Child protection NGOs released the first ever survey of Cambodian children on the subject of child abuse Wednesday.
The survey found that 63 percent of girls and 64 percent of boys say they know a child that has been raped by an adult. The report also includes descriptions of an array of corporal punishments employed by teachers in schools.
The survey of 1,341 children aged 12 to 15, was sponsored by World Vision, the Child Welfare Group, Tearfund and World Hope and released at a national forum on violence against children on Wednesday.
Respondents come from a slum in Phnom Penh, a Kampot province village, Kompong Cham town, Pailin municipality, a border town in Svay Rieng and an ethnic minority area in Ratanakkiri province.
On the subject of rape, about 50 percent of children said they believed a child rape victim could never be married.
Twenty-three percent of boys and 21 percent of girls said they had personally witnessed child rape.
On the subject of domestic violence, around 80 percent of boys and girls say they have seen a child being beaten by their parents, while 50 percent of boys and around 35 percent of girls say they have been beaten.
Seventy percent of boys and girls had witnessed corporal punishment in schools.
The list of common punishments indicates that caning is more common than slapping and includes standing on one leg, standing on prickly durian fruit skins, pinching lips with clothes pegs and forced exposure to heat.
“I think that the percentages that you see in this report show that we have to do more than sit back on our haunches,” Glenn Miles of Tearfund and the Child Welfare Group said Wednesday.
He added that he hopes the report will feed into a government child violence report to the UN later this year requested by the UN General Assembly.
