TUESDAY, JULY 20, 2010 CAMBODIA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD WWW.PHNOMPENHPOST.COM

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Angkor Air set for big take-off

Daniel Pordes and Chhay Channyda

HUMAN Rights Watch has accused the Cambodian government of sub-jecting sex workers to rape and severe beatings at the hands of law-enforce-ment officials at controversial deten-tion centres.

In a report scheduled for release today, the United States-based watch-dog claims to chronicle abuses faced by sex workers rounded up by police and sent to the facilities, which have previ-ously drawn its criticism.

The facilities, administered by the Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation, are Prey Speu, located in Dangkor district’s Choam Chao commune, and Koh Kor, located on an island in the Bassac River.

The report, titled Off the Streets: Arbi-trary Detention and Other Abuses against Sex Workers in Cambodia, draws from more than 90 interviews during the course of the past year. The physical abuse it describes allegedly took place between 2007 and 2009.

In several instances, sex workers accused police officers of rape.

Others said police punched them or beat them with sticks, wooden handles and electric batons.

“One of the police officers pointed his gun at my head and pulled the trigger, but the bullet did not fire,” says Neary, a transgendered sex worker quoted in the report.

Describing an incident that allegedly took place in April 2009 in Daun Penh district, Neary says: “They kicked my neck, my waist and hit my head and my body with a broomstick. It lasted about half an hour.”

Other interviewees said conditions at the centres were decrepit, describing “gross overcrowding and lack of ade-quate food, clean drinking water, and medical care”.

The report calls for the centres to be closed and for arbitrary arrest and detention to end. It says past abuse allegations should be investigated.

Cambodia has long faced criticism for

its use of detention centres, where mar-ginalised groups like sex workers, beg-gars and drug users are sent after police street sweeps.

Elaine Pearson, acting Asia director at Human Rights Watch, said yesterday that long-standing problems had not been addressed, and that police and other officials responsible for them were not being held to account.

“This report is an attempt to push the government to investigate the accounts of abuse,” she said.

Naly Pilorge, executive director of the rights group Licadho, said her group had conducted similar inquiries. She also believes the mistreatment of sex workers is ongoing.

“These social affairs centres should be closed. The conditions are terrible, and the violence and levels of abuse suffered by some of the most vulnerable members of society is high,” she said

Officials, however, questioned the report’s findings.

Chou Bun Eng, secretary of state at the Ministry of Interior, said the govern-ment was quick to respond after abuse allegations at Prey Speu and Koh Kor surfaced in 2008.

I am wondering if the new report just repeated old issues,” she said.

“We do not want Human Rights Watch to write the same things again and again.”

The Koh Kor centre is believed to have been closed. But the report says at least eight sex workers have been sent to Prey Speu since May.

A woman identified by HRW as Srey Thea, 22, said she was held there in June. She described overcrowded, unclean rooms, and said she was allowed to leave only to go to the toilet or bathe in dirty pond water.

A sex worker pulls up her stocking in a massage parlour in Tuol Kork district yesterday. SOVAN PHILONG

Nguon Sovan

THE Kingdom’s national airline, Cambodia Angkor Air is set to buy two new planes in order to expand

its flight network to South Korea, China and Japan.

The carrier, set up last July in a joint venture between the Cam-bodian government and Vietnam Airlines, plans to purchase two 168-seat Airbus 321s – which accord-ing to a price list compiled by the French maker cost about US$95.5 million each.

Soy Sokhan, undersecretary of state at the State Secretariat of Civil

Aviation, the organisation in charge of the Cambodian side of CAA, said yesterday that the purchases were planned for “late 2010 or early 2011”.

“The first destinations to fly to are South Korea, China and Japan, as soon as the new aircraft come,” he said.

The new aircraft will expand CAA’s fleet from three aircraft to five.

The company, set up with an initial investment of US$100 million under a 30-year agreement, now operates two ATR-72 aircraft and an Airbus 321 in 16 daily flights serving Siem Reap, Phnom Penh and Vietnam’s Ho Chi Minh City.

Soy Sokhan said the planes would be brought to Cambodia from

Europe. He declined to reveal fi-nancing details, saying this was confidential.

Officials and analysts alike said the move could provide a boost to Cambodia’s economy and tourism sector.

Minister of Tourism Thong Khon said: “We are really eager to see our national carrier fly to those coun-tries.” He added that there were no direct flights operating between the Kingdom and Japan, and that South Korea and China are the lead-ing countries in terms of both visi-tor arrivals and investment in the Kingdom.

“It’s very good if the direct flight

with Japan comes online,” Thong Khon said.

However, both the minister and the private sector had words of advice for CAA as it expands. Thong Khon said the company should consider launch-ing regular flights to Sihanoukville as soon as possible in a bid to attract tourists to Cambodia’s coast.

President of World Express Tours and Travel Ho Vandy, who is also co-chairman of the government-private sector forum on tourism, emphasised that CAA must be competitive.

“On behalf of the tourism private sector, we’d like to suggest that the CAA should set competitive prices

to encourage more passengers to use it,” he said. “We also see that service and hospitality on board is still limited. There should be an im-provement, and flight attendants’ uniforms should reflect Khmer na-tional identification.”

But CAA remains confident of its market appeal, despite modest ini-tial profits.

Soy Sokhan said: “CAA’s popular-ity is increasing day by day. For high season, which starts in October, we expect that more tourists will fly with CAA.”

He said CAA had turned a profit since it began operations last year, but that it remained “little”.

Dire rights report: Sex workers face rape and beatings

RELATED REPORT > 4

They kicked my neck, my waist and hit my head and my body with a broomstick. It lasted about half an hour.

Displaced vendors

Evictions at market spur criticism

Ratanakkiri provincial officials yesterday deployed police to

demolish stalls outside a newly renovated market, in a move that drew criticism from affected vendors and rights groups.

Em Vun, the police chief in Banlung town, said yesterday’s eviction deadline had been an-nounced last month, and that the operation had unfolded without violence. “We just take apart the stalls and umbrellas to inform them that we will not allow them to do business along the sidewalk anymore,” he said.

The Heng Dara Company renovated the market and reopened it on May 7. Vendor representative Heng Vin said none of the vendors previously operating just outside the market had been offered new stalls. Sa Leang, a represen-tative of the company, said the area would likely be paved. Chhay Thy, a provincial inves-tigator for the rights group Ad-hoc, said the affected vendors had been stationed outside the market for “many years”, and that officials should not have dismantled the stalls without marking off a relocation site. “The authorities did dismantle the stalls in an orderly manner, but there is no solution for the vendors,” he said. TEP NIMOL

News

4 THE PHNOM PENH POST JULY 20, 2010

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The Royal Government of Cambodia has received a loan from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) towards the cost of the Financial Sector Programme II and it is intended that part of the proceeds of this loan will be applied to eligible payments under the contract for the Design-Build and Commissioning of a Centralised National Clearing and Settlement System capable of processing multiple types of electronic payment instruments on a nationwide same-day basis.

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National Bank of Cambodia22-24 Norodom BoulevardP.O Box 25Phnom Penh 12202 Fax: 855 23 428 105CAMBODIA

Attention: Mr Huy Navy, Deputy Director General, Email: huynavy@online.com.kh Or Ms Say Sam Ath: Deputy Director, Payment Policy Unit, Email: ppu@nbc.org.kh

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Technical Proposal will be opened immediately after the deadline for submission in the presence ofbidders’ representatives who choose to attend. Late Bids will be rejected.

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INVITATION FOR BIDS

Sex-worker scandal widensDaniel Pordes

and Chhay Channyda

NEW allegations from Human Rights Watch of abuses at controversial de-

tention centres echo similar claims made by rights groups two years ago, sparking debate about whether authorities have done enough in recent years to address the issue.

In 2008, rights groups said abuse was rampant at the same two rehabilitation cen-tres criticised in a report set to be released today.

At the Koh Kor centre, Li-cadho monitors documented conditions akin to those at a “prison” camp during visits in June 2008. They also reported witnessing at least two deaths.

Similar conditions were re-ported at Prey Speu, where detainees were illegally con-fined and subjected to a range of abuses by staffers, including extortion, beatings and rape, Licadho said.

Representatives of the United Nations human rights agency visited both centres and called the conditions “appalling”.

Since then, authorities have reportedly shut down the Koh Kor facility and reduced the number of people held at Prey Speu.

‘A long-term problem’

Christophe Peschoux, coun-try representative for the UN

human rights agency, said that while working in con-junction with the Ministry of Social Affairs for the last two years he had seen some improvements.

“Following our repeated in-tervention, we have ensured people are only voluntarily at these centres, and that staff from the Ministry of Social Af-fairs are no longer participat-ing in street sweeps,” he said.

But Peschoux said authorities

have refused to investigate past abuse allegations.

“The ministry is ignoring and rejecting our recommenda-tions into investigating the al-legations of abuse,” he said.

“This is a long-term problem that will not go away by ignor-ing it.”

Within the next 10 days, a pro-posal written by various NGOs and UN agencies will be given to the Ministry of Social Affairs as part of an effort to promote

discussion of the problem, Pe-schoux said.

In the meantime, however, law enforcement bodies appear to be continuing with street sweeps in an attempt to dis-place sex workers and beautify tourist sites.

Sok Penhvuth, deputy gover-nor of Daun Penh district, said more than 100 people in the last month had been sent to Social Affairs centres. Half of them, he said, were sex workers col-

lected from sites including Wat Phnom.

“Their jobs affect society and sacred sites, and we do not want them to work as sex workers, so we send them to the vocational centres,” he said, and pledged to continue the crackdowns.

But Chan Dina, head of the Cambodian Prostitutes’ Union, which represents about 300 sex workers, said the Social Affairs centres do far more harm than good.

“Not only do we not receive vocational training like the au-thorities say, but the detention centres affect those sex workers who suffer from HIV/AIDS and are prevented from receiving their medicine,” she said.

The HRW report also takes aim at the Law on the Suppres-sion of Human Trafficking and Sexual Exploitation, which the government approved in 2008.

Advocates for sex workers say the law has given authorities an excuse to crack down.

“The law means that sex workers have no choice in the way they live,” Chan Dina said. “She is doing her job for finan-cial reasons, and she is often shouldering the burden of her entire family.”

The HRW report recommends that parts of the law be repealed, saying it effectively criminalises sex work and causes “police ha-rassment, violence and extor-tion of bribes from sex workers, trafficked persons and children in sex work”.

Prostitutes wait for customers near Wat Phnom in March of last year. SOVAN PHILONG