Prostitution Banned; Affairs, Divorces Are Frowned Upon
malai district, Banteay Meanchey province – When the first wife discovered her husband’s mistress living in nearby Sompov Loun district, she decided to give her a lesson that the second wife and others living in this former Khmer Rouge stronghold would never forget.
Accompanied by her sons, the first wife seized the pregnant young woman and brought her to Malai town for a confrontation with her husband, a former Khmer Rouge medic. Witnesses say the young girl from Kompong Thom province was beaten, had her hair sheared off, and her clothing cut with a scissors to reveal her breasts, buttocks and genitalia.
Beaten and humiliated, the girl was brought to Malai market, where she was forced to stand in the back of a pickup truck and shout out to the assembled onlookers that they should remain faithful to their partners.
“She was warned not to cry, ” said one witness to the public humiliation four months ago. “I pitied her. She was a girl like our sisters and daughters.”
While the war has ended and the Khmer Rouge’s political ideology has been relegated to a time best forgotten, the strict codes of sexual morality enforced by the communist regime are still a strong and compelling component of Malai society.
Prostitution is outlawed and will remain so, district officials say.
Extra-marital affairs and divorce are also sensitive subjects that can invite the most violent sanctions, they say.
Historically, prostitution was not condoned by the Khmer Rouge. More recently, the reasons for keeping Malai prostitution-free have more to do with health and economics matters, said Phea Phoun, deputy chief of Malai district.
“We have tried since reintegration to stop prostitution in this area and the authorities will absolutely not allow this to happen,” he said. “[Prostitution] can create [economic] turmoil in the family and violates the human rights of women…and we need to protect against AIDS.”
During the Khmer Rouge regime, there were some bad people, but there were also some good policies, Phea Phoun said, noting that divorce also was not condoned during that time.
But, today, sexual morality is as much policed by Malai’s female population, as shown by the July public humiliation case, as it is by district authorities.
“It’s not the police or provincial authorities who do not want a brothel,” said one local man on condition of anonymity. “It is the wives of the police, soldiers and military police….Even the commanders dare not go against their wives.”
A group of women from Malai, many of whom are former Khmer Rouge fighters and are as accustomed to jungle warfare as their husbands, burned down and destroyed the district’s first brothel, which was opened outside Malai town in 1998, authorities said.
The women took action against the prostitutes to protect the family unit and protect their living conditions, Phea Phoun said, explaining that brothels encourage men to spend money that should be giving to their families.
No one has dared open a brothel since, he added.
“All the women and men struggled and fought together….And men are afraid of the women because they know how to fight,” Phea Phoun said.
Along with the outlawing of prostitution, extra-marital affairs and divorce are also not tolerated, he said.
“We have divorce if both sides agree. But if the wife does not agree then we cannot divorce. It is impossible,” Phea Phoun said.
The equality forced on the battlefield over three decades also pervades relationships between men and women in Malai today, said Khoem Yoeun, who in 1975 fought with the all-female Battalion 101 under the leadership of feared Khmer Rouge commander Ta Mok.
“The women here are very brave,” she said. “If they know their husband betrayed them they would dare to shoot or kill their husbands. During the Khmer Rouge time we learned about that.”
Cutting their hair like men, the Khmer Rogue women in Battalion 101 fought side-by-side with their male comrades against Lon Nol’s troops in their attacks on Phnom Penh during the months preceding the city’s fall in April 1975.
Many women died in the battles as they approached the capital from Kompong Speu province, recalled Khoem Yoeun, who is now in her early 40s and lives in Malai town.
“There was no discrimination,” she said. “We worked together and fought together until death. They treated us like sisters.”
Chea Vannath, president of the Center for Social Development, said Malai’s ban on prostitution has less to do with the moral ideology of the Khmer Rouge than the decisions of individuals.
“In Pailin they have prostitution. And if they wanted [prostitution] they would have it in Malai also,” Chea Vannath said. “This is not the will of the Khmer Rouge, but of the leaders.”
The violent attack against the woman mirrors numerous other cases in Cambodia where wives takes direct, and usually deadly, action against the women their husbands take as mistresses.
Chea Vannath sees such acts as the result of four decades of war and social upheaval experienced by Cambodian people. The mistress, she said, is attacked because of her vulnerability.
“Instead of facing the husband who is powerful, the wife deals with the mistress because she is weaker,” she said. “The culture now is to victimize the victim.”
Although Phea Phoun, the deputy police chief, and others in Malai want to uphold the moral standards of their Khmer Rouge days, he said the first wife who publicly humiliated her husband’s pregnant mistress in July went too far.
“That case has been sent to the court now. The first wife should not have done this,” he said.
After the young girl was brought to Malai market and forced to tell people not to follow her example, she was photographed and the husband was summoned. The public showdown ended with the husband, allegedly encouraged by his gun-wielding wife, renouncing the mistress, witnesses said.
“They wanted to show her to all the people,” said a witness. “But old people in the village who went to look said that the wife should not do this. They told her that the mistake was with her husband. Not the girl.”
The mistress, who was four months pregnant, was then offered the option of losing both her eyes or getting rid of the baby.
Witnesses said the girl was brought at gun point to Malai hospital where medical workers were forced to perform abortion on her.
An aid official based in the area confirmed the details of the attack.
Malai District Police Chief Mai Saman also confirmed the attack took place, but claims the girl was only slightly beaten and her hair cut. He said the victim’s family exaggerated the severity of the attack.
He also confirmed the girl did have an abortion, but that was decided because the affair had ended. It was not forced or the result of threats from the first wife, Mai Saman maintains.
“Cutting the clothes is only a rumor,” he said. “The court asked me about this but it is not true. We would not allow this to happen.”
