Compensation

Sorn Bun Choeun, Government official, compensated Srey Touch, bar girl, to the tune of $250 because he feels sorry for her. Although yesterday he maintained that he was flirting with Srey Touch but to escape his attentions she had slammed herself into the door, today he has no idea what happened. Great memory there.

Srey Touch says that she dropped the complaint because he admitted his mistake and paid compensation. "He really pities her and he has helped provide money for her", according to his aide, but he didn't admit his crime and instead "pities" her for the situation in which he put her.

So either he beat her up and apologised for his mistake (read assault) in the same manner as one might when one breaks a glass, or he suffers from memory loss and maintains that he wasn't doing anything wrong by flirting with her to a degree that she felt she needed to remove herself quickly from the situation.

Either way he treated her as an object not a person. Is it because she works in a bar, because she is a woman, because she is poor? Maybe all. She has to live with assault and perhaps attempted rape and then he buys her off with $250. The officials in Cambodia enjoy impunity, unless they piss off the PM.

(Source: Cambodia Daily)