International Women's Day

Happy International Women's Day. What does it mean to you? Probably nothing. It's just another day when you go to work and try not to fall asleep on your desk. Well I'm at work as usual, reading press releases with compelling statistics. For example,

Violence against women is rightly termed the most common but least punished crime in the world. A recent World Health Organization study found that 23 to 49 per cent of women suffered violence at the hands of their intimate partners in most of the 71 countries surveyed. UNICEF has reported that 130 million girls and women alive today have undergone female genital mutilation. According to the United Nations Population Fund, 5,000 women die every year in “honour” killings perpetrated by family members. And it is estimated that less than 5 per cent of rape prosecutions lead to convictions globally, partly because the majority of cases place emphasis on the conduct of the woman and not on that of the perpetrator.
- Message of United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Louise Arbour

and

Yet we are still so very far from turning this understanding into universal practice. In almost all countries, women continue to be under-represented in decision-making positions. Women’s work continues to be undervalued, underpaid, or not paid at all. Out of more than 100 million children who are not in school, the majority are girls. Out of more than 800 million adults who cannot read, the majority are women.
- Ban Ki-moon, UN Secretary General

Women in Cambodia have little power. Whether in domestic, sexual, political or legal affairs, women are a lesser gender. A Khmer proverb is "women are precious gems". How nice, let's put them on a pedestal and get on with the business of life. They are precious but cannot make their own decisions, or be alone in a foreigner's company, or in control of their reproductive rights, or be out after dark even when their job requires it. How very sexist.

Certain women rise to be the "power behind the throne" but they tend to crush other women and let men off the hook because men are seen in this country as incapable of self control.

• I have mentioned the adultery law before - commit adultery and you go to prison. The PM's wife is apparently responsible because she was pissed off with greeting lowly mistresses instead of the wives of her husband's colleagues. The law is applied selectively and has now surpassed defamation as the primary means of ejecting the opposition.
• Remember the hullabaloo about 3G mobile phones. Evil and immoral women might use them to send provocative pictures of themselves to innocent moral men and corrupt them and so Cambodia retreats from the 21st century.
  
• Husband-to-wife is the primary mode of HIV transmission in Cambodia. It is impossible to determine how many men visit sex workers but studies have shown that it is a majority. Although there is plenty of safe sex education, woman do not have the power to request their husbands' to wear condoms due in part to the high level of domestic abuse and rape.
• Generally Cambodia is a safe place for foreign women - Cambodian men aren't interested and foreign men are otherwise occupied. It came as quite a shock when an Australian volunteer was abducted and gang raped. The story varies in the telling but a couple of things remain constant. It was her own fault - she was drunk, that she was on drugs, that she shouldn't have gone home alone. That attitude is disgusting and judgmental. Apart from the fact that almost every foreign woman in Cambodia has come out of the same bar, been accosted by moto drivers (half of them who know your name and address) and gone home alone, nobody asks to be raped. Think about what it's like to walk in fear, to sit behind a stranger on a motobike because it is the only mode of transport, being pulled off by a gang, your driver leaves you and the final insult is to be judged by people who can let their minds' wander while walking down the street at night. Drink and drugs do not alter the crime. The criminals are at fault not the victims.
  

Happy International Women's Day