Gender Equality Cambodia Project #5863

Healing for Victims of Assault and Trafficking

by Lotus Outreach

Project Report | Dec 16, 2013
Dany's Fight for Reconciliation and Justice

By Wesley Samms | Grants Manager

Lotus Outreach’s Consoling through Counseling client Dany* has a story not for the faint of heart.

Born the fourth of seven children to a seasonal laborer and her now deceased husband, Dany lived with her younger siblings in an orphanage in Battambang province. Her mother would travel to find work, while Dany studied at the local high school. Her family is so poor that she lived at the orphanage until she was 20 years old, just so she could survive and go to school.

In September of 2012, her older sister who was already married pulled Dany out of the orphanage so she could work as a gardener in the border town of Poipet. She lived with her uncle nearby until a terrible thing happened in January 2013.

Dany’s brother in law called her and asked her to come over to his house to talk. Her sister was not there, but their young daughter was, so Dany was not concerned. But everything changed once she stepped in the door:

“When I arrived there, my brother in-law took my hand and dragged me into his room and threatened me. He then forced me to have sex with him and threatened to kill me if I told anyone about it.”

At first, Dany did not share what had happened with anyone. She was too terrified to break her silence until her brother in law asked for the phone numbers of her younger sisters. Even more concerned for her sisters’ well-being than for her own, Dany decided to tell her older sister what her husband had done.

Fortunately for Dany and her sisters, Dany’s older sister believed her, and she took Dany to the police and to Lotus Outreach’s partner the Cambodian Women’s Crisis Center (CWCC) in Poipet.

To keep herself safe, Dany decided to stay at CWCC’s shelter in Banteay Meanchey to wait for her case to be processed and to receive social and psychological support. By the time she arrived there, Dany had sunk into depression. Conselors noticed she spoke and walked slowly. She distanced herself from the other women at the shelter. She was sad, thin, pale, exhausted and hopeless.

Recognizing her psychological symptoms, Dany’s counselor listened to her carefully. Over the course of months, her counselor built a bridge across Dany’s isolation and taught Dany exercises to deal with her trauma. Small group therapy and breathing exercises are now helping Dany cope with what happened to her. Dany is learning to recognize her strengths and reflect on her own thoughts so she can be motivated to think about good things and move forward.

It is still hard for Dany, but things are getting better.

She feels better from time to time, and she is bonding with the other shelter clients. Lotus’s Consoling through Counseling program is providing her with legal representation through CWCC so she can prosecute her assailant, and her court case is being processed.

Consoling through Counseling is currently providing services to 26 women. In the last quarter, eight survivors were reintegrated into their home communities, and staff conducted follow-up visits to thirty-three already reintegrated women.

The program doesn’t just help women find reconciliation, but it also helps them find justice by prosecuting the perpetrators of the violent crimes against them. So far, the program has aided in the convictions of eight rapists.

Recovering from trauma and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is not easy. But you can help these women to overcome and move forward with healthy, productive lives. Just US$100.00 can provide therapeutic counseling for these survivors for a full year. The program also connects them to economic opportunities to make sure they have the things they need to succeed.

Hands can give and hands can take away. Thank you for giving to support the recovery of these beautiful and powerful women.

*Dany’s name has been changed to protect her identity.

Small group counseling helps women to recover.

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Sep 16, 2013
Breaking the silence and embracing help

By Elise De Grande | Executive Director

Bopha and friends at Art Therapy session

Bopha, whose real name has been omitted to protect her identity, is a sweet 11 year-old Cambodian girl. She lived with her father, a cassava farm security guard, her mother, a housewife, and five siblings in the Banteay Meanchey province. Because her father earned such a meager income, the children had to drop out of school before even completing primary education. To make matters worse, her father is an alcoholic, who on many occasions has physically abused his family when inebriated.

In January 2012, Bopha was raped by her 17 year-old neighbor. He had lured her to join him on an evening walk to a shop and attacked her along the way. Immediately after the assault, Bopha was brave enough to tell her mother what had happened. Unfortunately, the neighbor had already disappeared.

Bopha and her mother reported the crime at the communal administration police post. Thankfully, the police officers at the post referred Bopha to Lotus Outreach’s Banteay Meanchey safe shelter.

At the shelter Bopha received crucial legal assistance, including being assigned a lawyer to represent her at the provincial court. She was also offered psychological counseling and healthcare while her case awaited trial. The shelter staff enrolled Bopha in the school nearby, but because of her grave emotional stress and trauma she didn’t perform well initially. After several months of therapy – including art therapy, and individual and group counseling sessions - and a great dosage of love and care from the shelter’s staff and residents, Bopha’s disheartened outlook changed. She was able to rebuild her trust in others, develop healthy relationships and gained renewed enthusiasm in her studies and life.

Bopha has been granted an extended stay at our shelter because her rapist is still on the run. Since she has already testified in court, it is unsafe for her to return home until the perpetrator is caught. Understandably, Bopha greatly misses her parents and siblings, and to ease her homesickness her counselor accompanies her on visits home.

After assessing Bopha’s family situation, our reintegration officer recommended she be supported with a life start-up package and a business grant to help lift her family out of poverty. Dreaming about the future, Bopha aspires, “I hope to one day become a schoolteacher!” Accomplishing her dream will allow Bopha to help improve the lives of the people in her community, multiplying the support given to her manyfold.

Lotus Outreach was able to help and protect Bopha because of your generous support. Sadly, there are so many other stories like hers. In the first half of 2013, with the legal assistance provided by Lotus Outreach to rape victims, 4 perpetrators have been tried, convicted, and sentenced to jail. Another 6 cases await trial.

Cambodia has a strict penal code for sexual assault. Nevertheless, according to a 2013 United Nations study on violence against women in Asia and the Pacific, only 49.8% of perpetrators are arrested in Cambodia, and only 28.3% of those are tried and convicted. Disturbingly, the same study found that Cambodia men who admitted to ever raping a woman or girl did so because they felt sexually entitled, wished to punish their victim or were simply bored and looking for “fun.” The existence of safe shelters like Lotus Outreach’s and the cooperation of police officers are vital to the reporting of cases, protection of victims, and eventual prosecution of perpetrators of sexual assault. This is how together we can help reverse the trend of violence against women in Cambodia.

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Jun 18, 2013
Trafficking survivor starts a new life in Cambodia

By Glenn Fawcett | Executive Director of Field Operations

Van's daughter in front of the new chicken coop

We arrived at Van Kun Phet’s family’s tiny hutment, located precisely in the middle of nowhere about an hour’s drive from Sisophon, Banteay Meanchey’s provincial capital. The last six miles of the journey took place on a deeply rutted dirt track which even the 4WD had difficulty managing. Van, a mere 23 years old, is single mother of a three year-old daughter and lives with her mother and father. Van’s dad, now 53, is a landmine victim from his short stint fighting against the Vietnamese as a child soldier where he lost a leg at the tender age of 14.

Van herself was a victim of labor trafficking in Thailand after accompanying her brother to work on a construction site in Bangkok. The owner absconded from the project without paying anyone. “I then went to work at a Japanese-owned factory making machine parts,” Van shares. “After a month I didn’t get paid there either. I was very despondent having been cheated twice and absolutely broke. I walked three days and nights until I reached the Cambodian border. I did not have the proper papers and was arrested by the border police in Thailand. They kept me overnight and deported me the following day. The whole experience was disappointing and painful,” she continues. “I went to Thailand in the hope of earning money as we were facing dire poverty and then in the end didn’t earn anything and was beaten and abused.”

Unfortunately, cases like Van Phet’s are not rare. The Khmer Rouge genocide halted economic and industrial growth and good paying manufacturing jobs are scarce even today. With few domestic employment opportunities, Cambodia’s poor are drawn to foreign countries for any opportunity for paid work and are highly vulnerable to exploitation by unscrupulous factory owners and labor brokers.

Van’s choice to illegally migrate to Thailand in search of work is hardly surprising, given her family’s hunter-gatherer mode of subsistence. “My father forages in nearby forest land for firewood to sell and in the rivers and streams for fish and frogs to eat and support the family,” Van shares. “My mum searches for reed to make roof tiles to sell.”

Fortunately Lotus Outreach has provided some cushioning against these hardships in the form of shelter-based training and reintegration assistance, where trafficking victims like Van can seek refuge, learn about the dangers of migrating on a “promise”, and obtain valuable entrepreneurial skills.

“I arrived at the shelter in February 2012 and graduated in November. I applied for and received a small business grant of $250 to start a chicken-raising business, as well as $50 as new-life start up assistance. My father and I designed and built the chicken coop ourselves and we spent $100 on chickens as stock. The chickens are free-range, and we supplement their diets with a feeding formula that I learned to make in the shelter.”

In the training, Van also learned to keep and manage a journal of income and expenditure and is very clear about the investment against returns. “When the chickens reach 1.5 kg I’ll be able to get $3 per kg return and will sell some while keeping back enough to increase my stock through breeding.” With a beaming smile Van tells us, “I feel very happy to have my own animal raising business, I had always dreamed of raising chickens and now I am doing it! I now have 3 roosters, 11 large and 3 small hens with 15 chicks.”

We are delighted to have met Van and her family. Van is such a nice person, and so lively and full of enthusiasm. We are excited that someone like her--someone who has been cheated and exploited through no fault of her own--is now getting a chance and establishing herself and her family on a sound economic footing.

Van Kun Phet

The author (right) with program staff and Van

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