Rights Official Urges Thorough Probe Into Death of Infant Detained With Mother in Cambodia
2020-02-18

Cambodian authorities must conduct a thorough investigation into the death of a five-month old girl who was incarcerated with her mother at a correction facility in the capital Phnom Penh, a rights group official said Tuesday, calling for protections to ensure such tragedies do not recur.

Tevy—whose name has been changed to hide her identity—died on Jan. 26 from “pneumonia and severe malnutrition,” local rights group Licadho said Tuesday. She had sustained a thigh bone fracture eight days earlier in Correctional Centre 2 (CC2), where her mother was sent for pre-trial detention in mid-2019 for alleged possession of U.S. $2.50 worth of methamphetamine while eight months pregnant.

While it was unclear how the infant had been injured, Licadho said that she was treated for the fracture at the National Children’s Hospital before being sent back to CC2, despite prison staff asking if she and her mother could stay overnight for observation.

Over the next week, Tevy’s mother noticed that the baby had a fever and would not stop coughing, but a follow up appointment did not result in any further treatment or a refill of the medicine she had been prescribed. By Jan. 25, Tevy was struggling to breathe and transferred to the Khmer-Soviet Friendship Hospital, where doctors tried to clear her lungs of mucus, but she died the following morning.

Licadho noted that even though she was in the late stages of pregnancy, Tevy’s mother was never provided a lawyer and unaware of her right to apply for bail, saying that the girl’s death “once again illustrates the urgent need for authorities to prioritize bail for mothers with children” and urging authorities to “take immediate steps to ensure that this never happens again.”

The group’s senior investigator, Am Sam Ath, told RFA’s Khmer Service that Tevy’s death “raised several questions,” and suggested that the hospitals she was treated at failed to cooperate with the country’s General Department of Prisons to adequately care for her.

“There must be a thorough investigation into the death,” he said.
https://www.rfa.org/english/news/cambod ... 33943.html

Phnom Penh, Cambodia News: Following the legal aid intervention of the Cambodian Human Rights Committee, the mother who lost her five-month-old baby girl, when she died due to lack of appropriate care while she was incarcerated, has been released from prison. The rest of her sentence was suspended. The woman had been jailed on a minor drug charge.

The report on the original case can be found here: https://www.licadho-cambodia.org/pressr ... p?perm=447

$2.50! FFS Such a tragedy. Very Sad indeed

Probe into baby’s death in Cambodia prison
By New Straits Times - May 20, 2020

Interior Ministry’s General Department of Prisons is conducting investigations into the death of a five-month-old baby, who had been living with her mother at the Correctional Centre II (Prey Sar Prison).

Human rights non-governmental organisation Licadho had earlier issued a request for prison authorities to take action over the death and its potential connection to prisoner maltreatment and operational inadequacies.

The baby died on Jan 26 at the Khmer-Soviet Friendship Hospital here. Reports here said an X-ray found that the baby had broken a thigh bone.

The baby and mother were then admitted to the National Paediatric Hospital because the Khmer-Soviet Friendship Hospital had no specialists to treat a patient of that age.

The National Paediatric Hospital then treated the injured baby and sent her back to Correctional Centre II, despite prison staff asking for the child and her mother to stay overnight to monitor their condition.

By the morning of Jan 26, the child was experiencing breathing difficulty and was taken to the emergency room, where doctors tried to save the child but failed.

An autopsy revealed that the child died of pneumonia and severe malnutrition.

Department of Prisons spokesman Nuth Savna told The Phnom Penh Post that the department was investigating whether the baby's death was caused by a lack of care, inappropriate living conditions, or whether the hospital was at fault.
https://www.nst.com.my/world/region/202 ... dia-prison

who sentenced her? wrong decision, tragic story.

Cambodia's drug war has seen prisoner numbers skyrocket during coronavirus pandemic
By Erin Handley
Posted 11hhours ago, updated 45minutes ago

In a teeming cell of Phnom Penh's women's prison, baby Tevy was injured — a fracture to her thighbone, allegedly inflicted by a female prisoner.

Just over a week later, after oscillating between prison and hospital, Tevy — not her real name — was struggling to breathe and put on oxygen.

The five-month-old baby girl, who had lived the entirety of her young life behind bars, died on January 26. Her autopsy cited pneumonia and malnutrition, but the death in custody wouldn't be made public until a month later.

The case, brought to light by human rights group Licadho, is just one of the devastating consequences of Cambodia's war on drugs, which has seen more than 55,000 people arrested in a few short years — Tevy's mother among them.

Human rights advocates say she should never have been imprisoned. She had not been convicted of a crime, but police allege they found her carrying a small sachet of methamphetamine — worth about $3.60 — in mid-2019.

She was pregnant at the time of her arrest and gave birth while incarcerated, awaiting trial. She was still waiting for a court date when her baby died.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-05-31/ ... n/12288860

Surprising this is the first such case to grab a headline, considering the amount of young kids living in custody with a parent or both parents.

Sad for the child.

Jerry Atrick wrote: ↑Sun May 31, 2020 3:29 pm Surprising this is the first such case to grab a headline, considering the amount of young kids living in custody with a parent or both parents.

Sad for the child.

Sad for the country and the system.