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CAMBODIA - REPORT FINDS
OFFICIALS ABUSE SEX WORKERS
Human
Rights Watch said Tuesday that the Cambodian government must act to end police
abuse against sex workers. A new report by the organization found prostitutes
in the country suffer arbitrary arrest, unlawful detention, beatings and rape
by authorities.
Human Rights says its research was based on interviews with 90 sex workers, in
the past year and reveals the problem is particularly acute in the capital,
Phnom Penh.
Elaine Pearson is Human Rights Watch's acting Asia director. She says several
factors lie behind the unlawful arrest and detention of sex workers and the
further abuses that follow detention.
"We found that the 2008 anti-trafficking law somewhat contributes to these
abuses because it can provide a pretext for arresting sex workers," she
said. "However, we found it can also happen simply because governors order
crackdowns against vice and prostitution, periodic efforts to clean up the
streets and maintain public order and so on."
Pearson says the government should suspend the provisions in the
anti-trafficking law that some police use to arrest sex workers.
Human Rights Watch says the government must distinguish between sex workers and
trafficking victims.
It also wants those detention centers where abuses are taking place to be shut
down and says sex workers would be better off in facilities run by
non-governmental organizations, which it says are better-run than those
controlled by the Ministry of Social Affairs.
"We don't think that sex workers should be sent to a detention center,
where they're at risk of violence, of further abuse. And, really those
detention centers are not providing any rehabilitative function at all,"
said Pearson. "There are plenty of other ways of providing services to sex
workers and there are plenty of NGOs and groups that are able to provide that
support. So we call on the government to work together with those groups
to address these issues."
Human Rights Watch also wants a full investigation into the allegations of
abuse by police and other government officials. Pearson says donors
- who have provided funding to combat trafficking and to train the police -
must play their part, too.
"So we're calling on donors to support these recommendations and to review
their funding to the Ministry of Social Affairs and to police until their
efforts to investigate these abuses and close the centers," she said.
For its part the government denies that it is unfairly targeting sex workers
and says it will investigate allegations of abuse that are submitted to it.
Chou Bun Leng is the secretary of state at the Ministry of Interior, in charge
of combating trafficking. She says the government wants to hear of such
abuses, but it needs complainants to name those deemed guilty, to ensure an
effective investigation.
She says the police are subject to the law and will be prosecuted if abuse
allegations are substantiated in a court of law.
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