The girl effect

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Ignorance is no excuse

A seven year old child is a victim of ignorance as described in this DPA article. She was expelled because she is HIV positive and thus a danger to the other children.

Phnom Penh - The foster parents of a seven-year-old Cambodian girl are considering legal action after a foreign-managed private school expelled the child for being HIV positive.

The Cambodian-owned, British-managed Footprints School in the capital, which bills itself as to international-standard and offering 'well trained, caring, professional staff,' expelled the girl within hours of becoming aware of her HIV status, the parents said.

The ignorance is appalling especially for an educational institution. How is it, in a country with so many HIV/AIDS programme, is Footprints ignorant of HIV modes of transmission?

The four major routes of transmission are unprotected sexual intercourse, contaminated needles, breast milk, and transmission from an infected mother to her baby at birth.

Which of these is the root of Footprints' fear? Which is relevent to a seven year old child?

Obviously if it's educational standards are so low, the board of directors should consider closing the school as quickly as possible. Do they still teach that the Earth is flat there too? Maybe the students learn that sun revolves around the Earth? Besides ignorance is no excuse under the law and impossible to believe.

Millions of dollars have been invested in HIV/AIDS education and the efforts are paying off as the infection rate is significantly reduced as a result. Anti-retroviral drugs are available and people are living with HIV/AIDS, not dying of because of inadequate care.

Cambodia has anti-discrimination laws and all children are entitled to an education. Footprints is breaking the law. Wonder if this will have legal repercussions?

A woman who identified herself as the director of studies at Footprints said by telephone that the school did not have an HIV/AIDS policy in place and despite the girl's unblemished three months at the school prior to the discovery, she had to leave.

'We are worried about the rest of the children,' she said, acknowledging that the child's HIV status was behind the decision.

'We are a private school, and although we would try to keep information like this confidential, there is no guarantee it would not become public,' she said.

That could result in the school losing business as panicked parents withdrew their children, she said.

Ah so the motivation is not education but losing business. Yes well yet another reason to close the school down. Children should not be learning discrimination in school. Children should not be learning myths as fact in school. Children should have HIV/AIDS age-appropriate education and not be taught to demonise their peers. The child is not a risk to other students. To expel her on those grounds would be laughable if it was in violation of her human rights.

Shame on you, Footprints School.

Stand up for the MDGs

Don't know what the MDGs are? You can get more information here. The first goal is to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger. We all play a part so stand up and be counted.


In 2000, world leaders pledged to cut poverty by half by 2015. Yet mid-way to the deadline, it is clear that many countries will not reach this goal — unless they do something radically different.

7 out of 10 of the world’s hungry are women and girls. Stand up against women's poverty. Learn more here. To stand up and be counted click here, view the e-card and then sign the petition.

Sexism abounds

The HIV/AIDS rate in Cambodia is decreasing thanks in part to advertising and promoting awareness. Always one to stick his oar in, the PM has lambasted some of the media spots, while showing a typical Cambodian male disrespect for women

Cambodian Premier Hun Sen on Wednesday said that an educational advertisement on TV seems to encourage people to have more sex, rather than tell them to adopt condom as necessity to fend off HIV/AIDS.

"The spot looks like saying Cambodian ladies are hungry for sex " but not promoting use of condoms, he said at a graduation ceremony of health students.

The public interest advertisement showed that two men were refused by some fashion models and kicked out of the room by the security guard. Later, they came back with condoms in their pockets. Two models then agreed and went out with them. (Source)

How can anyone think that it is acceptable to single out a section of society to denigrate? Why is accusing women of being sexual beings an effective insult? It's just another example of the double standard. Men go to prostitutes several times a week. Women who have more than one sexual partner (always her husband) are ejected from society for being whores.

It shows how unequal women are in this country and how the inequality and blatant sexism is being propagated by those in power. Disgusting.

Cambodian youth

Radio Free Asia is talking about being young in Cambodia and it is not a pretty picture...

One NGO involved with the youth, indicated that 70% of the youth are jobless and are now involved in criminal activities.

During the day commemorating the 8th International Youth Day, Long Khet, the president of the Youth Peace organization, said, on 10 August, that 70% of Cambodian youth ranging in age between 18 and 30-year-old, are facing joblessness and these youth are currently involved in drug use, gangs, delinquency, creating unrest in the society, and are providing bad influence to the younger generations.

Long Khet added that the reason these youth are struggling in the society is because they are very poor and they did not get any education. (Source)

There are no jobs and few role models. In a society that has such an unemployment rate, it is not surprising that people turn to drugs, violence and crime. This is a challenge that the government needs to face. What future can the majority of young people have in such conditions?

Well, good governance, education and job creation would seem to be a start. I have written at length about the governance in this country and so will not do so here. The educational system is full of problems.

Where to begin? Teachers are not paid enough so many impose illegal fees on students. Many students cannot afford $1 a month for education and so miss out on the opportunities that should be available.

The other major problem is cheating in exams and buying good marks.

Multiple choice question # 1: Which of the following explains why rampant exam cheating and bribery are making a mockery of Cambodia's education system?
- (a) teachers are profiting from it
- (b) students see no shame in cheating
- (c) the government says the problem does not exist
Sadly the answer is all of the above.

According to the teacher..., A and B grades have a fixed rate of $2 000 and $1 200 respectively. The cost of a C is negotiable but generally costs $700-800

Socially cheating is just another form of corruption. It's a reflection of the larger context of society.

The schools of the country are its future in miniature. (Source)

With schools like this, students unable to afford an education, and parents willing and able to pay for diplomas, there is and will continue to be a serious lack of trained professionals. It seems that once again corruption is at the root of the issue.

A flicker of common sense

First Lady Laura Bush revealed recently that, while she believes that abstinence education is an important component of HIV prevention efforts, she would be supportive of waiving the earmark mandating that 33 percent of US prevention funds be spent of abstinence-only programs. In an interview with CNN's Suzanne Malveaux during a trip through several African countries, Laura Bush commented that condoms are "absolutely necessary" and that she was "perfectly fine" with the proposed idea -- now passed in the House and introduced in the Senate -- that the abstinence only provision be waived from the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief.

Passed in 2003, PEPFAR required that one-third of the global prevention program’s funding go to the promotion of abstinence only education. In 2006, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that the abstinence programs were actually "undermining the global efforts to prevent 7 million new HIV infections by 2008," the Center for Health and Gender Equity reports. (Source)

Finally! A little late to the table but finally some common sense. Condoms are vital for preventing the spread of HIV no matter how deeply one sticks one's head in the stand.

Take the Cambodian case, despite not receiving PEPFAR funding. There are a lot of sex workers in this country. Men visit sex workers on a regular basis. These men may subsequently transmit the HIV virus to their wives, who then run the risk of having HIV+ babies. One can rant on, as I have before, about the morality, sexism and suffering that this causes, but one thing is for sure, abstinence-only policies do not work.

Often the sex workers cannot find other employment and are supporting their whole family, paying for food, education and rent. Until adequate alternative livelihoods can be provided with support systems, abstinence is wholly unrealistic. Finally Mrs Bush has recognised that all over the world women often do not have the choice to abstain. Women barter sex for shelter and protection and it is the best they can do with the means they have.

It will be a great day when pragmatism is the guide for politics and issues including development, drug trafficking, corruption and sex education.

HIV infections decrease

There is excellent news on the battle against new HIV infections in Cambodia. The infection rate decreased by half in 2006. It shows that the education programmes being run by many national and international organisation are successful. The message that condoms are essential to the prevention of new infections is getting through.

Cambodia gained 70,000 AIDS-infected people in 2006, which decreased by half from the figure in 2003, a senior health official said on Thursday.

Cambodia is very proud of this result, said Mom Bun Heng, secretary of State of the Cambodian Ministry of Health, while addressing an AIDS seminar in Phnom Penh.

The Cambodian government could now provide the delaying-life medicine for 20,000 AIDS-infected people, including 2,000 children, he said.

The government's budget for AIDS prevention in 2007 stands two times higher than 2006, while the disease is spreading from urban areas to rural areas.

Cambodia is one of the worst-hit countries in the region in the field of AIDS spread. In 1997, its infection rate ran at 3.3 percent of its population. (Source)

Advocacy work is an important part of the strategy. Educating people on the disease and its modes of transmission greatly help to reduce the discrimination that HIV positive people face every day. It is wonderful to hear such a positive story when most days all we hear is corruption this and killing that.

Dying to be white?

In Cambodia, one has to search very hard to find creams / shaving lotion / deodorant without whitening cream. The elite have very light skin and the poor have darker skin. I'm generalising, of course, but for the majority it is true. Many Cambodians, especially young women, use whitening cream to attain the whiteness of the elite. However the creams and treatments they use are not great for one's skin.

Then there’s hydroquinone, a chemical used in photo processing that has become a common active ingredient in skin whiteners. Extended exposure to hydroquinone can backfire, leaving large dark patches of skin, or possibly worse: It has been shown to cause cancer in lab animals. In 2005, a pair of Dutch researchers referred to the widespread use of hydroquinone in skin whiteners as “a potential time bomb.” Accordingly, the chemical is banned for cosmetic use in the European Union, but is widely available elsewhere, especially in Asia. Hydroquinone is legal in concentrations of up to 2 percent in the United States, but the FDA is considering banning its use altogether in over-the-counter skin products. (Source)

Some of these young woman are literally dying to be white. White is seen as wealthy and desirable. They wear long sleeved gloves outside and walk with umbrellas to protect their skin from the sun. They gaze in astonishment at expats lying sunbathing, expats that are trying to tan. Culture clash.

The seven wonders of the modern world

Has everyone cast their vote for the new seven wonders of the world? There are only 17 days left to do so. From the Acropolis of Athens to Timbuktu, and Angkor Wat to Neuschwanstein Castle many cultures are represented. So will you pick Machu Picchu, the Statue of Liberty or the Sydney Opera House? Perhaps you prefer your wonders ancient in which case you can choose between Petra, Stonehenge, the Colosseum or the Great Wall of China. It is such a educational and democratic process that I recommend you to look it up even if it is just to see how many of the nominees you have visited or know of!

One of the aims of the competition to to draw attention to the destruction of cultural heritage that is taking place all over the world. Highlight you willingness to preserve the wonders of this world through your vote.

Oops there goes the environment

World Environment Day was yesterday, well today in some parts of the world. I read this article a few weeks ago and was saving it for WE day. The article details the sea of plastics in the Pacific ocean.

It began with a line of plastic bags ghosting the surface, followed by an ugly tangle of junk: nets and ropes and bottles, motor-oil jugs and cracked bath toys, a mangled tarp. Tires. A traffic cone. Moore could not believe his eyes. Out here in this desolate place, the water was a stew of plastic crap. It was as though someone had taken the pristine seascape of his youth and swapped it for a landfill.

How did all the plastic end up here? How did this trash tsunami begin? What did it mean? If the questions seemed overwhelming, Moore would soon learn that the answers were even more so, and that his discovery had dire implications for human—and planetary—health. As Alguita glided through the area that scientists now refer to as the “Eastern Garbage Patch,” Moore realized that the trail of plastic went on for hundreds of miles. Depressed and stunned, he sailed for a week through bobbing, toxic debris trapped in a purgatory of circling currents. To his horror, he had stumbled across the 21st-century Leviathan. It had no head, no tail. Just an endless body.

“Every one of us has this huge body burden,” Moore says. “You could take your serum to a lab now, and they’d find at least 100 industrial chemicals that weren’t around in 1950.” The fact that these toxins don’t cause violent and immediate reactions does not mean they’re benign: Scientists are just beginning to research the long-term ways in which the chemicals used to make plastic interact with our own biochemistry.

The oceans are choking and humanity is producing more and more plastic and only a tiny percentage is being recycled. This is not just killing the planet but it is killing ourselves. It is said that in the future we will not be producing plastic because the price of oil will be too high. Well now is not the time to be sitting around twiddling our thumbs.

Click here for environmental information from UNEP.

International Children's Day

Today is International Children's Day - "a day of worldwide fraternity and understanding between children" - which is wonderful. But perhaps it is more useful to think about children's rights and promoting adherence to child related conventions.

Six of the eight Millennium Development Goals relate directly to children. Children are living in poverty, embroiled in armed conflict, trafficked as slaves and sex workers, working in the worst conditions, living in shantytowns, addicted to drugs by the age of four, deprived of education, health, orphaned by AIDS and other diseases including those with treatment and a host of other situations that global civil society must work on and ameliorate for all the children in the world. As trite as it sounds - they are the future.

In Cambodia, children sell flowers, shoeshines, jasmine and newspapers on the streets. The expats do not buy from them because there is always a man on a motorbike to take the money and whisk them to the next restaurant, bar etc. It is very hard to say no but the rule is never buy from or give to children. ChildSafe Cambodia is an organisation that protects children and has a network of service people to watch for abuse. Their advice is clear

Do not buy anything from children on the streets:
- Many tourists and expatriates feel pity for the children selling various products. By buying products/services from children, you support a business that puts children at high risk; children are out at night until late and are working in hazardous places
- Most of the children are forced into work and racketed for the money they earn. All have an adult waiting for them outside and could do the job themselves without involving children
- By providing them with an income, it hinders organizations that work with these families to encourage alternative and safe sources of income.
- Children might say that they work to pay for their studies: surveys show that this is something to say to make a sale.
- What to do: Refrain from buying with a smile. If you want to help, support the Cambodian social workers that work with these children
- Giving them food has the same results as it maintains children on the streets

So we comply and refuse to buy and it must seem so unfair. The rich barang (foreigners) are eating, drinking and enjoying life in Cambodia and they won't spare 1000 riel ($0.25).

There is a lovely flower girl who works Riverside at night that a couple of my friends took to the waterpark and the zoo. She sells roses to people in bars but she is approaching an age that will make her vulnerable to prostitution and rape. It is heart-breaking but there's nothing we can do except support the child protection agencies. I recommend Rithy Panh's film Paper Cannot Wrap Up Embers for more information.

I have blogged before on the six year old boy I met who was in rehab for drugs and on Seila a victim of child trafficking. I found this press release from Legal Aid of Cambodia on pre-trial detention for children.

June 1 is International Children’s Day. On that day many accused children are awaiting their trials at the CC2 Prison in Phnom Penh and other prisons throughout the country. Most of them are being held in beyond the legal limits of pre-trial detention and they often wonder who is responsible for their excessive pretrial detention.

The juveniles are between 13 to 18 years old on the date of the accused crime. Nearly all of their clients are held in pre-trial detention in various provincial prisons and CC2 Prison. The excessive pre-trial detention period regarding these cases, range from 15 days up to 70 days or more. This can be considered as a broad violation of children's rights and leads to the situation that these juveniles are being deprived of receiving education, living with their families and enjoying social events even before it has been decided whether they are guilty or not. (Press release from Legal Aid of Cambodia)

Think about it this way, a child innocent of a crime gets locked away for maybe 70 days, over two months. Although it doesn't really matter whether the child is guilty of the crime or not. It is a violation of children's rights, a violation on the Convention on the Rights of the Child of which Cambodia is a signatory.

There is also the fact that child can be charged as adults here depending on the severity of the alleged crime or the status of the victim. There was a story not long ago of a teenager who cursed down the phone to the wife of a CPP official. He thought he was speaking to someone else. He is now in jail, waiting to be tried as an adult. He is in jail due to a mis-dialed number and very bad luck. (I will try to find the newspaper article and provide sources.)

They are just some of the stories from Cambodia. There are other stories, happier stories. There are children who get a great education and play without a care in the world. There are children who get English lessons and play football and meet foreign children. All childhoods are represented.

Police state?

So after spending three nights in prison, for yelling at Ney Pena a CPP lawmaker, Mo Ravy was released. Herself and husband Hong Dara made a public apology for having a fiery verbal encounter with a government official.

The incident began after one of Ney Pena's employees tried to climb over the couple's house. They yelled at the labourer who had a ladder propped up against their house without permission and at Ney Pena for giving his permission.

Ney Pena called national police chief Hok Lundy (trafficker and battler of terrorism extraordinaire) and had the couple arrested. It seems he couldn't cope with a few insults.

He dropped his lawsuit with the following words

They have regrets. They didn't know who I was. They might have been confused. They read out an apology and I also advised them not to argue with their neighbors (sic) because we have had many years of war. (Source: Cambodia Daily)

Wow what a guy. He lets them off the heinous crime of yelling at the poor little defenceless lawmaker because they didn't realise who he was. They didn't realise that the should be bowing and scraping and letting his people on their property because he is a CPP lawmaker and has the might of the Cambodian national police force behind him. For a few insults he had them thrown in jail by the head of the national police. The message is clear - grovel or jail.

Just another indication of the emergence of a police state in Cambodia. It is truly shocking that the national police chief would arrest two people just to silence them. What happened to freedom of expression? Finally Ney Pena finishes with the guilt trip, equating argument with neighbours to the crimes of the Khmer Rouge. What is this country becoming?

Sapient viruses?

He said that he got the illness from his wife, Chumteav Bun Rany, who also spread the disease to their grandchild. Hun Sen said that illness does not discriminate, and it does not know that Hun Sen is a high-ranking official”. (Source)

Disturbing words from the PM here. Two major points methinks. Firstly his wife "spread the disease". Oh yes, when explanations are too complex, the path of least resistance is to blame the woman. She diseased up the grandchild too just to make sure.

Secondly, from his words I get the feeling that the PM means the opposite. Certainly his phrasing indicates that he believes that an illness should skip him because he is such an important man. Well he is certainly self-important.

The illness does not know his rank. Yes PM this is normal. While viruses are living they have not achieved sapience. Where viruses capable of choice, I'm sure the rank of PM would have encouraged them to seek less connected prey for their evil, rapacious, diseased ways.

As amusing as sapient viruses are, I find the scientific ignorance appalling. One of the markers of a developing state is a lack of investment in science and technology. Perhaps after his encounter with the disrespectful viruses, the PM will reevaluate his appropriation of public money and invest it in Cambodia. Well one can dream regardless.

World Press Freedom today

Perhaps in honour of a press day, perhaps not Freedom House, an American non profit organisation, has upgrade Cambodia's status from not free to partly free. The upgrading is based on the removal of prison sentences for the crime of defamation.

In law, defamation is the communication of a statement that makes a false claim, expressly stated or implied to be factual, that may harm the reputation of an individual, business, product, group, government or nation.

Instead in Cambodia the crime of disinformation is being used to silence journalists. In 2006 seven journalists were changed with either defamation or disinformation.

Disinformation is the deliberate dissemination of false information. It may include the distribution of forged documents, manuscripts, and photographs, or propagation of malicious rumours and fabricated intelligence.

And then you have this from KI Media:

A leading rights group Wednesday demanded the closure of the Ministry of Information, calling it biased and a repressive obstacle to press freedom. In a statement issued ahead of World Press Freedom Day, the Cambodian Center for Human Rights accused the Information Ministry of bias toward the ruling party.

The ministry sought to repress opposition voices from the media and other aid agencies by denying them licenses, often without reason, to broadcast or print their views, the center said.

Information Minister Khieu Kanharith said he ran a neutral office that helps journalists find information. He said he regretted that the center did not clearly understand the work of the ministry.

Sure, of course it's all a misunderstanding. Of course they are objective, what possible motive is there for bias? Anyone working in the information business knows that objectivity is an impossible goal. All parties are caught up in personal agendas. "We not letting your side voice it's opinion but its not bia or censorship, it just is".

Most places that means that bias is acknowledged and treated as something to be overcome. Not so Cambodia. The Ministry of Information, in its infinite wisdom and Orwellian scariness treats its citizens as children - telling the world they do not understand but they will be educated. "We will give you your opinion".

Last week a news editor was murdered and stuffed in a suitcase. He published the "Voice of Khmer Krom" newspaper.

The autopsy showed that his killer used the 29-year-old journalist’s bicycle brake cables to strangle him with.

Reporters Without Borders called on the government, and particularly the Minister of the Interior Sar Kheng, to commit the necessary resources to an exhaustive investigation into the killing. “We believe it is important not to overlook the professional lead,” the worldwide press freedom organisation added.

Provincial police commissioner Kéo Pisei said the journalist’s body had been dumped in the valley three to four days before it was discovered. No clues had yet been found which could help identify any suspects. Police were not apparently giving priority to any particular lead. The body was returned to the family on the same evening and burial was expected to take place very shortly.

Pov Sam Ath was the founder and editor of Samleng Khmer Krom for which he obtained a publication licence from the information ministry in 2000. He had to renew it in January 2007, because the newspaper only appeared irregularly. Many of its articles focused on local news. (RSF)

The Khmer Krom live in Vietnam but are ethnic Cambodians. They were Cambodian up to 1949 but found themselves in Vietnam when the territory changed hands. They are persecuted by the Vietnamese government and are denied their rights to practice their religion. For more details see here. However Cambodia does not want to accept them.

General Khieu Sopheak, spokesman of the Ministry of Interior, claimed that for Khmer Kampuchea Krom, up to now, there is nothing to prove that they are Khmer citizens.

It is a very contentious issue in Cambodia today and has become more volatile in recent months because of the protests of the monks. Despite all this the Interior Ministry is claiming that the murder of the editor was personal and committed by his girlfriend's son. It is hardly the first time that random people have been selected to pay the piper to cover for politicians. Only time will tell if this is one of those times. Chances are that this story will be buried and there will be no resolution. The son of the victim's girlfriend will be condemned in a kangaroo court and will spent 10 years in prison.

That's how they do that here! Corruption with a smile. Certainly, without the shadow of a doubt, Cambodia's press is partly free.

Take back the blog

I'm a little late to the party but I'm here at last. Take back the blog is about supporting the rights of women to blog without fear of harassment, intimidation, stalking and violence. Online harassment of women has happened time and time and time again. Check this out for additional posts and stories.

Chris Clarke has a great post about online behaviour at Pandagon. He's been experimenting with female handles as research for his article. Definitely recommended reading

Within five minutes of logging on I had sexually abusive IMs popping up from men I didn’t know. Didn’t matter which room I was in: general chat, politics, classical music. I kept up the experiment for I think four days, a couple hours a day, sometimes chatting with people about non-sexual topics, sometimes just lurking.

Online stalking happens. It's not a myth. Wrap it up now people.

EDIT: Check out the front page of the Washington Post. Thanks to Jinja for the heads up.

Equality and development

Yesterday I met up with K for dinner and drinks. We stumbled on to the topic of feminism as I’ve been reading some great books and have been thinking about my brand of feminism. An additional reason is that I’m at odds with a friend of hers who spouts misogynist crap whenever he opens he mouth. K’s not worried about that because after all he’s only 21, he’ll get more tolerant when he’s older. Of course K, he’ll stop stalking women that have told him never. He’ll stop choosing interns based on his desire to fuck them. Sure he will.

Anyway K told me weeks ago that she is not a feminist. It seems like people have the weirdest ideas about what it is to be a feminist. You do not have to be “fat, ugly, lesbian, man-hating, shrewish, whorish, or frigid” to be a feminist. I’d direct to K to Feminism 101 but her work has blocked access to blogs.

It is surprising because K is the embodiment of an independent woman. She has worked in harsh conditions throughout the developing world. She had repeatedly chosen her career over her relationships. She demands equality in all things but says she is not a feminist because we have already achieved gender equality. I disagree.

Anyway we spent a good three hours discussing the matter and we went back 300 years and across continents in our arguments.

It is difficult to see progress in Cambodia with regard to gender relations. Not a single day passes without a newspaper article detailing the vicious rape and murder of girls and women. I could blog them every day but I’m not sure that does any good. Perhaps equality comes with development. K rejects that idea not because of equality but because of “development”. She is of the opinion that the western model of development should not be imposed upon developing countries because it is our model and not home grown. That sentiment is all very well but unless someone has an alternative suggestion, the western model will be the default. I am not saying I support this but alternative solutions must be available before one model is abandoned.

An analogy of this idea is that of the production of coca (made into cocaine) and alternative development. In Colombia, farmers farmed coca and the government sprayed it with mycoherbicides on the orders of the US. As an alternative the government promised seeds and financial support to those farmers who agreed to destroy their crops. The farmers did and they waited for the promised support. And they waited and they waited and they starved and some died from mycoherbicide poisoning. Eventually half of what was promised arrived months too late. And that is a problem

Everything must be in place before action is taken. If you want an alternative development strategy not related to the western model, it must be fully mapped out. Does gender equality come with development. Many developing countries cultures are rooted in inequality. How can a society treat citizens equally when a woman cannot hand something directly to a monk? She has to place the object on a surface or hand it to a man before the monk can touch it. What about the 14 year girl who is the prettiest in her family and so is sent to Phnom Penh to prostitute herself for the good of her family? It is difficult enough to define all but the most cut and dried of rape cases in the west but here theirs is virtually no concept of it. Good girls get married and accept their husband’s brothel visits. Bad girls deserve what they get.

We argued back and forth development, equality and feminism and the relationship between the three elements. Of course we didn’t solve any problems and the more we talked, the more the problems seemed insurmountable. If nothing else then we can take every opportunity to point out the inequality we see.

And after our discussion, I think K might reconsider her attitude to the feminist/not feminist position.

Language - the latest casualty of dumbing down our education system

I don't mean to shock anyone but I think it's time for a War on Grammar and Spelling and by that I mean bad grammar and bad spelling. Text talk - Lik 4get bo 4eva + myb l8r 2moro i cu - is getting out of control and will destroy Western civilisation as we know it.

Quoting Hamlet ends up being "2b r nt 2b?" But what is even more scary is that university students are not writing "to be or not to be" they are text-message writing.

According to the Irish State Examination Commission

Text messaging, with its use of phonetic spelling and little or no punctuation, seems to pose a threat to traditional conventions in writing. The report laments that, in many cases, candidates seemed "unduly reliant on short sentences, simple tenses and a limited vocabulary."

Well no shit Sherlock. Text talk has infiltrated our lives. I hated "niteclub" back in the day. It is no wonder that students in university are illiterate despite a tolerable education system. However bad it is in Ireland, I cringe at the latest from the UK, which is the brain fart of a university professor. The Indo has this:

The project will send text message quotations and plot summaries of seven works, from Milton's Paradise Lost to William Golding's Lord of the Flies, to mobile phones to act as an aide-memoire for undergraduates.

The mobile phone company behind the scheme yesterday denied it was guilty of a poetry-crushing gimmick. Instead, Dot mobile, a service for students, pointed out that its messages were devised by the media-savvy academic, John Sutherland, emeritus professor of modern English literature at University College London.

Shame sir! How do you expect student to get a first class honours degree in English if they summarise the plot for Pride and Prejudice as follows

5SistrsWntngHsbnds.NwMenInTwn-Bingly&Darcy Fit&Loadd.BigSisJaneFals4B,2ndSisLizH8sDCozHesProud. SlimySoljrWikamSysDHsShadyPast. TrnsOutHesActulyARlyNysGuy&RlyFancysLiz. SheDecydsSheLyksHim.Evry1GtsMaryd

I abhor text talk. It disgusts me to read it and I don't care that that makes me horribly conservative. Correct grammar and spelling are necessary for a good job. Besides the point of reading works of literature is to revel in the words, wrap yourself in the sensuality of language, engage with simile, metaphor and onomatopoeia.

Shakespeare is not a "whodunit" or "romance". It is not about finding out that the prince is power mad and wants the throne or that Romeo loved her from the moment he saw her. Those are elements to literature but it is more than the some of its parts. Language itself is a character, who is slowly being killed off by a villain that favours brevity.

Dangerous superstition

There was a gruesome story in last Thursday's "Cambodia Daily". A thirteen year old girl was murdered and disemboweled in Battambang province. She had been missing for five days. She was pregnant and her fetus was cut from her body.

Shockingly it is not unheard of to remove a fetus from a pregnant woman because it is believed that an amulet made from an unborn fetus can protect the owner and help him see into the future.

Obviously there are multiple issues here - a pregnant thirteen year old, her murder and evisceration, and the mistaken belief in the magically properties of an unborn fetus. The story only merits a small column in the newspaper because the rape, assault and murder of girls and women is commonplace. What is more unusual is the part the fetus plays. That is not as common as murder.

... this strong superstition will outweigh all morals. Recently a smalltime young criminal was arrested after trying to cut his pregnant girlfriend's fetus out of her womb. She struggled and escaped, probably saving both her own and her unborn child's life. To local police investigating the crime afterwards, his motive was obvious. The man had not wanted a child. He wanted a talisman to help him improve his criminal skills, and he had deliberately impregnated a young woman claiming he loved her to achieve that. Source

The casual disregard for women's lives is documented every day - a man in Koh Kong chopped his wife to death with an axe in a violence rage brought on by her drinking and gambling (classic blame the victim game) and a 24 year old from Dangkao stabbed his girlfriend to death because she refused to have sex with him. These stories barely merit mentioning in the press.

Cambodia is a land of superstition. Before marriage, a couple see a fortune teller so he can tell them on which date they may have their wedding. Soothsayers are revered, almost worshiped, here. People put much stock in their predictions. Even the government takes the time acknowledge and then reject their predictions. Soothsayers are predicting a bad year for Cambodia (fifty percent of the rice and other crops will be destroyed although some say that it is closer to seventy percent) and that is bad for politicians and those who believe.

Nobody knows if the predictions are linked to the murder of the girl. Her family are being uncooperative and will not discuss what happened with the police. She was discovered near her home and was only reported missing after her body was found. It is possible that her family were responsible. Nothing further was reported.

Sugar = vitamin?

Did you know that sugar is a vitamin? It is in Cambodia. I've been told it's necessary for health and wellbeing to consume a lot of sugar. In this country there is sugar in virtually everything. Rice is about the only thing that is sugar free.

You find it in vegetables, meat, fish, eggs, salad, fruit, soup... In fact when I request my dishes "at sco" (no sugar - my own transliteration) the restaurant staff seem as shocked as if I asked for a bloody steak in a vegetarian place.

The health implications are clear. Diabetes is second only to malnutrition as the top food-related danger in Cambodia. Diabetes can kill, main and blind. It can be aggravated by excess consumption of simple carbohydrates. And boy do they consume those here!

The answer, as with many issues, lies in education. Many health-related organisations are doing just that. In the meantime, there are people who believe in the healing power of sugar!

TB Day

Today is Tuberculosis Day. it's one of the lesser celebrated days. It's a disease that been around for as long as we have recorded history. According to the WHO

• Someone in the world is newly infected with TB bacilli every second.
• Overall, one-third of the world's population is currently infected with the TB bacillus.
• 5-10% of people who are infected with TB bacilli become sick or infectious at some time during their life.
  

It's one of the world's most infectious diseases and although there are vaccines and treatments, it is making a comeback due to compromised immune systems, especially in people living with HIV/AIDS.

Happy TB Awareness Day.