Khmer Rouge Tribunal: first complaint concerning sexual crimes

Cambodge Soir

05-09-2008

A civil action suit concerning rape and sexual abuse has been filed, Wednesday 3 September, before the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia.

Sou Sotheavy took civil action before the Khmer Rouge Tribunal for crimes and sexual abuse, she said on Wednesday 3 September during a press conference.

The plaintiff, a woman born as a man, spoke about the rapes she endured during the Khmer Rouge period, and also about the various cases of sexual abuse she suffered due to her transgender identity.

Sou Sotheavy, now 68 years old, was forced to cut her hair, to wear male clothes and to marry a woman during the Democratic Kampuchea Regime.

“I explained that I was a woman and couldn’t marry another woman, remembers Sou Sotheavy. But I was forced to do so, at risk of being executed. Ten days after my marriage, the Khmer Rouge forced me to have sexual intercourse with the woman I had to marry.”

Afterwards, Sou Sotheavy was detained at Kraing Chhes, in a cell 5 metres underground where she was raped by the prison chief.

She was then transferred to the Samlong detention centre, where guards accused her of having committed “moral offences”.

“I was tortured by seven guards who hit me several times on the head with a stone. I’m still bearing a scar on my forehead.”

Then sent to the Tapek prison, she was successively raped by the guards. “In order to discourage them I asked why they raped somebody with the same gender. Their answer was that they risked fewer problems by raping a man.”

Silke Studzinsky, Sou Sotheavy’s lawyer, was pleased about this first civil action suit concerning sexual crimes: “The investigations held by the KRT hadn’t yet focused on cases of rape and sexual abuse, due to a lack of proofs. The acts of violence against sexual minorities will finally enter into consideration.”

In the past, DC-Cam had showed a document which proved that a woman had been executed at S-21 with the motive that she engaged in prostitution activities, said Andrew Hunter, representative for the NGO Asia Pacific Network of Sex Workers.

Constanze Oehirich, legal advisor for the victim’s unit of the KRT, stated that her claim had indeed been registered and expressed the wish for other sexual victims to come forward.

Today, Sou Sotheavy is director of a Cambodian NGO for the protection of prostitutes and transvestites.