Phnom Penh sex worker presumed drowned after security guard chase.

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Re: Phnom Penh sex worker presumed drowned after security guard chase.

Post by CEOCambodiaNews »

As Pen Kunthea's sister and local rights groups call for the security guards to be brought to justice,the police and local authorities remain deaf and dumb.

Sister of Drowned Sex Worker Seeks Justice
by Sek Odom and Hannah Hawkins | January 5, 2017

The sister of a sex worker who fell off a boat and drowned in the Tonle Sap river on Sunday night said she planned to file a criminal complaint against the district security guards who were chasing her down and made no attempt to rescue her after she plunged into the water.

In an attempt to round up and detain a group of women selling sex along the riverside, Daun Penh district security guards pursued Pen Kunthea, 33, onto a tourist boat. She slipped while jumping from one boat to another, struck her head and disappeared into the river below, according to one of the boat owners.

“Daun Penh district security guards have to be responsible,” said Pen Meng Ky, Pen Kunthea’s sister. “I will file a complaint after the seven days funeral. They could do it again if I don’t file a complaint against them.”
“When they saw my sister raise her hand asking for help, they just left her in the water,” she added. “They cannot remain comfortable.”

Mr. Vutha could not be reached on Wednesday. On Tuesday, he said there were no grounds to search for the woman, as witness accounts were not enough to establish that she had fallen into the water.

Daun Penh district police chief Hout Chanyaran said he had nothing to do with the drowning in his jurisdiction.
“I don’t know, please ask district authorities,” he said. “They worked on it.”

Other senior Phnom Penh police officials could not be reached for comment...

https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/sist ... ce-122983/
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Re: Phnom Penh sex worker presumed drowned after security guard chase.

Post by Otis »

A Khmer friend of mine in PP says there is a vid on Facebook of an interview with one of the 4 Wat Phnom boom-boom girls [4 including the drowned one]. The interviewee says that the girl who drowned was not unconscious when she was in the water and that one of the 3 other girls tried to help her but was threatened with violence by the police if she did. She says that the other 3 girls were brought to a police station across the river and let go to go back to Wat Phnom after being extorted for $50 each in the police station.

Anyone know of this vid?
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Re: Phnom Penh sex worker presumed drowned after security guard chase.

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Gov’t to Give ‘Donations’ To Sister of Sex Worker
January 11, 2017
ImagePen Kuthea
The sister of a sex worker who drowned in the Tonle Sap river after being chased by Daun Penh district security guards will receive monthly “donations” from the government to support her orphaned nephew.

Pen Meng Ky initially said she intended to file a criminal complaint against the guards for pursuing her sister and making no attempt to rescue her when she struck her head on a tourist boat and fell into the water below.

However, she said on Tuesday she had decided not to file a complaint after the district governor, during a meeting on Friday, said the state would financially support her sister’s 5-year-old son, who has polio...
https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/govt ... er-123237/
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Re: Phnom Penh sex worker presumed drowned after security guard chase.

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Plea for justice for drowned prostitute
26 January 2017

National Assembly Chairman Heng Samrin has accepted a request from opposition members seeking justice for a sex worker who drowned when security guards tried to arrest her.

Mr. Samrin signed the request on Tuesday and sent it to three ministers after six members of the opposition CNRP submitted requests seeking action from the Interior, Justice and Women’s Affairs ministries.

The requests say that on the night of January 1, security guards raided sex workers in Sras Chak commune in Phnom Penh.

They caught several sex workers and chased Pen Sokunthea, 33, to the tourist boats on the river bank where she tried to jump from boat to boat to evade arrest. She slipped, hit her head then fell into the river. Witnesses claimed security guards prohibited people at the scene from saving her life, although she called for help.
A security guard who was part of the raid confessed that the team let her drown without asking for help from other authorities or providing any means to save her.

The case is to be investigated, although there has been no negotiations over compensation with the victim’s family.

Sok Penhvuth, the governor of Daun Penh district, could not be reached yesterday. According to local media, Mr. Penhvuth went to give his condolences to the victim’s family and offered to help the woman’s son, who has suffered from polio. He also planned to offer the child and his aunt about $200 per month for food and medicine.
http://www.khmertimeskh.com/news/34755/ ... rostitute/
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Re: Phnom Penh sex worker presumed drowned after security guard chase.

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Wat Phnom's sex workers take stock and reassess, as they realise that Pen Kunthea's death could have happened to any one of them. Daun Penh security guards and police have a regular habit of rounding up sex workers around Wat Phnom and extorting money from them. The girls always run...

Sex worker's death haunts women of Wat Phnom
Thu, 9 February 2017
Sen David and Martin de Bourmont

In the weeks since the suspicious death of Pen Kunthea, a pall has settled over the small community of sex workers who ply their trade around the capital’s Wat Phnom each night.

For many, Kunthea’s death was not an aberration, but a grim testament to the cruelty and indifference that define relations between Phnom Penh’s sex workers and law enforcement officials.
Struggling to support her polio-afflicted son, Kunthea turned to the sex industry to supplement her income. While working around Wat Phnom on the night of January 1, she and four other sex workers were chased by a group of Daun Penh district security guards.

Tomorrow will mark two weeks since the Ministry of Justice ordered an investigation into Kunthea’s case, which sex workers and their advocates say has sent a wave of collective trauma through the community, not least because they believe Kunthea’s experience reflects their own...
Full article: http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/s ... -wat-phnom
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Re: Phnom Penh sex worker presumed drowned after security guard chase.

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Sex workers gather to remember Kunthea
Mon, 6 March 2017

A little more than two months after her death, nearly 50 sex workers and their supporters gathered on Friday to honour the memory of Pen Kunthea, a Phnom Penh sex worker who drowned in the Tonle Sap river on the night of January 1 while fleeing Daun Penh district security guards.

A mother struggling to support two children, including a polio-afflicted son, Kunthea has taken on a somewhat symbolic status among Phnom Penh sex workers struggling to assert their rights, even as her death deeply rattled the community.

“Today, our objective is to celebrate the memory of Pen Kunthea, who died 62 days ago now,” said Pech Polet, managing director of the Women’s Network for Unity (WNU), an organisation that advocates for the rights of sex workers.

“Our second objective is to strengthen solidarity among sex workers, among women’s organisations, and to stop discrimination and give dignity to sex workers.”

For Polet, it was important for the ceremony to remind those in attendance that Kunthea was an ordinary woman in addition to being a sex worker.
“All women are human beings and they deserve dignity, freedom from harm, freedom from violence,” she said.

But as badly as Kunthea’s death shocked those she worked with, sex workers say the harassment from authorities that ultimately led to her death persists.
“Nothing changed,” said Kong Savoeun, after the ceremony...

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/s ... er-kunthea
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Re: Phnom Penh sex worker presumed drowned after security guard chase.

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Sex worker’s death still unpunished
4 January 2018
- A year after sex worker Pen Kunthea drowned in a tragic case implicating Phnom Penh’s most notorious security guards, no one has been held accountable for her death, despite numerous calls by women’s rights activists and former opposition lawmakers for an independent investigation.

The 33-year-old drowned on January 1 last year while being chased by Daun Penh district security guards near Wat Phnom. Jumping from one tourist boat to the next, she reportedly slipped and fell into the water, with her body only found two days later. The Daun Penh security guards allegedly did not help the drowning woman.

Despite six opposition lawmakers calling for an independent investigation into the case, no commission has been set up. One of the lawmakers was Mu Socha, the self-exiled deputy president of the now-dissolved Cambodia National Rescue Party, who said yesterday that she “never heard anything” in reaction to their letter demanding justice for Kunthea.

Chan Sophoan, of the Women’s Network for Unity, said she was not hopeful that investigations would bring results...

Daun Penh District Police Chief Huot Chan Yaran said the case had already been sent to the court and directed further questions to District Governor Sok Penh Vuth, who could not be reached.
Phnom Penh Municipal Court spokesman Y Rin and deputy administration chief Sous Vichyea Randy could also not be reached.
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/s ... unpunished
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