Philippines - 8 months after ‘Yolanda’, kids still endure school woes

Carles, Iloilo — Almost eight months after the world’s worst recorded storm, schoolchildren in far-flung Isla Gigantes Sur, Carles town, Iloilo province still have to endure a rough learning environment.

“We do with what we have,” said 39-year-old Ma. Lisa Bonete, principal of Lantangan Elementary School, the most populated of the three public schools in an island known to outsiders as an emerging destination for its white-sand beaches, caves, and salt water lagoon.

But far from the curious eyes of tourists, Bonete emphasized that the people of Isla Gigantes Sur, especially students, are still experiencing hardship from the damages of super-typhoon “Yolanda” (international name Haiyan).

When the new school year opened last June 2, the 1,144 students have to content themselves with attending classes inside tents or makeshift classrooms made out of tarpaulins and bamboo poles.

Of the 25 classrooms in a hilly portion of the island, 90 percent were damaged by “Yolanda” last November 2013.

A local division of the Department of Education (DepEd) has more than P3 million allocation for repair, but actual work has not started and only a P30,000-funding was initially released.

COMMUNAL EFFORT

It was the distinct Filipino trait of “bayanihan” that pushed parents to take action.

Evelyn Abrozo, 37-year-old president of the Parent Teachers Association (PTA), said parents rallied and raised money to pay local carpenters in constructing makeshift classrooms or installing temporary roofs.

Her 39-year-old husband Jupiter, a Grade 5 teacher, added that they had to initiate on their own so their children can continue going to school.

Education, they explained, is a means of empowering and uplifting the fishing community that is considered to be the farthest point of Iloilo province.

Sea travel from the mainland to the island village is anywhere from an hour-and-a-half to two-and-a-half hours, depending on the weather.

THE CHALLENGES

With its limitations, tents and makeshift classrooms pose herculean challenges.

On a sunny school day, Bonete said the sweltering heat bothers the students and they become irritable.

With the recent onset of the rainy season, it’s a different story. Bonete sadly noted that when the rain doesn’t stop, classes are cancelled as children start running and head home.

Also, tents and tarpaulins of makeshift classrooms are always in disarray after heavy rainfall.

Bonete noted the inconvenience for students and teachers who have to arrange everything back the next morning before classes can start.

More than that, Abrozo said that there are health risks in this environment. She expressed fears that children may get sick or catch the dreaded pneumonia.

A SIMILAR SCENARIO

The hardships are also similar in two public schools in the neighboring village of Gabi.

Susanita Batobalani, principal of Gabi Elementary School, said the 509 students also have to bear studying in tent and makeshift classrooms as the school remains largely unrepaired.

Batobalani said an allocation has been set by the local DepEd, but no specific date has been set as to when repair work will start.

Fralyn Leones, principal of Granada National High School—Ballesteros Campus, said she had to take an initiative to find ways to install roofs of classrooms that were blown off by “Yolanda” so that the more than 500 high school students can be safe.

SCHOOL NEEDS

Aside from hoping for the immediate repair of damaged infrastructures, the three schools also have other needs, including books.

Bonete, Batobalani and Leones said that books, no matter how old, can still be used by both students and teachers in Isla Gigantes Sur.

Unlike in many urban areas or in the mainland, the three Isla Gigantes Sur schools have no access to the Internet and do not have the luxury to check popular Wikipedia as a quick reference material.

It is mainly because only Lantangan village has reliable signal for mobile phones while majority of Gabi village has no signal at all. Also, electricity is only available from 6-10 p.m daily.

Meanwhile, the three school principals are grateful to private organizations that have ongoing projects.

At the same time, the three are also taking their own initiatives in reaching out to private groups in getting more aid to rebuild their damaged schools.

STRONGER CLASSROOMS

DepEd-6 in Western Visayas region assured that Yolanda-devastated schools such as the three schools in Isla Gigantes Sur will be repaired at a far better quality.

“Let’s have patience,” appealed Dr. Corazon Brown, DepEd-6 regional director.

Brown emphasized that the rehabilitated classrooms will be able to withstand storms as strong as “Yolanda” or major earthquakes.

Brown said that the first phase of the P1.46-billion repair project will be implemented for Yolanda-devastated public schools starting August.

Funding for repair of “Yolanda”-devastated schools in Iloilo, Capiz, Aklan, Antique, and Negros Occidental provinces are from the quick response fund of DepEd and from Office of the Presidential Assistant for Rehabilitation and Recovery.

“In the long run, it is for the good of everybody,” Brown added.

Tara Yap

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Malaysia - Too many trafficking cases, too few nabbed

PETALING JAYA: Malaysia identified 650 human trafficking victims last year but only nine traffickers were caught and convicted.

This is among the main reasons why the country has dropped to Tier 3 in the Trafficking in Persons (TiP) 2014 report – the lowest ranking, leaving it in the same category as Thailand, Venezuela, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Zimbabwe.

Malaysia must now work on closing the gap between the number of victims and the number of people brought to justice, according to US State Department ambassador-at-large Luis CdeBaca (pic).

The 2014 TiP report states that Malaysia decreased its anti-trafficking law enforcement efforts and reported fewer investigations and convictions in 2013 as compared with 2012.

CdeBaca, who heads the Office to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons, said the treatment of victims was also critical.

“It is well known that if you treat your victims correctly, they will be good witnesses for you in court,” CdeBaca told The Star in a phone interview from Washington.

He said this included providing psychological care and feeling of safety for victims.

CdeBaca also urged Malaysia to provide better support for non-government organisations (NGOs) involved in helping human trafficking victims.

“Countries which engage strongly with civil society in the fight against human trafficking end up being most successful,” he said.

He pointed out that NGOs were unlikely to refer cases to authorities if victims are kept in detention centres and deported.

Citing cases of victims who were were held in shelters for almost a year, he said: “There is no freedom of movement.

“They have not been convicted of anything but are still behind gates and barbed wire.”

However, CdeBaca acknowledged that there have been improvements since 2009.

He said Malaysia had dedicated officials fighting human trafficking and the drop from Tier 2 was not a denigration of those on the front lines.

He said the TiP report, published since 2001, is based on the US Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2002, which is calibrated to the Palermo Protocol.

“This is the United Nations anti-human trafficking treaty which most countries have signed,” he said.

He also denied criticism that close allies of the United States would never fall to the Tier 3 category.

“One only needs to look at the downgrades this year of Colombia, Qatar, Malaysia and Thailand to recognise that the US is not afraid to tell the truth about the trafficking situation.

“I think there is a responsibility to tell your friends when there is a problem and work with them in partnership to try to address that,” he said.

Neville Spykerman

The Star

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Malaysia - Unnecessary ill will

‘The Herald’ editor Rev Lawrence Andrew speaking to the media outside the court in Putrajaya.

What's in a name? Well, in Malaysia, it is a big issue and, as events have shown, there are no winners even if the matter has been decided by the apex court.

LET me, right from the beginning, point out that I am a Christian. I am a Protestant, which is different from being a Catholic.

Protestants do not regard the Pope as the leader of the church, unlike the Catholics. The priests and nuns in Catholic churches practise celibacy.

In simple language, they are all unmarried and abstain from sex whereas pastors in Protestant churches can get married and have families.

In Malaysia, both priests and pastors are lumped together and referred to as paderi in Bahasa Malaysia. I do not know why, but that’s how things are.

The fact that there are differences within a faith is not exclusive to Christianity. All the major faiths have different schools of thought.

So when some Muslim groups in the country got angry with the Catholics over the Herald case, it was a Protestant church in Desa Melawati that ended up being hit with Molotov cocktails.

In Malaysia, because of our history, many Catholic churches are easily recognised by their large cathedrals with very distinct architecture.

The mainstream Protestants who came earlier, like the Methodists and the Anglicans, also have distinct churches but the newer Protestant churches tend to be located in shophouses, shopping malls, warehouses and even above coffee shops.

And that’s because the local authorities – the councils – make it difficult for churches to be built.

The conditions forbid the cross from being displayed openly and even putting the word “church” on the signboard is taboo. Many churches simply substitute the word “church” with words like “community centres”.

It is convenient to blame the federal government for everything but much of the authority is vested in state hands.

The church I go to in Petaling Jaya is located in an office block. As far as I am concerned, it is a church to me. To everyone else in the congregation, it is a church.

What is the point I am driving at? Simple. We need some common sense here, which is definitely missing from some of our religious and political elites. There are those who have been speaking a lot of gibberish while some have chosen to remain silent, hoping that the problems will vanish into thin air.

What’s in a name? Well, in Malaysia it is a big issue and, as events have shown, there are no winners even if the matter has been decided by the apex court.

There are only losers. All of us are affected by the negative media attention, especially the bad press overseas. And the sad and painful reality is that so much unnecessary ill will has been generated that threatens to tear at the social fabric that is keeping us together.

Have we managed to resolve anything? No, if you ask me. Many Malaysians remain just as unsatisfied and unsettled, and confused.

The federal government has correctly pointed out that Christians can still use the word “Allah” in churches and that the court ruling is confined only to the Catholic Herald, which had used the word “Allah” in its Bahasa Malaysia edition.

It’s just being practical. Anyone can insist on a blanket ban but how does one enforce such a ruling? By stationing policemen at all churches?

The 10-point agreement, for example, makes it clear that Christians in Sabah and Sarawak can use the Al-kitab and the word “Allah” over there. We can engage in a debate as to what happens when they are in the peninsula, but seriously, how would it be possible to stop them from doing the same here?

There are many Sabahans and Sarawakians in the peninsula who are here to study and to work. It just shows up the ignorance of the peninsular Malaysians when they assume that anyone with a Malay-sounding name and who looks Malay is a Muslim.

The Malays must not forget that the bumiputras comprise many ethnicities who have different faiths as well.

Umno may be strong on its Malay-Muslim agenda but there are actually many Christian bumiputras who are members of the party, something which is lost on some delegates at the annual assembly.

We may see the UiTM, where the recent controversial conference was held, as a fully Malay/Muslim institution but the fact is there are many Christian bumiputra students at the campus, some 3,500 at last count.

In a reply to a parliamentary question, the Education Ministry said the Christology Nusantara conference was an intellectual discourse but one can imagine the dire consequences on any Christian organiser who dares to hold a similar “intellectual” discourse at another public university or college.

What irks many Malaysians is why there seem to be different standards on such matters. Some groups seem to get away with just about anything while action is promptly taken against other groups or individuals.

We should make it clear that anyone who insults another, whether as an individual or as a group, on the basis of race or religion should not be spared.

If the authorities close an eye to these political thugs, it would encourage them to further divide the nation and, worse, send the wrong message that they are endorsed by the authorities.

At the same time, Christians must be honest enough to admit that in most churches, the word “Allah” is hardly used and I doubt the congregation, especially those in English-speaking churches, feel comfortable using the word, instead of “Lord”.

While Christians have fought for the right to use the word, the reality is that it is rarely used – except in services involving Sabahans and Sarawakians. Well, the babas in Malacca would also argue that they, too, refer to God as “Allah”.

One thing is clear. The Al-kitab, mostly printed in Indonesia, will continue to be studied and distributed, like it or not, by Christians who are more comfortable with the Malay language.

After all, our education system has produced a generation of Malaysians, regardless of their ethnicity, who are more at home with Bahasa Malaysia than English.

And let’s also be practical here. This is the generation who can find anything online. You can ban the printed version of the Bible in Bahasa Malaysia but anyone can simply download the entire version online.

The Penang mufti, Dr Wan Salim Wan Mohd Noor, has correctly said that while the word Allah is used by Christians in Arabic countries, there is a need to consider whether it is suitable in our community.

“From what I can see, the majority of Muslims in Malaysia are still unable to accept it. Maybe over time, views can change,” he said.

This is the impression I have received speaking to many of my Muslim friends and colleagues, too.

Of course, they are aware that Allah is commonly used by the Christians in Arabic countries, just as Dr Wan Salim said. But the concern of our Muslim friends goes beyond that – it is that sense of belonging that connects them to Allah that is unique and special.

The reality is there is a fine line between right and wrong in religion, especially if it involves cultural practices.

The churches in Sabah and Sarawak that conduct services in Bahasa Malaysia, read the Al-Kitab in Bahasa Malaysia and refer to Allah, probably also pray quietly in Bahasa Malaysia.

Likewise, I spent a decade in a Catholic school, spent much time in Catholic churches and have many Catholic friends.

Although I am a Protestant, I still pray like how a Catholic would do, in my mind and heart, because of my school legacy.

And it’s between me and God. How I pray and how it is done, or for that matter, how I call God, is my private and personal concern. No one should decide for me nor judge me.

At the end of the day, we should be more fearful of God than men, who are but mere mortals.

Wong Chun Wai

The Star

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Cambodia - Life as a brokered wife

Barely able to make enough money to survive in her hometown, Sok Chenda* picked up her passport and a few belongings last year and headed to the provincial capital of Kampong Cham.

It was a journey she would regret.

The eldest daughter among five siblings, Chenda, 28, had worked long and uncomfortable hours in a garment factory for several years prior to that fateful trip. After her mother fell ill, the family took out loans to pay for her treatment and for materials to build a new home, dragging them into a cycle of debt repayments that has crippled the lives of so many impoverished Cambodians.

Just as the situation seemed more dire than ever, Chenda met a young man claiming to represent a factory in China that needed to bolster its workforce. The promises he made – better working conditions and a minimum salary of more than 12 times what she was making in Cambodia – must have seemed too good to be true.

Chenda would soon discover they were. After arriving in a town in Jiangxi province, she was soon taken to a “brides’ house” with many other Cambodian women, where she stayed until she was sold to a Chinese man, according to the Cambodian Legal Education Centre (CLEC), which has assisted with her case. Not long after, the abuses and humiliation began, she claims.

“I agreed to go to work in China, but when I arrived, after just five days, they brought me to a ‘brides’ house’ with many Khmer women to wait for Chinese men to buy us for their wives,” she said.

Chinese men have long sought brides from countries including Myanmar and Laos due to a gender imbalance at least partly caused by China’s one-child policy and the traditional preference for having boys.

But Chenda’s case, along with several dozen similar ones reported since 2012, have led rights groups to suggest that brokers in Cambodia are beginning to cash in on the vulnerability of poor Cambodian women. The Ministry of Interior recorded 35 cases of Cambodians trafficked to China last year, although the vast majority of cases go unreported.

A far cry from the relatively moneyed life she expected to live in rural Jiangxi, Chenda said she soon found herself living a tormented existence as a sex slave to her new husband and effectively an indentured servant to her in-laws.

“I was his wife, but he did not value me. After I stayed at his parents’ house for several days, he started to treat me cruelly, kicking me off the bed when I refused to have sex with him. And he choked me almost to death, and my parents-in-law forced me to work as their [domestic] slave,” she said.

“When I did something wrong a little bit, they beat me nearly unconscious.”

Repeated escape attempts were thwarted, Chenda says, and when caught, she was dunked in icy water and her clothes confiscated. “I thought I would lose my life.”

Soon, Chenda got pregnant. Worried for her health and the future of her unborn child, she tried a new strategy after her escape attempts failed.

“I did not know how to protect myself, so I pretended to be mad, throwing urine and faeces at them. Then they stopped treating me badly and promised to send me back home after I delivered the baby.

“But after delivering the baby, for two months, they still did not send me back home, so I continued to act mad and threatened to kill the whole family. Then they agreed to send me back home,” she said.

Meurn Sok, Chenda’s mother, said she was “horrified” to learn of the abuse heaped upon her daughter, now back in her home this past month. But “she survived”, she quietly added, her face betraying the intense emotions the ordeal had visited on their family.

Huy Pichsovann, labour rights program officer at CLEC, said Chenda’s claims of abuse are credible and not particularly uncommon, as more and more Cambodian women seek work abroad to escape poverty at home.

He added there is evidence of complicity in trafficking by local authorities in China.

“Cambodian woman tried to seek for intervention from the Chinese police, but they considered the matter a family conflict without thinking of human trafficking; they did not send Cambodian women to the Cambodian embassy. Instead, the women were sent back to their husband’s families,” he said.

Cheng Hongbo, chief of the political section of China’s embassy in Phnom Penh, said China has signed agreements with governments in the region to combat trafficking and that he was “highly concerned” by cases such as Chenda’s.

“The Chinese law enforcement authorities have recently cracked down [on] several criminals who [were] trafficking Cambodian women to China. Surely we will continue to do that and also strengthen the cooperation with the Cambodian side,” he wrote in an email.

“China has a total of 1,372 administration and relief shelters located in cities across the country, which provide temporary support to trafficking victims. So if there [are] any cases, it is strongly suggested that the victims report to the local police or relief shelters, where they can get timely and valid help.”

Chiv Phally, deputy director of the Interior Ministry’s anti-human trafficking unit, which has made a number of recent arrests of brokers, declined to comment for this story, saying only: “My forces always intercept human-trafficking cases.”

According to a court document seen by the Post, Chenda was divorced from her husband on April 6, after 10 months of wedlock. The couple’s child stayed with the family in Jiangxi, and Chenda has only been offered visiting rights, she says.

Visibly traumatised by the experience, she had a warning for other women considering moving to work in China.

“Cambodian women who want to work in China as factory workers should not go; they play tricks on us and sell us as slaves. Working in Cambodia earns little money, but at least we can understand each other and they [bosses] do not abuse us,” she said.

May Titthara

Additional Reporting By Daniel Pye

*Names have been changed to protect the victim and her family.

The Phnom Penh Post

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Cambodia - Workers rush to get jobs back

Cambodians take advantage of new fast-track visa centres set up by Thailand’s military government at border crossings

Souy Heang waited patiently in line to get his job back. The 20-year-old from Svay Rieng province was hoping to obtain a fast-track work visa with the help of his employer so he can return to Thailand as a fisherman.

Since he is paid $280 a month, Heang was keen to start working again.

“I do not know where to start,” he said at the the newly opened centre in Aranyaprathet on Friday. “My employer is helping me to obtain a border pass, work permit and other legal documents. Without my employer I could not do it by myself.”

Heang was just one of hundreds of Cambodians at the checkpoint, waiting to get their official papers to return to Thailand.

During the past three weeks, nearly a quarter of a million migrant workers have poured across the Thai-Cambodian border after the military government in Bangkok launched a massive crackdown on illegal labour.

Now they are being asked to return and ease the pressure on an economy stripped of cheap workers. But this time it will be official.

Three temporary centres offering short-term work permits opened in Sa Kaeo, Chanthaburi and Trat provinces on Thursday. A fourth will open in Surin on Monday, Thai officials have announced. Business has been brisk.

Cambodian workers will receive a two-month permit to enter Thailand. Once there, they will undergo health checks before obtaining a permanent two-year work visa.

“In a day, we can handle up to more than 3,000 people,” said Aseam Suttiruk, an official for Sa Kaeo provincial labour department in Thailand. “Now many workers have registered with us,” he added, pointing out that Thailand had more than 140,000 jobs available for migrant workers.

The fast-track service began on Thursday and will continue until July 25. Thousands of Cambodians are expected to have their official work permits processed in a day.

“Thailand’s policy is not to clear [migrants] out. [We] want to manage [it better],” said Pakkarathorn Teainchai, the Sa Kaeo provincial governor, at a press conference in Aranyaprathet district on Friday.

Aranyaprathet is a key border crossing from Thailand. On the Cambodian side, the town of Poipet was turned into a refugee camp earlier this month as workers flooded home in wake of the clampdown on illegal migrants.

While Pakkarathorn asserted that many had left Thailand “voluntarily”, he admitted the new system would help clean up the foreign labour industry.

“Thailand has a new policy to manage public order in the country. [We want to] help Cambodian migrants work legally in Thailand [and earn] a good salary based on Thai laws.”

On Thursday, Prime Minister Hun Sen called the mass exodus of Cambodian workers “a violation”, which he blamed on the junta-led government. He also appealed to coup leader general Prayuth Chan-ocha to release 13 Cambodians arrested for allegedly using fake visas. Last week, Prayuth claimed that the rumours which triggered the exodus were spread by “influential figures and corrupt officials” who aimed to profit from bribes when the labourers returned.

Still, the opening of one-stop centres in Thailand is likely to wreck the Cambodian government’s own efforts to send workers back legally by using new procedures such as $4 passports.

Mao Chandara, the director-general at the General Directorate of Identificiation at the Ministry of Interior, questioned why the Thais had not approached his government before seeting up the processing centres.

“I heard about the centres that were created yesterday on the Thai side,” he said. “For me, I wonder why they are doing things on their own without discussion with Cambodia. We thank them if this will make it easier for Cambodian migrant workers, but they should discuss it with [us]. It’s a self-made decision from the Thai side.”

Earlier this week, the Phnom Penh government announced that licensed recruiters would be able to charge a flat-fee of $49 to help workers obtain passports and official documentation to travel to Thailand legally. But the process could take up to 53 days. “We have talked about what can be done to shorten the [process] and help workers [return] quickly,” he said.

Many, though, are refusing to wait and are rushing to the new fast-track centres set up by the Thailand military government. Sa Morn, 25, from Takeo province, was waiting for a broker at the Poipet border yesterday, clutching a pass he had obtained from immigration police.

He had worked in a Thai factory for almost two years before the illegal-migrant crackdown.

Refusing to wait for a passport in Phnom Penh, he returned to the same broker, who obtained the border pass for a $37 fee. “This time, I have a pass so I can return to work in Thailand without any worry,” he said.

Phak Seangly

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Cambodia - Crime and no punishment

With the number of bag-snatching incidents continuing to soar, embassies are left swamped and more tourists and locals are ending up in hospital after bungled robberies. So what can be done to clamp down on street crime?

Cambodia is in the grip of a crime wave. In the past year, the rise in bag theft by motorbike gangs has increased in Phnom Penh, mirroring an increase in more serious crimes.

Since there are no reliable police statistics, anecdotal evidence shows that more tourists are being robbed, according to three major embassies.

“What we can state is a continuous increase of loss of passports during all of 2013,” wrote Joachim Baron von Marschall, German ambassador to Cambodia, in an email. “[This trend] accelerated in the first trimester of this year, exceeding the numbers for the whole of 2012.”

It was a similar story from the US embassy.

“Anecdotally, we have seen a rise in petty theft,” wrote Sean McIntosh, spokesman for the US embassy. “We encourage US citizens to exercise caution and keep their valuable belongings out of sight as a target for thieves.”

Nicolas Baudouin, first secretary at the French embassy, revealed statistics to show the rise in street crime. “The figures show an increase from 139 passports stolen in 2011, to 190 in 2012 and to 332 in 2013,” he wrote. “Over the first three months of this year, 46 French nationals reported a lost passport due to a robbery [because of] bag snatching.”

The increase in bag theft has seen an increase in the number of victims who have suffered serious injuries. A tourist police official said there were 705 crime and motor accidents involving tourists last year, compared with 570 in 2012.

“The majority of the crimes committed are for financial gain and opportunistic,” states a 2013 US government report on Cambodia by the Overseas Security Advisory Council. “While the chances of being a victim increase dramatically at night, daytime robberies are very common: pickpocketing and purse- or bag-snatching is rampant, especially while riding in tuk-tuks.

“Transportation centres, market areas, special events, the riverfront area and crowded buses travelling to the provinces are prime areas.

“Youth gangs continue to operate unimpeded throughout Phnom Penh. These gangs can be violent and occasionally innocent civilians have been injured or killed. The perceived ineffectiveness within the Cambodian National Police often leads to vigilante-style justice. There was an increase in the past year of the number of reports received from embassy personnel, NGOs [non-government organisations] and expatriates of ‘snatch-and-grab’ thefts while riding in tuk-tuks and of residential break-ins.”

Again, the report offers few figures but voices concern over the general trend – petty crime and violent crime are increasing.

Figures from the French embassy for 2013 amount to nearly one report a day for French citizens alone. Since those numbers do not include other nationalities and locals, the extent of the problem becomes clear. In the past three years, Phnom Penh has become one of the most crime-ridden cities in Southeast Asia.

Almost every expat has a personal story or one told to them by a friend or associate. Rainbow Li, an intern at Post Weekend, had her bag snatched when riding a tuk-tuk last week.

“I leaned forward to point the direction home to my driver, and two men on a motorbike grabbed the bag and disappeared at the only moment my hand wasn’t holding it,” she said.

Li lost her passport and a considerable amount of money. She believes the thieves on the bike had been following her since leaving the office, and that the tuk-tuk driver may have been involved, since he gave no reaction to the theft. It was a very well-timed, carefully planned snatch-and-grab.

“They were professionals. They knew exactly what they were doing,” she said.

Web forums and travel blogs are filled with such anecdotes of crime and injury. In none of the examples did an effective police response result in the perpetrator’s capture. There are only warnings and advice for others: Don’t take a bag out at night, don’t wear expensive watches or jewellery, on a motorbike keep bags between you and the driver, don’t try to fight the thieves – your life means little to them.

“The country that I once regarded as rough in places but largely peaceful has turned into a place that leaves me feeling unnerved,” wrote Kate McCulley on her popular travel website www.adventurouskate.com late last year, based on multiple personal experiences.

The rise in such crimes can be attributed in part to greater wealth disparity between rich and poor. Other reasons include more incoming tourists, especially from China, whose citizens have less experience of foreign travel and financial and class pressures on urban workers who may need to support rural families. To add to the problem, there is poor city infrastructure, such as a lack of street lighting and decayed and cluttered footpaths that force pedestrians to walk in the street.

While tourists may be softer targets, such crimes are not limited to foreigners. They also affect increasing numbers of Cambodians, with restaurant workers in BKK1 and the riverside reporting incidents that affected roughly equal numbers of tourists and locals.

Police “tea money” is part of the problem, as it fosters inaction. Everyone interviewed on the subject was forced into paying the police at least $5. For officers earning $100 a month, the extra $5 to $30 earned off of each report becomes quite lucrative.

And the victims have no choice but to pay – they need to file claims for insurance companies and embassies. Investigating the thefts would take resources the police may not have, and finding the culprits might involve danger and would cut off a valuable income stream.

A consequence of this is that petty crime usually goes unreported. For every reported case there might be 10 or 20 where the police are not involved – attempted thefts that were unsuccessful or the loss simply absorbed with a shrug as one of the costs of intrepid travel. Most victims assume that the chances of police assistance are minimal. Those who did file reports rarely hear about any subsequent investigation.

As for the tourist police, they did not respond to requests for comment for this article. So, I can only refer to my case.

A motorcycle pulled up alongside in the dark lane between Wat Phnom and the riverfront, and the man on the back slipped a hand through my camera strap. The other end of the strap was tightly wound around my right wrist, and when the strap didn’t break the only thing that could give way was me. I flew through the air behind the bike, one arm stretched in front of me, Superman-style, and when I landed, smashing my head, shattering my shoulder and cracking three ribs, the bike continued to drag me along for a block until the strap released.

Light-headed, I picked myself up. My clothes were shredded and wet with blood. I felt no pain, however, and the camera and heavy lens had landed softly in my right palm, unscratched. Walking was no problem.

The motorbike circled around again, looking for spoils – the two young men scowled as they passed. As I walked back towards lit streets, people stopped and stared. Tuk-tuk drivers followed, but whether out of kindness or criminal intent I couldn’t tell.

Although fearful of organised gangs, of drivers affiliated with the thieves taking me somewhere to finish the job, I had no choice. I hailed one and asked for a clinic.

We arrived at a dark shop house with a small green cross on a dirty sign. The driver had to wake the staff, a man and woman sleeping on the same cots on which they performed surgery. They quickly stitched up gashes along my right eyebrow, the side of my face and along my right shoulder. They handed me small bags of antibiotics and painkillers, as well as the $40 bill. I was satisfied – if that was the worst of it, I’d come out lightly. I couldn’t put on my shirt again, and one shoe had also been torn apart. I returned to my guesthouse barefoot, topless and covered in bandages.

Once I lay down, though, it was clear that there were problems. My head grew hazier and more muddled. Forming a coherent thought sequence became difficult. And I couldn’t sit back up. Agony shot across my chest if I tried. With the sleepiness came a hazy paranoia.

My brain had rattled in its cage and perhaps bruised itself, swelling up. I couldn’t focus on the gecko on the ceiling. Convulsions and nausea then gripped my body. I was hyperventilating, shaking like an epileptic. This must be what going into shock felt like. By this point it was 3am, and suddenly I was worried I was dying. That fear helped me up.

The bars were still open in the street, young women sitting outside shops looking on in wide-eyed alarm as, barefoot, topless and shaking, I found another tuk-tuk. Again I had no choice but to trust the driver.

I asked for a particular modern Western-style hospice, and it was a relief when we arrived into the clean white halls and smell of Dettol. Despite my state, they were hesitant to admit me without proof of insurance, and I was unable to read or even write my name.

I knew I was concussed, that all the stitches at the last clinic hadn’t stemmed the considerable bleeding, and something, maybe many things, were broken. I was barely cognisant, and the right side of my body was shutting down.

X-rays revealed a shattered clavicle but no skull fracture at least. Weeks later more scans would find the cracked ribs. I would need immediate surgery that they couldn’t do here. The night nurse waited with me until the morning.

Two surgeries and 10 months of physiotherapy have followed, with the shoulder still not healed but on course. It could have been worse, as they say, with the head wounds only centimetres from causing more significant and permanent damage. The hospital beds were full of others who had similar stories, some people coming out considerably worse, even dying of their wounds.

The police station closest to the incident was unhelpful to the point of being openly hostile. Tourist police were slightly better but still asked for money to fill out the forms. The worst aspect of such accidents is the feeling of violation, the loss of trust in strangers, that follows. If my case had helped expose or combat the problem, led to greater enforcement or countermeasures, it would be easier to grasp retrospective positives. Instead it’s only a very small voice in a collective large and unwavering scream.

Ezra Kyrill Erker

The Phnom Penh Post

Business & Investment Opportunities 

Saigon Business Corporation Pte Ltd (SBC) is incorporated in Singapore since 1994. 

Cambodia - Parties face off at VN border

About 100 plainclothes men, some wielding sticks, tried to block a group of opposition activists and youth supporters in Svay Rieng province yesterday from reaching a disputed section of the Cambodia-Vietnam border.

Clashes broke out at about 10am between the group of Cambodia National Rescue Party activists, led by Svay Rieng lawmaker-elect Real Camerin, and the crowd armed with sticks, who were identified as supporters of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party.

“We are not allowing [them] to go: We are living in happiness,” one of the men blocking the CNRP said, offering no further explanation.

The alleged CPP supporters also attempted to block the CNRP’s route with large pieces of wood.

But after a few minutes, the violence subsided, with no serious injuries, and the CNRP activists moved the ad hoc barricade and made their way to the border in Romduol district.

Camerin said he wanted to investigate allegations that Cambodian farmers had been blocked by Vietnamese soldiers from using the land that they had farmed for years.

“I would like to condemn [Prime Minister] Hun Sen’s government for using force to block [CNRP supporters] from visiting the border post,” Camerin said.

“People have lost their land: This is the real evidence. I would like Hun Sen to consider this,” he added.

While he was inspecting the border earlier this month, Camerin was told by a Vietnamese soldier that the area was off-limits.

“At the [undemarcated] ‘white area’, the yuon can use and do anything,” Camerin said in a video of the encounter, using a word for Vietnamese often considered offensive. “As a lawmaker-elect, I must know where Khmer land is, and I must have rights to stand on Khmer land.”

In the video, a soldier tells Camerin that it is unclear which country owns the land.

“Wait for both governments to resolve this,” the soldier says.

A number of the farmers at the centre of the dispute joined Camerin at the border.

One of them, Nhean Lorn, said he represented 12 families in Romduol district’s Thna Thnong commune who claim to have lost more than 30 hectares of land to Vietnam.

“The Vietnamese authorities prohibit me from farming on my own land,” he said.

“I lost 3 hectares of land. They told us that they will leave this area as a white area, but they planted posts on our land,” he added.

Another farmer, Rath Nean, said that his livelihood had been destroyed by the land dispute. “My family has lost about 100 palm trees on 2 hectares of land. We used to make palm juice,” he said.

Svay Rieng Provincial Governor Cheang Am and Romduol District governor So Vichean could not be reached for comment yesterday.

But Romduol district police chief Meas Chork dismissed claims that the CNRP activists were blocked from reaching the border.

“There was no one blocking [the CNRP].… In fact, police followed to defend them in case something happened,” he said.

Earlier this month, senior border affairs official Va Kimhong told the Post that the border committee would visit the area and clearly mark it this month.

Meas Sokchea

The Phnom Penh Post

Business & Investment Opportunities 

Saigon Business Corporation Pte Ltd (SBC) is incorporated in Singapore since 1994.