Cambodia Expats Online: Forum | News | Information | Blog

Events call for equal rights
Wed, 8 March 2017
Leonie Kijewski

Human rights organisations called for an end to discrimination against women at a raft of events yesterday ahead of today’s International Women’s Day.The Women’s Network for Unity (WNU) organised a march that was joined by about 70 sex workers and women’s rights activists to raise awareness about sex workers’ lives and rights, strengthen solidarity and demand to be free from harm and violence.

The half-hour march included women from different areas in Phnom Penh, many of whom carried red umbrellas – an international symbol for sex workers’ rights, according to Pech Polet, managing director of WNU. “What they are demanding is that sex work is [recognised as] work, and sex workers are humans. Sex workers’ rights are women’s rights,” she said.

Discrimination against sex workers, she said “is getting worse and worse from day to day”, and the death of sex worker Pen Kunthea “still affects the sex workers today”. Kunthea drowned on January 1 while being chased by security guards in Phnom Penh’s riverside area...

At an event by the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, female rights activists – including cis- and transgender women – yesterday pointed to the obstacles they encountered when advocating for labour, environmental and land rights. Executive director Chak Sopheap said women were often perceived as “second-class citizens” under Cambodian social norms.

“Domestic violence and abuse, the exclusion of women from leadership positions in business, politics and public life, and the widespread perceptions of women as being weaker than men, are all symptoms of the same heteropatriarchal system that still rules Cambodia.”

Though “more and more women are taking up leadership positions, both in business and public life … more continue to be oppressed,” she said, pointing to imprisoned activists Vanny and Lim Mony, and drowned sex worker Kunthea as examples...
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/e ... ual-rights

Explains why they held a Women's Day celebration yesterday. But it seems that even was illegal.

City Hall Bans Garment Workers From Marking Women’s Day
March 8, 2017

Phnom Penh City Hall has rejected a request for an International Women’s Day celebration for the country’s majority-female garment factory workers at Wat Phnom today, though Prime Minister HE is set to mark the occasion with a speech.

In line with a near-blanket ban on public rallies amid ongoing political tensions, authorities denied a request by the Cambodian Labor Confederation for a public women’s day event, the union’s president, Ath Thorn, said on Tuesday...

On Tuesday, prominent land rights activists began the celebrations early by defying a ban from City Hall and gathering on a public plot of land in the eviction-hit Boeng Kak neighborhood

Municipal spokesman Met Measpheakdey said authorities did not bother breaking up the event because “there was nothing happening.”
However, the women may be punished for their defiance, he said.
“Now, we are waiting to hear from our upper level,” he said. “If there is any order from the leader, we will take measures.”

https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/city ... ay-126246/

While many woman are celebrating International Woman's day and having a holiday,, I just walked past the Woman's Affairs building and I see at least 3 woman have driven to work today as their cars are parked in the office grounds.

The biggest threat to female sex worker are :

1. International NGO
saving sex workers, send them tor reeducation camps and than on to factories sewing garments !

2 Religious fanatics
same as above but added with the extra touch of religion