Around 100 Phnom Penh residents facing expulsion from their homes gathered in front of City Hall on Wednesday, delivering a petition to make the city “eviction free.”

The demonstrators came from eight communities inside the city, warning in their petition that 10 percent of Phnom Penh’s residents have been evicted over the last 20 years, thanks to the rising value of urban real estate.

Some 150,000 people have been displaced in that time, they said, including forced evictions where their homes were bulldozed.

The petition calls for city leaders to stop forced evictions that present a bad image.

City administrative officer Keo Kosal said he received the petition, which would be reviewed.

“People have met with many difficulties when they leave the city, far from businesses, far from places of work and far from children’s schools,” said Ton Srey Pov, a Boeung Kak lake resident. “We’re delivering the petition to the city governor [Kep Chuktema] to help intervene and stop evictions of people from the city.”

“Eviction of people is making people poorer,” said Lim Sambo, 57, a former resident of the Dey Krahorm neighborhood in Phnom Penh that saw a massive, violent eviction in 2008.

Chan Saveth, chief monitor for the rights group Adhoc, said the Phnom Penh government needs to provide opportunities for the city’s poor, “who have as much the right to live in Phnom Penh as others.”

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City Residents Present Petition Against Eviction

Human Rights Watch is calling for new legal protections for the thousands of Cambodians who work in Malaysia as domestic workers. Rights workers say both countries must do much more to prevent an array of abuses including physical and sexual violence.

Abuse

Human Rights Watch workers interviewed 28 women who were employed as domestic workers. Nearly half reported suffering physical or psychological abuse from their employers.

Another three said they were raped – one by her employer.

The common theme is a lack of assistance or legal protection in Malaysia for the thousands of Cambodian women working there.

Human Rights Watch says in Cambodia well-connected recruitment firms forcibly confine women in poor conditions in training centers for months before sending them abroad.

Recruitment firms provide cash advances to families, as well as food and livestock, driving the women into debt bondage. And they charge huge training fees, which takes the women months to work off.

Deceived

The title of the report, “They Deceived Us At Every Step”, conveys the scale of the dangers the women face, says Human Rights Watch’s women’s rights researcher Jyotsna Poudyal 

“The report is basically a comprehensive account of what happens when women decide to travel from Cambodia to Malaysia,” said Poudyal. “So it documents the abuses and exploitation at each step of the migration process. Our concerns are basically about women who decide to migrate must be protected, and this report looks into the recruitment steps, and then comes up with concrete recommendations of what could be done to improve the situation.”

Exploitation

Human Rights Watch says as a first step Malaysia and Cambodia should abide by and then ratify the International Labor Organization’s convention on domestic workers, which protects workers from violence and exploitation.

Poudyal says Phnom Penh must draft a comprehensive migration law that addresses issues such as debt bondage, child recruitment and other abuses common to the recruitment side of the industry.

About one-third of the Cambodian population lives below the poverty line, and there are very few jobs available locally for the estimated 300,000 young people who enter the labor market each year. That means conditions are ripe for exploitation, and unscrupulous recruitment firms have taken advantage.

Role of media

After media reports highlighting the serious abuses of Cambodian women in Malaysia, the Cambodian government last month announced a halt to sending domestic workers to Malaysia.

But Poudyal says besides the suspension, which is most likely temporary, Phnom Penh has shown little interest in tackling the problem.

“From our point of view it seems that the government is keen to promote migration, but at the same time extremely reluctant to extend basic protections to its workers,” added Poudyal. “So I would say that if Cambodia is serious about being a big exporter of labor then they have to resolve these issues in the long term.”

The abuses can begin even before the workers arrive in Malaysia.

Recent raids on recruitment centers in Cambodia have revealed a litany of abuses, including girls as young as 14 being trained for domestic work in Malaysia. False documents are used to get around the requirement that they need to be 21.

But government action is complicated by the fact several recruitment firms are owned by relatives of those tasked with policing them in the labor and interior ministries.

Human Rights Watch says Phnom Penh must prosecute any and all companies and individuals involved in abuses.

Recruiters

And, Poudyal says Malaysia must overhaul its labor law, which currently excludes domestic workers.

“So we are calling on the Malaysian government to revise those laws so that domestic workers are protected, as well as strengthening the legal assistance for workers who might have been trafficked, who are in a situation of abuse, and then basically revising the sponsorship system which ties the worker to an employer,” said Poudyal. “So for instance, if the worker flees abuse, then very likely she would be arrested or deported.

Two years ago Indonesia barred its citizens from working in Malaysia after reports of similar abuses. That action forced Malaysia to ensure that Indonesian domestic workers were awarded protections.

But Cambodians are currently excluded.

Human Rights Watch says that needs to change. Since 2008 at least 40,000 Cambodian women and girls have been sent to Malaysia to work as domestic servants.

One young woman the group interviewed said she was made to work 22 hours a day, was beaten and kicked by her employer and his wife, and was never paid.

None of the 28 women interviewed said they had received their promised salary in full. Most said they received wages that were far lower, while some reported receiving nothing at all.

Excerpt from:
Legal Protections Sought For Cambodian Domestic Workers in Malaysia

So Ath No, the 49-year-old son of a senior government official, was released by kidnappers in the predawn hours Monday, nearly two weeks after his abduction.

The kidnappers had originally asked for a $1 million ransom from his father, So Phon, who is an undersecretary of state at the Ministry of Interior.

So Phon said Monday he had paid no ransom and did not know the reason his son was released.

So Ath No was taken by four men from his home in Phnom Penh’s Russey Keo district on Oct 8. He was released around 1 pm in Tuol Kork district and took a motorcycle taxi home, So Phon said.

So Ath No was recovering from his ordeal and would not speak to reporters, So Phon said. He said he wanted to thank the kidnappers for releasing his son unharmed.

It remains unclear whether police have any leads in the kidnapping. Kiet Chantharith, a spokesman for the national police, said he had not been informed of So Ath No’s release.

Other police officials were not available for comment.

Originally posted here:
Kidnap Victim Released Unharmed, Father Says

Police and human rights groups say violent crime has spiked in the period since severe flooding began in August, as criminals take advantage of a distracted security force.

The capital and many other places across the country have been inundated in recent weeks. Kheng Tito, a military police spokesman, said criminals are taking advantage of the floods, which slow police, to commit crimes.

“These cases happen when we are busy with floods and natural disasters,” he said. “So the criminal takes this opportunity to commit a crime. But these crimes are very small. Most of these are robberies that cause minor injuries.”

However, not all of the crimes are small. An apparent surge in violent crime has come in with the floodwater.

On Monday, a young woman was seized by gunman as she drove along Russian Boulevard in Phnom Penh, according to witnesses. Two men broke the window of her luxury Lexus and took her, witnesses said. A police spokesman said the crime has not been reported.

On Friday, the son of So Phon, an undersecretary of state of the Ministry of Interior, was kidnapped near his home in Phnom Penh’s Russei Keo district. Police said four kidnappers armed with AK-47s and pistols took him and demanded a $1 million ransom for his release. So Phon declined to comment further, but he said police are now investigating the crime.

And last month, at least two people were shot by unknown gunmen in Dangkor district, one a young woman and the other a market vendor.

Police officials said the crime surge belies steadily declining numbers. Year-on-year numbers show a decrease in crime for the first nine months of 2011.

Chan Saveth, an investigator for the rights group Adhoc, said in the first six months of 2011, security was better than the year before. But recently, there have been cases of killings and kidnappings, he said.

One Phnom Penh resident, who asked to remain anonymous for her safety, said killing a person in the capital was as easy as “killing a bird.” “We are worried about our safety when we go out to work,” she said.

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With Floods Come a Crime Wave, Officials Say

Thousands of families have been displaced from their homes in Phnom Penh and are living in sites they say provide poor living conditions. Thousands more will face a similar problem as the city moves to develop more areas.

At least 760 families in two of the capital’s districts are facing displacement. City officials say the moves are necessary as they develop the city.

Touch Eang has lived near the Japanese Friendship bridge in Russey Keo district’s Chroy Changvar peninsula since 1979. She said in a recent interview that her family, and 60 others, will be moved soon. She lives among many others along the Tonle Sap river.

“I will leave if they give me some amount of money to buy a new house and to have water, electricity and school for my children,” she said. She does not know when that time will come, but she knows it will happen eventually. “I’ll wait until they give me money, and then I will find another house to buy.”

In Meanchey district, about 10 kilometers away, another 700 families live in a chaotic squatter settlement. Small wooden houses are built around Boeung Tompun lake, which is polluted and puts off a foul odor, as a catch basin for rain run-off from the city. The families here are also unsure when they will have to leave.

“They’ve only told us that it’s near development,” said Srey Lienb, a 24-year-old resident here.

The Housing Rights Task Force, an advocacy group for families facing eviction, estimates that 30,000 families were displaced in 2010 alone. The rights group Adhoc says about 150,000 families have been moved since 1990. Sia Phearum, secretariat director for the organization, said the displaced families face shortages of water, electricity, healthcare and education. “These are major problems,” he said.

Some of the sites they were moved from have yet to be developed. But the city continues it push to move others off sites like the Chroy Changvar and Boeung Tompun. At Boeung Kak lake, the city’s most controversial development site, residents are still waging protests against a massive development.

Phnom Penh Governor Kep Chuktema told VOA Khmer last month that there are plans for development at the Chroy Changvar and Boeung Tompun areas.

At Chroy Changvar, a company called OCIC will “create a modern city,” he said. “I think Boeung Tompun also has a plan for the creation of a modern city, but [developers] have been slow to build.”

Adhoc’s chief monitor of land disputes, Ouch Leang, said problems with displacement occur when developers and city officials fail to communicate with residents.

“As we have seen in every community, about 90 percent don’t agree with the displacement,” he said. “It means they don’t want to move to other places, because the government moves displaces them to live very far from the city, and then gives their [land] to companies like Shukaku, Inc., 7NG, OCIC and Canadia Bank,” he said, listing some of the city’s largest developers.

Ouch Leang said the government has been good about developing some displacement sites outside the city, many have gone under-developed for as long as seven years.

Kep Chuktema said the city has plans, but those can face interference from people who don’t want to give up ownership of their land.

“I think the number of families [affected] is not many, but the land is big, because others from other places come to buy it,” he said.

Am Sam Ath, a monitoring supervisor for the rights group Licadho, said illegal displacement can hurt families.

“Firstly, they lose income for their families, because they are busy with complaints,” he said. “Second, their children drop their studies, because the children are busy with the complaints too. And one more thing, the leaders of the groups that are complaining face arrest from authorities, because they think they are the ones provoking rebellion.”

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Displaced Families Continue To Face Hardship

Among the nearly 100 booths set up at this year’s Water Festival in Lowell, Mass., was Hope Worldwide.

The booth was established to help raise funds for the Sihanouk Center of Hope, a hospital in Phnom Penh that provides healthcare to some of the nation’s poorest.

“One of the great things about working at the Cambodian Sihanouk Hospital Center of Hope is that is has a tremendous amount of support from many different organizations,” said Milton Drake, a doctor and the Northwest’s director for Hope Worldwide.

The Center of Hope not only treats general illnesses, he said, but it also treats HIV and AIDS patients free of charge.

The center began 15 years ago, as a way to help treat Cambodians who could not afford expensive care or medicine.

Debbie Drake, Milton’s wife, is also a volunteer for Hope Worldwide. She had come to the Lowell festival to help raise funds for the center with the help of some of the tens of thousands of Cambodians and other Southeast Asians who might come through.

“We want to make them aware of the hospital in Cambodia and the good things being done over there after the tragic time in their country,” she said.

The center has served more than 1 million patients, she said.

“I think we’ve ended up with more awareness than money, but it’s good,” she said. “Awareness is good. Awareness will bring more money. We trust in God that the funds will come.”

Vandara Chhum, a Cambodian volunteer at Hope Worldwide, said churches around Lowell had raised $5,000 from a basketball campaign to send to the Center of Hope, which is in Phnom Penh, and to the Sonja Kill Hospital Center of Hope, in Kampot province.

She said she hoped to explain to Cambodians at the festival the work of the two centers.

“Money to run day-to-day operations come from companies, while doctors from the US and other [countries] volunteer to work free of charge,” she said.

Original post:
Lowell Water Festival Aids Hospital in Cambodia

Thailand’s recently elected Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra has made her first official visit to Cambodia. The one-day trip marks a new start in bilateral relations, which have been poor in recent years.

Thai premier Yingluck Shinawatra and her Cambodian counterpart Hun Sen have begun the process of rebalancing matters between the two neighbors, after years of deterioration.

New allies?

Phnom Penh was openly thrilled in July when Yingluck’s party won Thailand’s general election and replaced the Abhisit government that Cambodia felt it could not work with.

Prime Minister Yingluck leads the political party of her brother, Thaksin Shinawatra, a former prime minister and an ally of Hun Sen.

Abhisit’s tenure saw relations between the two nations decline to their lowest point in years and was marked by an escalating war of words and a series of border clashes that left at least 28 dead this year. ASEAN group chair Indonesia led efforts to mediate a ceasefire.

And in July the International Court of Justice in The Hague ruled both sides must withdraw troops from disputed land near the Preah Vihear temple.

Bilateral meeting

Cambodia’s Information Minister Khieu Kanharith says the two leaders discussed the issue in Phnom Penh.

“First of all, when we talk about border, prime minister [Hun Sen] says we have to follow the decision of the International Court, and also keep the role of the Indonesians,” said Kanharith. “The Thai prime minister agreed.”

Khieu Kanharith says Cambodia and Thailand have also agreed to work together to clamp down on cross-border crime.

Business trip

Thailand said it would send a group of businessmen to Cambodia later this year to try and boost trade and investment.  Trade has been flat for the past year or two, while Thai investment into Cambodia collapsed.

Another bone of contention this year was the jailing in January of two Thai nationalists, Veera and Ratree, who crossed into Cambodia illegally.  The two received sentences of six and eight years, and Phnom Penh has said many times since that they will not be entitled to release until serving at least two-thirds of their term.

But Khieu Kanharith hinted some movement might be forthcoming.

“As a message to the mother of Veera and the sister of Ratree, that the government is seeking the way to have the release of the two convicts according to Cambodian legal procedure,” said Kanharith.

He said Cambodia’s king is entitled to reduce sentences, even though the government would not.   

Optimism

In summary, Kanharith said the talks were fruitful.

Earlier, Cambodian government spokesman Koy Kuong had said he expected the visit to restore bilateral relations and cooperation in all fields, with an emphasis on resolving differences through dialogue.  

Outstanding issues between the countries include demarcating disputed stretches of their border, a process that stalled under Abhisit, and how to share oil and gas in a 27,000-square-kilometer zone in the Gulf of Thailand.

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Yingluck Visit Boosts Thai-Cambodia Relations

Vann Nath, a Khmer Rouge prisoner who survived by painting portraits of Pol Pot, died in Phnom Penh on Monday, following an 11-day coma brought on by a heart attack, family members and health officials said.

Vann Nath, who was born in 1946 into a poor family in Battambang province, survived the Khmer Rouge’s notorious Tuol Sleng prison and had been an ardent supporter of victims’ justice at the UN-backed tribunal.

He served as a witness in Case 001 at the tribunal, which put Kaing Kek Iev, the supervisor of Tuol Sleng prison better known as Duch, on trial for atrocity crimes.

More than 12,000 Cambodians were tortured and sent to their deaths at the prison, known to the Khmer Rouge as S-21. Vann Nath was among seven known Tuol Sleng survivors. He said later he had been spared in order to paint portraits of Pol Pot, and he went on to pen a memoir about his time at the prison.

When Duch was given a commuted sentence of 19 years—a decision that is still under consideration at the tribunal’s Supreme Court Chamber—Vann Nath said he could “accept” the court’s decision.

He died at a local private clinic at 12:45 pm, according to family members. His body was prepared at the clinic and transported to his home in Prampimakara district, Phnom Penh, where it was to be prepared for a seven-day Buddhist ceremony.

His wife, Kit Eng, 62, said she regretted the loss of a “good husband.”

“We always appeared together at the [tribunal] to find justice for victims,” said fellow prison survivor Chhum Mey. “I very much regret losing Vann Nath.”

In peacetime, Vann Nath created indelible images came to characterize the terror of the Khmer Rouge and its policies of torture and imprisonment. His death was deeply felt across the diplomatic and civic community.

In a joint statement, the embassies of France and Japan called him a “tireless freedom fighter” who had preserved the reality of the Khmer Rouge period through his painting and writing.

Huy Vannak, a spokesman for the tribunal, said he personally regretted the passing of Vann Nath before the court was able to reach a final verdict for his captor, Duch. That decision, which includes appeals for his release and for more jail time, is expected later this year.

Lath Ky, a tribunal monitor for the rights group Adhoc, said he felt “very sorry” for Vann Nath’s death, and he urged to court to take it as a message to speed its work, including finding a final verdict for Duch.

“I think Vann Nath’s family, as well as all of the other civil parties and other survivors, want to see a final resolution to the Duch [trial] as very soon as possible,” said Clair Duffy, a court observer for the Open Society Justice Initiative.

His death was also a reminder of the age and poor health of four detained regime leaders who have yet to be tried, said Chhang Youk, director of the Documentation Center of Cambodia.

Government spokesman Phay Siphan said Monday Vann Nath’s death meant the loss of a “living witness” to Khmer Rouge atrocities who had made “important contributions to the dispensation of justice.”

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Vann Nath, Witness to Atrocities, Succumbs in Hospital

Van La is a rice farmer in Kampong Speu province’s Udong district. Like many Cambodians, she is illiterate. And while she hopes her children will not suffer the same fate, many parents and educational professionals fear that Cambodia’s education system may fail her.

“We face difficulties,” she said as she worked at planting rice seedlings on a recent day. “We illiterate, it’s like we have blind eyes, and we don’t make any progress like the literates.”

Government statistics show that 70 percent of the population is somewhat literate, but development experts say that a poor education environment and other factors are hurting the country’s progress.

Van La said she was determined to send her children to school, so that they might learn to read and write and better their futures, but she could still face an uphill struggle.

Poor parents cannot always afford to send their children to school, where low-salaried teachers often ask for bribes.

“If my family has money, I will study to high levels like others,” said Un Dom, who is 12 and lives in the same district. “But if my parents have no money, I cannot continue my studies in upper classes. I have a poor family. I may not be able to study to the upper classes as others do.”

Some parents, like Van Botum, 34, who lives in Phnom Penh, say that even when they send their children to school, they aren’t learning as well as they should.

“My oldest daughter studies in Grade 6, as normal,” she said. “But my youngest daughter, in Grade 5, can’t read or write at all. She feels bad, ashamed and fearful, and then she doesn’t mind her studies.”

Educators, too, acknowledge the difficulties.

Ros Tith Malay, a teacher at Boeung Trabek primary school, said the worries of parents and children are warranted.

“Teachers have a hard time making a living from the government’s inadequate offers of salary,” she said. “So the teachers have to demand money from students in exchange for their teaching, for fuel and to support their lives.”

Rong Chhun, president of the Cambodian Independent Teachers Association, said such practices damage Cambodia’s human resources and socio-economic development.

“The young have very little knowledge, no skills and no resources,” he said. “So investors hesitate to invest in Cambodia.”

Illiteracy also begets its own problems, said Heng Sreang, a professor at the Royal Phnom Penh University.

“The illiterates cannot walk out of their villages,” he said. “So their lives are facing more poverty.”

Even those few who can read and write have difficulties finding a job, he added.

Santosh Khatri, an education specialist at Unesco in Phnom Penh, said illiteracy is common among the rural poor, those who survive on basic agriculture. Efforts are underway to encourage more reading, he said. “They can improve their livelihoods and improve their agricultural techniques” with literacy.

The government, meanwhile, has “six strategies” in its approach to education, including the promotion of literacy, said Ou Eng, director-general of the Ministry of Education.

“For this reason in both primary and secondary schools, we have a number of works aimed at strengthening education quality and service with equity,” he said.

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Parents Say Poor Education Aiding Illiteracy

A coalition of non-governmental organizations says it received a warning from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to “readjust” some of their work, following a controversy over land rights along a railway line development.

The NGO Forum said Monday it is preparing a response letter to the ministry, after it wrote a letter to the Asian Development Bank in 2010 warning of dangerous construction on a line slated for rehabilitation.

The latest row between the NGO sector and the government comes amid increased warnings that the government is moving to curb the influence of the country’s burgeoning civil society. A new law moving toward parliamentary debate has raised concerns that organizations critical of the government can be shut down or have their work impeded under ambiguous regulations.

Koy Kuong, a spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said it had warned NGO Forum, the Housing Rights Task Force, Bridges Across Borders and Sahmakum Teang Tnut, or STT, to rethink the way they worked with Cambodians whose lands are threatened by development.

Some of those same NGOs have given their support to a highly public land dispute in Phnom Penh over a development project at Boeung Kak lake. Residents there were recently promised a small plot of land on the development site after years of protest and only after the World Bank threatened to withdraw funding to the country if the problem was not addressed.

Koy Kuong said the four NGOs had written to complain to the ADB in October 2010 over the rehabilitation of a railway line in Battambang province, where two children were killed. “The four NGO representatives blamed the death of the two children on the government,” he said, calling the claim “false.”

STT, meanwhile, which works with poor communities on housing rights, has had its activities suspended by the Ministry of Interior, for “failing to modify its leadership” at the behest of the government.

Critics say the group was suspended for its work with the urban poor in Phnom Penh, who have proven a headache city officials and developers.

Ou Virak, president of the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, said the STT suspension and the ministry warning to the four NGOs represented “pressure” on civil society.

“Some NGOs will begin to be afraid,” he said.

Tith Sothea, a spokesman for the Council of Ministers, which is currently reviewing the latest NGO law, said the government “cannot accept” accusations it is trying to put pressure on the rights of non-governmental agencies.

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Civic Groups Warned to ‘Readjust’ Their Work