordinator and Mediator, took part in the mediation of a land dispute originating in 2006. Other participants were Mr. Thun Saray, ADHOC President, Ms. Chhan Sokunthea, Head of the ADR Section, Ms. Jobien Monster, from Tilburg University, local authority representatives (Chamnoum Commune Chief, Secretary, Village Chief, Deputy Village Chief), the parties to the conflict, and witnesses.
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