CCHR Press Release - On International Women's Day, CCHR calls for renewed efforts to achieve gender equality in Cambodia

CCHR Press Release – Phnom Penh, 7 March 2014

On International Women’s Day, CCHR calls for renewed efforts to achieve gender equality in Cambodia

On the occasion of International Women’s Day, held every year on 8 March, the Cambodian Center for Human Rights (“CCHR”) calls for renewed efforts to end discrimination against women in the Kingdom of Cambodia (“Cambodia”) and for the Royal Government of Cambodia (the “RGC”) to take concrete steps towards achieving gender equality. Although there has been some progress towards gender equality in Cambodia in recent years, with women playing an important and increasingly visible role as income providers and a driving force behind economic development, this progress has been undermined by the endurance of cultural norms that firmly place women at a lower status than men and perpetuate discrimination against women.

Although the RGC ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (“CEDAW”) in 1992, women continue to face widespread discrimination in education, employment, health care and the judicial system, issues which are compounded by troublingly high rates of domestic violence and sexual abuse. Moreover, women remain underrepresented at all levels of politics, with representation in the National Assembly even dropping from 22% to 20.33% after the last elections in July 2013.

On 28 January 2014, the RGC underwent its second Universal Periodic Review (“UPR”), during which many states offered recommendations regarding women’s rights, including conducting national awareness-raising campaigns, eliminating patriarchal attitudes and stereotypes contributing to discrimination against women and preventing and combatting gender-based violence.  CCHR calls on the RGC to take urgent action to concretely implement the recommendations made during the UPR and to amend and introduce legislation in accordance with both these recommendations and its obligations under CEDAW.

CCHR President Ou Virak comments:

“Despite some improvements in recent years, discrimination against women in Cambodia remains a significant problem, which the RGC is just not doing enough to address. We need to see concrete actions aimed at eliminating the negative stereotypes that continue to impede progress in this sector, and at amending legislation and policies that continue to discriminate against women. Women make up over half of the population, yet they remain underrepresented in all sectors of Cambodian society. Only when women are offered the opportunities as men, will we see significant change in the human rights situation in Cambodia.”

For more information, please contact Ou Virak via telephone at +855 (0) 1240 4051 or e-mail at ouvirak@cchrcambodia.org or CCHR Consultant Juliette Rousselot via telephone at +855 (0) 1535 0620 or e-mail at julietterousselot@cchrcambodia.org.

Please find the Press Release attached in PDF format in Khmer and in English. 

Kind regards,
CCHR