Disgusting

Violence against women is common in Cambodia. Here is another account of domestic abuse:

Phnom Penh - A German man was facing 10 to 20 years in a Cambodian jail after police allegedly rescued his wife in what they claimed Wednesday was one of the worst cases of domestic violence they had seen. Alvin Gossnol, 37, was arrested after police received complaints from his 38-year-old wife's family that she was being held against her will in their home and had been badly beaten.

Cheung Prey district police chief in theon eastern province of Kampg Cham, Heing Vuthy, said the woman had managed to escape a room she had been locked in for two weeks but had been unable to scale the locked gate because her hands were broken.

"She managed to attract the attention of a boy who was passing and he ran to tell her relatives, who called the police," Vuthy said by telephone.

"After we pulled her over the wall, she told us when they married in 2001, her husband had made a special stick to beat her with. If she got the stick for him herself, he didn't beat her as badly, but if he had to get the stick, he beat her very seriously."

...

"When we came back with a warrant, we found the stick, exactly as she had told us and it was still covered in her blood," Vuthy said.

...

Divorce is still frowned upon in Cambodia, and the women also frequently feel a financial obligation to their families to stay with their foreign husbands no matter how bad it gets.

Many women in Phnom Penh marry foreigners for a number of reasons - lifestyle, poverty, family obligations or perhaps they are not virgins. The reality is that abusers can be of any nationality or ethnicity.

It is possible that the prosecution of this abuser is a sign that violence towards women is becoming taboo. However, the more likely explanation is that in this particular case, the violence was extreme.

Freedom for women is, and will remain, limited until the taboo of divorce is lifted.