
Yorm Bopha
Yorm Bopha, Tep Vanny, Phan Chhunreth, Song Srey Leap, and Bo Chhorvy – five women land rights activists – were arrested today, while peacefully petitioning for the release of other Boeung Kak lake activists arrested over the weekend. Boeung Kak lake, in the heart of Phnom Penh, has been the site of major `urban development’, which means mass evictions. And women have been the heart of the Boeung Kak lake pro-democracy, women’s rights, community rights, land rights movements.
These arrests take place against the backdrop of the recent women garment worker demonstrations across Cambodia, and the State response of criminalization and repression of public dissent and gathering. Women workers have been protesting for over a year. In many ways, they have been protesting for decades.
This is the face of Cambodian `stability’ and `development’: women facing mass eviction, women facing super exploitation. In both instances, the logic has followed the gender of sacrifice. Women must give up land and lives for `the good of the nation.’ Around the world, this is a familiar tune, the song women as silver or diamond, and the women of Cambodia reject it, as they have for decades.
At one of the intersections of land rights, workers’ rights, and women’s rights stands Mu Sochua.
As government forces attacked women garment workers, over the weekend, Mu Sochua, an opposition Member of Parliament, explained and contextualized. She explained that the workers’ demonstration were about a living wage and about democratic governance. She explained that, for the first time, all the trade unions had joined together and had joined together with the Cambodia National Rescue Party. When the State fired its AK47s, it took aim at both labor and democracy, and the heart of those movements, this weekend as so often before, is women workers, organizers, and advocates.
According to Mu Sochua, “The workers are now hiding. They’re living in fear. Do you want to wear clothes made by people who live in fear? With the wages they get today, they can’t even get three nutritious meals in a day. … Does the international community want to continue to support this kind of dictatorship … and support international buyers who make billions while our workers are deprived of basic rights?”
Mu Sochua has been posing the question, and pushing the crisis, of human rights, women’s rights, workers’ rights, democracy in Cambodia for a long time. Sochua has been targeted by the State and has kept on keeping on. She led the struggle against the hyper-exploitation and abuse of Cambodian women and girls working as domestic workers in Malaysia. She connected the development logic of landgrabbing within Cambodia to the export of women workers by Cambodia. Sochua founded Khemera, the first women’s rights organization and the “first indigenous NGO” in modern Cambodia. She has faced imprisonment and worse, and much of this while a sitting Member of Parliament.
Throughout, Mu Sochua’s message has been clear. Democracy matters. Women matter. Justice matters. Cambodia matters. The garment factories of Cambodia have been reaping mass profits while cutting workers’, women workers’, salaries. The State has been claiming democracy while ignoring the will of the people, in development projects for the rich, in industrial production, in national elections. Do you want to support dictatorship, political, economic, and `developmental’? In Cambodia, the women are saying, “No!”
(Photo Credit: Lauren Crothers/The Cambodia Daily)
Cambodia jails lands right activist for 2-1/2 years http://www.reuters.com/article/us-cambodia-land-activist-idUSKBN1620N7
Tep Vanny hit with 30-month jail sentence http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/tep-vanny-hit-30-month-jail-sentence
Cambodian Construction: A Site for Gender Equality? http://thediplomat.com/2017/05/cambodian-construction-a-site-for-gender-equality/
CNRP lauds female candidates http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/cnrp-lauds-female-candidates
[…] Yorm Bopha, Tep Vanny, Phan Chhunreth, Song Srey Leap, and Bo Chhorvy and thousands of others – have led the campaigns against land grabs, mass evictions, and other forms of `urban development.’ With the elections […]
Politics of Death: Female frontline fails to soften defence of Cambodia land http://news.trust.org/item/20170621230301-jnyel/
Breaking: Tep Vanny sentence upheld http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/breaking-tep-vanny-sentence-upheld
From Housewife to Grassroots Warrior: The Rise of Tep Vanny https://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/from-housewife-to-grassroots-warrior-the-rise-of-tep-vanny-133338/
Backed to the wall, Cambodia’s opposition urges world to help https://in.reuters.com/article/cambodia-politics-opposition/backed-to-the-wall-cambodias-opposition-urges-world-to-help-idINKCN1BF1J9
Cambodia’s Hun Sen crosses red line on road to ‘outright dictatorship’ http://www.smh.com.au/world/cambodias-hun-sen-crosses-red-line-on-road-to-outright-dictatorship-20170907-gycjho.html
Cambodian opposition party to boycott parliament vote on leader https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cambodia-politics/cambodian-opposition-party-to-boycott-parliament-vote-on-leader-idUSKCN1BL0EU
Cambodian opposition blocked from holding memorial service https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cambodia-politics/cambodian-opposition-blocked-from-holding-memorial-service-idUSKCN1BO0GX
Cambodia’s crumbling democracy https://thediplomat.com/2017/09/cambodias-crumbling-democracy/
Cambodia opposition says determined to run in 2018 elections https://borneobulletin.com.bn/cambodia-opposition-says-determined-to-run-in-2018-elections/
‘Death of democracy’ in Cambodia as court dissolves opposition https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/nov/16/death-of-democracy-cambodia-court-dissolves-opposition-hun-sen
Supreme Court upholds Boeung Kak convictions http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/breaking-supreme-court-upholds-boeung-kak-convictions
Supreme Court verdict against Tep Vanny and other activists exposes Cambodia’s courts of injustice https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2017/12/supreme-court-verdict-against-tep-vanny-and-other-activists-exposes-cambodias-courts-of-injustice/
22 more Boeung Kak families receive land titles http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/22-more-boeung-kak-families-receive-land-titles
Hun Sen rejects democracy index’s ‘authoritarian’ label http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/hun-sen-rejects-democracy-indexs-authoritarian-label
Cambodia: Supreme Court upholds deeply flawed conviction against land activist Tep Vanny https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2018/02/cambodia-supreme-court-upholds-deeply-flawed-conviction-against-land-activist-tep-vanny/
Tep Vanny’s sentence upheld at Supreme Court http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/tep-vannys-sentence-upheld-supreme-court
Cambodia election: Australia warned ‘you don’t drink champagne with dictators’ http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-30/australia-urged-to-reject-cambodian-election-result/10030904
Cambodian PM’s party claims election rout, opposition sees ‘death of democracy’ https://www.reuters.com/article/us-cambodia-election/cambodia-wakes-to-another-era-of-hun-sen-rule-after-flawed-election-idUSKBN1KK01C?il=0
Cambodia: Free Jailed Land Rights Activist https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/08/13/cambodia-free-jailed-land-rights-activist
Cambodia: Civil Society Groups Call for the Release of Tep Vanny https://www.hrw.org/news/2018/08/14/cambodia-civil-society-groups-call-release-tep-vanny
Cambodia rights activist freed from jail after pardon https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/08/cambodia-rights-activist-freed-jail-pardon-180820163915085.html
There is still hope for Cambodia’s democracy https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/hope-cambodia-democracy-181113151712889.html
Cambodian court issues arrest warrants for top opposition leaders
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/03/cambodian-court-issues-arrest-warrants-top-opposition-leaders-190318020938567.html
Arrest warrants issued for eight senior CNRP officials
https://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/arrest-warrants-issued-eight-senior-cnrp-officials
Cambodia issues warrants for exiled opposition party leaders https://www.upi.com/Cambodia-issues-warrants-for-exiled-opposition-party-leaders/7491552915827/?rc_fifo=2
Why a 65-year-old grandmother is freely flying to probable imprisonment in Cambodia https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/11/06/why-year-old-grandmother-is-freely-flying-probable-imprisonment-cambodia/
The Longest Failed Regime in the World – The Longest Failed Regime in the World https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/the-longest-failed-regime-in-the-world/
Why the Cambodian regime is trying to silence me https://www.cnn.com/videos/opinions/2021/11/10/sochua-mu-democracy-voices-of-freedom-cambodia.cnn
A Letter from a Cambodian Woman in Exile https://thediplomat.com/2021/01/a-letter-from-a-cambodian-woman-in-exile/
Protests across Cambodia demand land rights https://globalvoices.org/2022/03/31/protests-across-cambodia-demand-land-rights/
In Cambodia, woman farmer Hoy Mai says NO! to the theft and devastation of her land and life! http://www.womeninandbeyond.org/?p=23129
Cambodia convicts 36 opposition members in latest mass trial https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2022/12/23/cambodia-convicts-another-36-opposition-figures-in-mass-trial-2
Cambodia Readies Third Mass Trial of Opposition Officials https://thediplomat.com/2022/08/cambodia-readies-third-mass-trial-of-opposition-officials/