{"id":464,"date":"2011-10-12T16:01:08","date_gmt":"2011-10-12T16:01:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/adhoc-press\/?p=464"},"modified":"2011-10-12T16:01:08","modified_gmt":"2011-10-12T16:01:08","slug":"impunity-in-rape-issues","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.adhoccambodia.org\/km\/impunity-in-rape-issues\/","title":{"rendered":"Impunity in Rape Issues"},"content":{"rendered":"
Impunity in Rape issues is\u00a0a serious crime, as defined in the Law on the Aggravating Circumstances for Felonies. This law as well as the Criminal Procedure Code state that there is no possible civil mediation in case of criminal abuse to replace the criminal procedure. This law not only warns, but also forces the justice to return fair verdicts\u00a0for victims.\u00a0However, in fact, the majority of rape victims are second victims of unfair decision delivered by\u00a0the officers involved.\u00a0This leads to a situation of impunity which is going to become\u00a0the norm or even a culture\u00a0in Cambodia.<\/span><\/div>\n
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Every year, many women and children are victims of rape. In 2008, ADHOC has\u00a0handled 419 cases denounced by the victims or\u00a0their families. Beside this, during the 5 first months of 2008, ADHOC received\u00a0206 cases, while during the 5 first months of 2009, 201 rape cases were received.\u00a0 This comparison shows that the number of rape cases still remains\u00a0stable.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The majority of rape cases affect minors<\/strong>:\u00a0out of the 201 rape cases identified during the first 5 months of\u00a02009, 134 cases (66,6%) concern\u00a0minors (under 18 years old). Moreover, out of these\u00a0134 cases, 28 involved\u00a0girls under 10 years old (20,8%)\u00a0and 106 involved victims aged from 10 – 17 years\u00a0( 79,2%).<\/span><\/p>\n

The increasing number of rapes shows that the legal action of the government to punish the perpetrators doesn\u2019t have any\u00a0positive effects\u00a0in early 2009. In fact,\u00a0out of these\u00a0201 rape cases, the government took action based on law\u00a0in only 65 cases (32,3%),\u00a0in the early process, but we don’t know yet how many<\/strong> accused\u00a0will be discharged<\/strong>\u00a0in the first trial. <\/span>These factors lead to create a real climate of\u00a0impunity in Cambodia.<\/span><\/p>\n

Some victims\u2019 families had complained towards the authorities for intervention\u00a0but\u00a0they all say to be very disappointed with the slowness of the\u00a0action taken, with the process, the corruption and the different attempts to\u00a0mediate without sending the case to the court immediately, which gives the chance …. to find other tactics to escape the accusation. Mediation is the main problem\u00a0in the judicial system in Cambodia<\/strong>. There are many reasons which\u00a0lead the victims to accept the mediation and withdraw their complaints:\u00a0sometimes, the victims have to pay the authorities to take action such as sending the case to the court; even if the authorities try to send the case to the court,\u00a0the victims may lose confidence in the justice\u00a0and are afraid of\u00a0spending huge amount of money in this process (they have to pay for their transportation, for the process in the court, and accommodation). In fact, ADHOC report shows that out of the 201 rape cases from the first 5 months\u00a0of 2009, 32 rape cases (16%) are known to have been solved through\u00a0mediation.\u00a0But in reality, the real number of mediation\u00a0cases may be more\u00a0(some victims\u2019 families did not inform ADHOC of the rape).<\/span><\/p>\n

To summarize, based on ADHOC’s data, in early 2009, out of 201 rape cases, only 32,3% were handled by justice, 16% were mediated in illegal ways and 51,7% were not even taken into consideration by the authorities for legal action.<\/span><\/p>\n

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Case study 1<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"On December 24,\u00a02008, B. VSN, a\u00a09-years old girl\u00a0living in\u00a0Srung P Em village, Trach Tong commune, Ordong district, Kompong Speu province was raped while she had left home to collect firewood at 500 meters west of the village.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n
On that day, the victim\u2019s family filed a complaint to the police.\u00a0The military police mediated the two sides and\u00a0the perpetrator\u2019s family agreed to\u00a0pay 400$ to the victim before December 28,\u00a02008. Later on, the military police of Ordong district officially\u00a0convened the victim\u2019s family. When the victim\u2019s mother went to the district police, she was forced to take a compensation from the perpetrator\u00a0of only 800 000 riels (about 200$), and the complaint was withdrawn. <\/span><\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/strong><\/div>\n
\n

Case study 2<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"On April 16, 2009 at 11\u00a0pm,\u00a0 N SD, a 19-years old girl, living in Kro Pum Chhuk village, Kro Pum Chhuk commune, Kos OnnDet district, Takeo province was raped by L.L, 22-years old, at Tourl Kandal village, Prey Khlar commune, Kos Onndet district, Takeo province. Following the rape,\u00a0the victim went to file a complaint at Kos OnnDet district police. The\u00a0police suggested a mediation with\u00a0the perpetrator who was asked to pay a compensation of 3 000 000 riels (around 750$) to the victim. She\u00a0accepted the compensation because she did not have enough money\u00a0to proceed the complaint.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Case study 3<\/strong><\/div>\n
\u00a0\"\"P. SO, a 14-years old girl living in\u00a0O-Srav village, Om Pil commune, Kro Vagn district, PurSat province, was raped by D SD, male, 23 years old, living in the same village and commune. He raped her on March 18, 2009 at 10\u00a0pm at\u00a0about 20 meters behind her house while the victim went to urinate. He escaped after the rape.\u00a0The victim\u2019s mother filed a complaint to the police who took legal action by transfering the complaint to the trafficking police in Pursat. The case was mediated by the trafficking police who asked\u00a0the perpetrator to pay a compensation of 5 000 000 riels (around 1250$), of which the police kept 30%.\u00a0They closed the\u00a0case and the perpetrator was able to\u00a0come back to live freely in the village . <\/span><\/div>\n
<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\nImpunity in Rape issues is a serious crime, as defined in the Law on the Aggravating Circumstances for Felonies. This law as well as the Criminal Procedure Code state that there is no possible civil mediation in case of criminal abuse to replace the criminal procedure. This law not only warns, but also forces the justice to return fair verdicts for victims. However, in fact, the majority of rape victims are second victims of unfair decision delivered by the officers involved. This leads to a situation of impunity which is going to become the norm or even a culture in Cambodia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-464","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-unused"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adhoccambodia.org\/km\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adhoccambodia.org\/km\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adhoccambodia.org\/km\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adhoccambodia.org\/km\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/19"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adhoccambodia.org\/km\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=464"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.adhoccambodia.org\/km\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":465,"href":"https:\/\/www.adhoccambodia.org\/km\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/464\/revisions\/465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.adhoccambodia.org\/km\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=464"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adhoccambodia.org\/km\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=464"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.adhoccambodia.org\/km\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=464"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}