The proposed law on domestic violence is scheduled to be heard by the National Assembly later this month—more than a year after it was first drafted—Minister of Women’s Affairs Mu Sochua said on Thursday.
“We’re very happy—and very prepared” for the upcoming debate, the minister said. She said the Assembly’s Commission on Health and Women’s and Social Affairs informed her about two weeks ago that the law had been put on the agenda for Nov 25.
The Assembly panel made no changes to the draft law, Mu Sochua said, “only clarifications.”
Advocates for women and children have been waiting a long time for the law to have a hearing. If passed, it would be the country’s first law on violence within the home. Prime Minister Hun Sen has voiced support for the legislation—a good sign for its chances of passage.
Besides spousal and child abuse, the law would outlaw spousal rape and sexual coercion of servants, and mandate stiff penalties for victims of acid attacks. It would allow police to enter homes without a warrant if they suspected abuse and would supply victims with restraining orders to prohibit abusers from coming near them.
Dr Dagmar Oberlies, an adviser from the German technical cooperation agency GTZ, said she believed the law would be passed by the end of the year—and then the hard part, putting it into practice, would begin.
“Domestic violence is not going to go down to zero,” she said, noting that many developed countries have domestic violence rates above 10 percent. Estimates vary as to the rate in Cambodia, but even the lowest put it around 25 percent.
If the law passes, the chief obstacle to its implementation is likely to be social attitudes, which hold that domestic violence is a private, family matter, Mu Sochua acknowledged.
“Domestic violence is a national issue, not a family matter,” she said. “No one can say, ‘It’s none of my business.’”
