Srun Srorn, trainer for the E-learning project, shows teachers at Koh Kong High School how the sexual education curriculum works. Credit: Michelle Tolson/IPS

By Michelle Tolson
KOH KONG PROVINCE, Cambodia, Nov 5 2014 (IPS)

The transition to puberty can be an awkward experience for youth to navigate. In Cambodia, sex education is moving increasingly into the virtual realm, with the Internet and mobile phones providing welcome spaces for young people to learn, seek help and stay safe.

Cambodia is classified as one of the world’s Least Developed Countries (LDCs), with 20 percent of the population living below the poverty line, while another 20 percent are just 0.30 dollars a day above the poverty line, according to the World Food Programme (WFP).

Illiteracy has been linked with poverty and only 74 percent of rural communities are literate. Cambodia has been heavily influenced by the NGO culture, which has helped bring about some improvements, yet when it comes to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR), these organisations have tended to focus on addressing poor maternal health or at-risk groups, such as entertainment workers.

"This is the difficulty that we experience [in Cambodia: making people aware that counseling is a way of providing emotional support and empowerment as well as exploring options without judgment or assumption.” -- Sean Sok Phay, executive director of Child Helpline Cambodia
Youth, on the other hand, particularly those from poorer families and in rural areas, have not received much attention, particularly those who engage in romantic relationships outside of marriage.

Now, a wave of online learning is filling crucial gaps in the knowledge system.

One such initiative is a major E-learning platform being rolled out with support from the ministry of education, youth and sport (MoEYS), aimed at improving young people’s access to vital information.

“NGOs focus on the population in general, birth spacing, maternal health, but not sweetheart relationships that youth have,” Kuth Sovanno, administrative officer in the school health department of the MoEYS said recently to a roomful of teachers at Koh Kong High School during the launch of the E-learning initiative.

It is being piloted in 24 secondary schools in the provinces of Bantey Meanchey, Battambong, Pursat, Kampong Chhnang, Takeo, Kampot, Koh Kong and Sihanoukville (Kampong Som province) and Phnom Penh. At present, the plan is to expand the programme to reach 100 schools.

Sovanno tells IPS that tapping into social media is a way to get the information out to youth who flock to Facebook to socialise. Youth are beginning to see online access as an important source of information, so the MoEYS maintains an up-to-date website, which is not always the case with the other ministries.

Cambodia’s mobile phone sales have mushroomed, resulting in an estimated 134-percent mobile phone penetration, with cell phones being cheaper than land lines, while social media – accessed through Internet cafes and mobile devices – was believed to have played a major role in the 2013 elections.

In this same way, youth are breaking away from traditional restrictions on sexual and reproductive health education, says Srun Srorn, advisor to One World UK, partnering with the MoEYS to launch the E-learning programme.

Srorn is an activist who uses social media to reach marginalised youth, including the LGBT community, drug users, sex workers and migrant workers. His volunteer-led organisation, CamASEAN, reaches 2,000 members through social media.

Chheon Rachana, a 28-year-old female activist for LGBT issues who teaches about sexual orientation, gender identity and expression for Rainbow Community Kampuchea (RoCK) and CamASEAN, tells IPS that many girls do not talk to their parents or female teachers for advice on seemingly basic topics like menstruation; instead, most reach out to friends.

While some schools make use of NGO support to supply poor rural students with feminine products at school, many girls continue to face challenges in acquiring the most essential products and services.

“Poor girls ask for money from their parents or from someone close to them in their family,” explains Rachana. She herself did not tell her parents when she started menstruating, but had a sympathetic relative help buy her monthly feminine products.

Things become even more challenging for teens learning about safer sex, abortions and sexual orientation.

“The traditional Cambodian style of reproductive and sexual health education means that most youth have to find out by themselves by book, [and] share [this information] with their friends because they don’t learn this at school,” Rachana says.

She thinkx the Internet is changing this, though she maintains the importance of accurate information – something that is not always possible given the very nature of the Web.

NGOs such as the Reproductive Health Association of Cambodia (RHAC), which also supports the E-learning initiative, trains peer educators to provide accurate information and emotional support in several provinces but adolescents without access to this especially benefit from mobile, SMS and online counseling.

Sean Sok Phay, executive director of Child Helpline Cambodia, which, along with Inthanou, provides counselors for the new website www.youthchhlat.org, tells IPS, “Online and phone counseling is a new concept in Cambodia. Many people often refer [to] counseling as giving advice or instructing people to do certain thing. This is the difficulty that we experience: making people aware that counseling is a way of providing emotional support and empowerment as well as exploring options without judgment or assumption.”

He describes the service as “pro-poor” and especially helpful for youth in rural areas, as one-on-one counseling can be expensive, while this service is free. The use of mobile phones allows for privacy to talk about these topics either online, by calling or through SMS.

The MoEYS recently published a life skills book for youth that tackles changes in adolescents’ bodies, but also social issues such as drug use and learning about sexually transmitted infections (STIs), which is paired with the E-learning project that has its own curriculum as well.

“Each student has time at the computer already so it will be easier because they are shy to learn [about sexual reproductive health],” Theary, a high school teacher who has taught grades 7-9 at Koh Kong High for the past seven years, tells IPS.

Computer labs, such as the one in Koh Kong High School, will introduce the website’s lessons to students offline first because of the school’s slow Internet connection but they can also access the lessons online at Internet cafes or through mobile phones.

The new website was launched in March of this year.

“Many youth have sex before marriage now, compared to traditional times,” adds Srorn of One World UK, who trains teachers on how to use the E-learning platform.

“Girls already learn by themselves and use porn videos for this. Internet cafes are not expensive, just 1000 riels [0.24 dollars] an hour so poor girls can learn this way. Males use karaoke bars, beer gardens, massage parlors.”

Koh Kong town, situated close to the Thai border, has many massage parlors and some casinos.

“Middle-class and [upper]-class girls can walk or take a moto bike along the riverside in cities [to meet potential sex partners], while high-class girls go to hip-hop clubs where they can meet a guy. But youth also use the Internet for this. They can use Skype, Facebook messenger and phone sex to hook up.”

Chheon agrees that meeting girlfriends and boyfriends online is common these days. But she says it is important that they meet in public places first and not away from other people for safety reasons.

According to a 2013 U.N. report, 20 percent of men in Cambodia said they had forced a woman to have sex, half of whom claimed to have done so as a teenager.

For those surviving an assault, phone and online counseling can be a lifesaver.

“A girl in a village [who has] been raped … will not only face discrimination, she will have a very difficult time in terms of trauma, stress, and feelings of suicide. Phone counseling, online and text message counseling is playing a role to create the means or opportunity for such a community,” points out Sok Phay from the Child Helpline.

But perhaps what is most urgently needed is information about practicing safer sex.

Monyl Loun, executive director of Inthanou, the other counseling service supporting the project, tells IPS that while love and relationships are “natural” at the age of puberty, the important thing is to learn about the “responsibilities of love, and information to prevent … unintended pregnancy, HIVs and STIs.”

Karaoke videos that play on televisions in buses and even the simplest cafes show romantic partners ending their lives over relationship problems.

“KTV songs and dances are about love, broken hearts and marriage,” explains Srun, adding that most music videos depict couples killing or hurting themselves as a solution to their problems.

But counselors working round the clock in Cambodia hope the new technology-savvy mode of sex education will remind youth that love does not have to end in tragedy.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

Police raiding Canadia Industrial Park in Phnom Penh on Jan. 3, 2014. Credit: Courtesy LICADHO

By Michelle Tolson
PHNOM PENH, Jan 9 2014 (IPS)

“Cambodian garment workers have two handcuffs and one weapon [against them]. One handcuff is a short-term contract [10 hours a day, six days a week]. Even if they get sick, if they get pregnant they feel they have to get an abortion so they don’t lose their jobs.

“The second handcuff is the low wage,” Tola Moeun, head of the Community Legal Education Centre (CLEC), which advocates for workers rights, told IPS from the organisation’s headquarters on the outskirts of Phnom Penh. “The weapon used against them is violence, both mental and physical.”

About 90 percent of garment workers are young women, mostly in their teens and twenties.

His words, which came just days before mass protests broke out in the Cambodian capital, proved prophetic as garment workers took to the streets Dec. 24 until their demonstrations were brutally quashed by Prime Minister Hun Sen’s private military the first weekend in January, resulting in five fatalities and over 30 serious injuries.

In the days leading up to the protest, the Labour Ministry had approved an increase in the minimum wage for garment workers, from 80 to 95 dollars a month. But trade unions and workers protested, saying it was not enough to live on, and demanded a monthly minimum wage of 160 dollars.

Chrek Sophea, interim coordinator of the Workers’ Information Centre (WIC), which helps factory workers organise, told IPS workers cannot survive on the government’s proposed wage, and that it is in violation of Cambodia’s labour laws.

According to a 1997 law, “The minimum wage must ensure every worker of a decent standard of living compatible with human dignity.”

Tola agreed. “The minimum is for eight hours, so most work 10 hours to get a higher income to have just enough to sleep in a shared room. Most workers are in debt, borrowing about 50 dollars each month, and can only pay 10 dollars interest on the loan each month.” Workers struggle to send money home to their families in the countryside.

The Messenger Band (MB), made up of six former garment workers who write songs in the traditional Cambodian folk style, also supported the protest. Sothary Kun, a singer known as “Ty Ty”, told IPS “problems of debt and migration and the difficulty of workers to earn money and repay debt for their families reach into the hearts of audiences very quickly because they have experienced it all themselves.”

Launched a decade ago, MB works with WIC as part of the United Sisterhood Alliance, a collaborative of grassroots groups serving farmers, factory workers and sex workers.

“MB and WIC discussed the strategy of supporting peaceful protests by garment workers demanding a minimum wage of 160 dollars a month, so it is very important for us to be there together with the workers,” Kun said.

MB’s songs are the oral histories of the working poor. “We sang a number of songs to encourage and keep workers together while they were protesting in front of the Labour Ministry. We also distributed lyrics of songs related to workers, so that they could sing along,” Kun explained.

The peaceful events took a dark turn last Thursday. Chrek said “I witnessed the workers’ peaceful strike at around 9:30AM on Jan. 2, when my colleagues and I travelled around the factory compounds located on the outskirts, including the place where the clash happened.

“I stopped by and saw them gathering in front of the Canadia Special Economic Zone near the local market. Workers who joined the strike were singing and dancing and chanting their message.”

The opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP), protesting the results of the July elections, which they say were rigged, joined the garment worker protest with chants of “Hun Sen Must Go”, and as the crowds swelled to tens of thousands, international media attention was drawn.

The military stepped in the night of Jan. 2, brutally beating and arresting labour leaders and protesting monks. Pictures of the bloodied trade unionists were widely shared on social media, which seems to be the point when the protests veered out of control.

By the early hours of Friday Jan. 3, young men allegedly armed with Molotov cocktails and machetes had replaced the women protesters. Hun Sen’s private military stormed the scene with live ammunition, shooting over 30 people, killing five and seriously injuring the rest.

Srun Srorn with the CamASEAN youth group told IPS “It is possible people in the crowds were hired or ordered to create violence, and those people were not shot, or just created violence and then escaped.”

The ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) calls the opposition “extremist”. But activists speculate that agitators, termed Hun Sen’s ‘Third Hand’, may have caused the violence.

Thida Khus, director of SILAKA, which supports women’s organising, told IPS “Some of our men noticed this strategy in the first [CNRP] demonstration last September. These agitators have been used in all the previous events, including the [Jan. 4] crackdown at Democracy Park, trying to justify the shooting at unarmed protesters.”

CNRP lawmaker-elect Mu Sochua mentioned Hun Sen’s Third Hand on her Facebook page. She told IPS “Throughout the three-month protest, CNRP has appealed for non-violence. CNRP, including its top leadership, went through non-violence training and took to Democracy Square where thousands of people came regularly to express their opinions. Our rallies have never been violent.”

By Monday Jan. 6, it was discovered that the five young men killed were in fact garment workers and another 35 in the hospitals were also factory workers.

During the crackdown, a number of protesters were also arrested, including labour leaders. The Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defence of Human Rights (LICADHO) reports that 23 detainees are being held in an unknown location.

The government has sinced banned public gatherings of 10 or more people.

WIC, which is careful to not take political sides, became concerned when the garment protesters joined with the CNRP. As a non-partisan women’s organiser, Chrek believes both sides need to focus on working together, not blaming each other.

“It creates an environment of instability, fear, tension and anger. Our country has been through a lot of painful experiences resulting from violent responses.

“The current political chaos showed that political parties, both ruling and opposition, do not have a real commitment to solving problems, and often innocent and ordinary citizens and the powerless are affected. I call on all parties, including union leaders, the opposition party and the ruling party to act together in a mature manner addressing the current situation by setting problems aside.”

Eb Mon welcomes CamASEAN volunteers who hand out food, water and educational materials to the village children he teaches in a one-room school in the Cambodian village of Chouk. Credit Michelle Tolson/IPS

By Michelle Tolson
KOH KONG PROVINCE, Cambodia , Oct 5 2013 (IPS)

The quiet Cambodian village of Chouk, set in the beautiful forests of the Cardamom Mountains near the Thai border, seems peaceful. But things are difficult in this largely empty village of simple wooden houses, populated mainly by children and the elderly.

The 270 families in Chouk, which means Lotus, own houses but not enough land for subsistence farming, which was their decades-long occupation here in Koh Kong province in southwest Cambodia.

The problem is that they lost their fields to a 20,000-hectare land concession for a sugarcane plantation in 2006, to business tycoon and Senator Ly Yong Phat

The families used to grow rice, vegetables and watermelons on plots averaging 2.5 to 5.0 hectares, but were left just 0.5 hectare each after the company destroyed their crops and took over the land.

Families in the village were offered just 50 dollars per hectare, though rights groups say the market rate was 500-1,000 dollars per hectare.

During the Khmer Rouge years (1975-1979), land titles were abolished, leaving little evidence of land ownership. This paved the way for the current wave of land grabs.

Now heavily in debt to about three microfinance organisations each, the parents travel to nearby Thailand to work as agricultural day labourers every week, or they stay there for months, Noun Sidara of CamASEAN, a volunteer-led youth group from Phnom Penh helping them find a solution, told IPS.

And in some cases, the parents don’t come back.

One 72-year-old grandmother in the village has been caring for her three grandchildren since the parents left and “never returned,” Srun Srorn, a founding member of CamASEAN, told IPS. The grandmother was hired by the sugarcane plantation but only earned 6000 riels (1.5 dollars) working all day.

Labour rates are 100 riel (2 cents) to harvest 20 canes of sugar. “A strong person can earn 2.50 dollars a day, but others make as little as one dollar,” Srun added. In 2010, the sugarcane plantation basically stopped hiring people from this village, complaining that they “were always demonstrating against the plantation”; it now hires from other towns instead.

A sugarcane factory built to process the harvest polluted the local river with industrial runoff, and the villagers’ cows became sick. Some of the families, having no alternative water source, got diarrhea. Their only option was to collect rainwater in containers or, if they could afford it, buy water from a truck. They used to fish from the river but say the pollution killed off the fish.

The villagers survive mainly on rice. Because of the remote location, there is little food to buy in the village market as the nearest town is a four-hour walk away, or an hour-and-a-half drive by car.

For protein, they “sometimes eat eggs or fish sauce” made from fish caught upstream of the factory’s pollution, Srun said. Eggs, costing 400-500 riel (8 to 10 cents) each in Phnom Penh, are double here at 800 riel (16 cents).

They also lack vegetables in their diet, said Noun, who is researching alternative farming methods. He hopes to help them find ways to maximise the capacity of their small plots.

Srun, who has 13 siblings, grew up in the 1980s during the famine in Cambodia. “I experienced a lot of hunger and I wished to change that. So I decided to work more on human rights.”

The World Food Programme (WFP) found that 40 percent of Cambodia’s children are chronically malnourished, despite recent economic gains.

Children of the rural poor, either landless or without enough to subsist on (0.5 hectare or less), are vulnerable to malnutrition, making it harder for them to succeed in school, and putting them at risk of dropping out.

The United Nations Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO) reports that poverty causes hunger, food insecurity and malnutrition, which in turn affect cognitive and physical development, limiting productivity as “inter-related phenomena”.

The impact on education is illustrated in the village of Chouk. The nearest public school is five kilometres away and the children have dropped out since their families lost their land. Their parents can’t afford to contribute to their education any more. Public school teachers earn as little as 40-50 dollars a month and rely on gifts from families.

Srun traveled to the village a year ago and met 77-year-old Eb Mon, who has been teaching the children, coping with about 67 students in a small one-room building. The elderly villager volunteered under the ministry of education in the 1980s for a small stipend, so he knows about hard times.

He asked the ministry to help by building a school, providing him with a table and chair, hiring more teachers, and paying him a small salary. But the ministry never replied.

CamASEAN decided to help him, bringing donated educational materials, clothing, rice noodles and bread – their most recent trip being their fifth. According to the indomitable Eb Mon, who lost his right leg to a land mine and wears a prosthetic, they have been the only group to come regularly.

They have also used the growing popularity of social media in Cambodia to connect the remote village with donors. A French NGO, SIPAR, is building a school for the children – when IPS visited in early September the cement foundations were being laid.

SIPAR also provides Eb Mon and his wife a stipend of 30 dollars a month. And a private Malaysian individual built a water pump for the village in June, the first and only for the nearly 300 families.

“Yet it is not enough,” said a volunteer, Ny Vichet.

Food insecurity remains a problem. Villagers forage in the nearby forest but face risks. Eb Mon’s daughter died from eating poisonous mushrooms several months ago and he and his wife now care for their three grandchildren. The children’s father still forages for food or works in the sugar cane fields. Foraging is a common coping strategy for food-insecure families, according to the FAO.

Eb Mon said he has taught students in grades 3-5 how to read and write by having them study together. Most of the children just come to see him instead of going to the public school because they learn more, he said.