Gender Issues in Cambodia

Gender Issues in Cambodia Keasa Khun / Royal University of Phnom Penh, Cambodia The Gender Situation in Cambodia As a global issue, gender problems exist not only in developing nations, but also in highly developed countries such as western nations. A Southeast Asian developing country, Cambodia, deeply rooted in restrictive and hierarchical culture, is rife with gender issues. Since the two decade long civil war ended, the government has been trying to develop the country in all fields, but it has paid little attention to mounting gender problems in the society. Today, gender inequality, simply described as the unfair and inequitable treatment between men and women, is seen in many aspects of Cambodian society, for example education and health care, social status, and political power and decision making. Gender issues in education It is a fact that in Cambodia women outnumber men; however, the illiteracy rate of women is higher than that of men; the school enrollment rate of female students is lower than that of male students. According to the statistics of the Ministry of Women s Affairs, 71% of women compared to 50% of men are functionally illiterate. Only 12% of women over the age of 25 have more than a primary level of education. Although school enrolment is increasing for girls (an increase of 3% between 1998 and 2002), most do not complete basic education, and the gender gap grows greater at the upper secondary level. There are many reasons behind the wide gap between males and females in terms of access to education. First, it is the traditionally based parental notion (stereotype) towards sons and daughters. Customarily, parents consider boys more important than girls in the way that boys can go out to work, while girls have to stay at home and take charge of the household chores. Also, girls, after getting married, are expected to be fed by their husbands so they do not need to do any job. Thus, the majority of parents find it pointless to let their daughters get high education. In the old days, it was also believed that daughters would become very stubborn if they were educated. Moreover, they would know how to write the love letters to men, so in order to prevent disgrace in the family, the girls should not be sent to school. In contrast, the boys are usually the breadwinners or the head of the family in the future; thus getting more knowledge would gain good reputation for their family. As a result, in poor families, if they can afford for only one child to go to school, then it will be the boy who gets the opportunity. Another factor is that girls are needed in the house or at the fields. Most Cambodian families, around 80%, are farmers, so they need a lot of workforce or labor force to assist in the fields because Cambodian farmers are still applying the old traditional ways of farming. Therefore, the girls should stay at home to cook or to work in the fields rather than go to school. In Cambodia, 65% of agricultural labor and 75% of fishery production are in the hands of women, as reported by NGO Forum on Cambodia. Alike, some parents would think that formal education is not that crucial; they would likely let their daughters to learn some skills or go to the city to working as 1

the garment factory workers or domestic servants. Although the ministry of education, youth and sports claims that students can have access to education free of charge, in most areas of Cambodia, students still have to pay unofficial fees to enroll in the school, and they have to pay for their extra class as well in order to upgrade their knowledge. More than that, female students have to spend much money on the uniforms and the supplies, which is a heavy burden for poor villagers. According to a study done by World Bank (2004), villagers say that there is no reason for their daughters to attend school, for they are poor and unable to get a job even with the education. Besides, the distance of the school is another barrier for female students to have access to education. It is not a big problem in the city in which there are plenty of schools, but in rural areas, schools are hardly found. There are not many schools available in the countryside or remote areas; accordingly, parents would not riskily allow their daughters to go to school since the security in the rural areas is not good enough. 326 rape cases were reported to ADHOC in 2004. The lack of latrines and sanitary facilities are also the reasons why female students do not attend school. Female students find themselves uncomfortable at education centres where clean toilets are not available. In this case, if they want to use the toilet, they have to go to the forest or the big wood nearby. For this reason, girls will feel better to stay at home enjoy proper facilities. According to the World Bank report( 2001), 65% of the primary schools and 13% of the Junior high schools have no clean toilets. Similarly, Cambodia is in much trouble of not having enough female teachers. Since the nature of Cambodian girls is somehow a bit shy and would sometimes feel uncomfortable to talk with men, especially with male teachers, they may not dare to ask questions or pay much attention to their study. In fact, it is believed that female students learn quickly with the female teachers. And female teachers also play a role as models for the young girls. Gender issues in access to health care Apart from education, there is also the existence of gender inequity in health care. The elder people believe that breastfeeding female babies too long may result in their kids stubbornness when they grow up. As Klaassen (1995) mentions the belief of Cambodian people, there is still a tendency to breastfeed boys somewhat longer than girls. Traditionally, it was thought that girls became stubborn or very passionate if they were breastfed too long. Boys, on the other hand, might become too pale if not breastfed long enough. In view of the fact that Cambodia has long enough suffered from wars, which caused the loss of human resources and the existence of a lot of disabled people. According Larsson, K. (1996), disabled women were much more disparately treated than men, and would hardly have chance to get married. And those who are married would be unfortunately abandoned by their husbands. According to USAID (2006), disabled women are described as the poorest of the poorest of the poor. Compared to disabled men, disabled women have less opportunity to go to school or to get any vocational training. Worse than that, they would not be equally endowed with the health care or employment. In the same way, women who are infected by HIV/ AIDS will be discriminated by the society. Their families, friends, and neighbors will try their best to be far away from them since they regarded HIV/AIDS patients as the most horrible people in society. According to the USAID s (2006) report: Women in long-term, stable relationships now comprise a high risk population for contracting 2

HIV/AIDS, with married women making up close to 50% of new cases. The basic for this transition may lie in an embedded social contradiction. On the one hand, society tolerates the married men engaging in extramarital affairs, while on the other hand, it is likely unacceptable for wives or sweetheart sto suggest condemn use because it implies infidelity. (p.21) Subsequently, women do not even have their right to protect themselves from HIV/AIDS. The absence of female nurses and female doctors makes girls feel embarrassed to talk about the sexual reproductive health. Consequently, unmarried women are highly unlikely to raise their problems in front of male physicians. As Larssons (1996) also mentioned, the situation of reproductive health service in Cambodia is very limited and there are more male nurses who can not help women to overcome their culturally- based reticence to talk about reproductive matters. Gender in social status More to the point, social status of women in Cambodia is really a serious concern. Cambodian culture, which is very restrictive and hierarchical, gives more value to men. As one Khmer saying puts it, Men are gold; Women are cloth. Cambodian ladies have to follow all the social rules in order to become good women accepted by the society. Without compliance with the Khmer codes of conduct, women are singled out by her family, relatives, friends, and the outsiders. Ledger wood (1996) describes the Women rules as follows: Women have to be silent and walk so softly that one can not hear the sound of her silk skirt rustling. She is shy and naïve and must be protected. Before her marriage, she has ideally never left the company of her family member. At the same time women are expected to be strong and capable of running a household, including of handling all of the family finance. These cultural ideals contain inherent contradictions. In the past this reflects the cultural expectation at different times in the woman s life. It is as a young woman that she must be shy and protected. It is a married woman with children that she controls the household and sells goods in the local market. But in some senses contradiction is not resolved, and the woman is ideally many things, the pushy matron bargaining in the market and the silent wife who defers publicly to her husband. And Klaasson (1995) also mentioned some rules regarding to the behavior of how a husband should treat his wife: The woman should play four roles in the life of her husband; she should be the mother, his older sister, his friend, and his servant. She should always honor her husband and care for him. If he is angry, she has to be patient and not talk back. If he beats her, she should not defend herself by beating back. A woman has to be polite towards older persons and should invite her neighbors to come into her house whenever she sees them. When there are any problems in the family or when she has personal problems, she should refrain from letting others know about them or discussing them with someone outside the house. As a consequence, women have to be tolerant all the time although they are badly regarded by their husbands. They must be obedient and respectful to their men. In addition, men committing affair is acceptable, while the wife can absolutely not do this. If married women happen to have another new boyfriend, she will be badly criticized and discriminated against. Furthermore, if violent perpetration occurs, women usually dare not ask for any help from others, for it is an embarrassing problem. Also, women are very afraid of divorce, so they had better keep quiet. However, if they do complain to the authority, they may get no response since it is considered as 3

a family s problems. In the NGO Forum on Cambodia s website, a figure shows that domestic violence affects some 25% of Cambodian women and is seldom punished, even when women are severely injured. Not very different, in the national religion, Theravada Buddhism, women remain in a lower position than men. Ledgerwood asserted some religious beliefs: Woman gains merit by offering food to the monks and by offering their sons to be monks, but in general, Buddhism tends to devalue women who are attachment in the world, through their love of their families and through their economic activities. Men are associated with the more highly valued notion of detachment and withdrawal from the world which is personified in the person of the monk. Women are respected and honored in stories or proverbs, primarily through their role as mother. Gender in power and decision making The role of women in power and decision making is not nationally recognized. As mentioned above, women have to keep silent in all kinds of circumstances. They are not allowed to make any decision or even take control of power. In the family, men gain all the power and decision making privileges while women have to wait for the arrangement. In society, since women are low educated, they are discouraged from getting involved in communities activities or contribution to the information. In the political aspect, the participation of women remains in a slow progress to the real power. For instance, in 2003 election, there were 12 women elected to the national Assembly, while in 2008 there were 17. Following the 1998 election, there were only 2 female ministers among the 25 ministries and 4 female Secretaries of State out of a total of 50. At the same time, this was an improvement, though there are still no female provincial governors. Previously there were only 4 women in politically appointed positions and no female ministers, secretaries of state or provincial governors. Only 9% of the 169,000 civil servants are women, and only 8 of 110 judges in Cambodia and no prosecutors are women. Prior to the 2002 Commune Elections, there was a discussion about developing a quota of 30% of seats for women. However, this suggestion was rejected and only 8.5% of the councilors elected were women. As a matter of fact, women have been deprived of their rights both consciously and unconsciously. They are the victims of the domestic violence and illiteracy; they have no or very little right to make decisions or hold power; they may even end up as patients without sufficient access to medical treatment and care from the health centers. Aware of these matters, the Royal government of Cambodia has slightly turned their direction to upgrading women s rights. According to the Rectangular Strategies for Growth, Employment, Equity and Efficiency, all the ministries of Cambodia have to work closely together in order to promote gender equality among Cambodian males and females. The Ministry of Women s Affair has set up its 5 years plan to combat the disparities between men and women in society. Gender Equality Promotion To realize the goal of promoting gender equality, it is vital to strengthen the four pillars knowledge and understanding of gender, commitment to act to eliminate gender disparities, accurate and up-to-date data and its analysis for policy making, and dedicated budgets for policy implementation. The following are the missions of Ministry of Women s Affairs: 4

For the effective enforcement of the Platform of the Royal Government of Cambodia, the Ministry of Women's Affairs (MoWA) acts as facilitator, advocate coordinator and monitor of policies and programmes to promote the status of women. MoWA is delegated to contribute to promoting gender responsive policy making; women's participation in decision making at all levels; economic empowerment of women; programmes against all forms of violence against women and the development of related laws and law enforcement; health including reproductive health and HIV/AIDS prevention and nutrition of women and children; participation of girls in education and women in literacy programmes; and strong social values. Furthermore, the government of Cambodia has also appealed for international donors to in charge of gender issue. As a result, some international organizations such as SIDA, USAID, UNFPA and other international and local NGOs have been jointly providing their services free of charge to Cambodian people. The services that women get are usually trainings, workshops, or campaigns regarding to gender promotion, sexual reproductive health, and women s rights and access to education, health care, decision making, politic power etc. Moreover, some organizations have sent their staff members to rural villages to encourage parents to let their daughters obtain the knowledge at school. They even provide money for transport and meals for poor students whose houses are far from schools. There is, too, some vocational training for those illiterate, disabled, and HIV/AID infected women. It is true that the government and international and local organizations have played their roles in promoting gender equity in Cambodia; however, what they have done is not enough. As it is a fact that Cambodia is a poor country, the government does not really pay all the attention to gender issues, but instead they are more focusing on the domestic and regional economic and political development. According to the World Bank, 35% of population lives under the poverty line, so it is a tough job to promote women s rights with the poor people who would not care about what is gender, except their living. Also, Cambodian people are very conservative and traditional, promoting gender is like changing their culture, which most of them strongly oppose. However, the government should introduce some reforms to the educational sector, for example by providing scholarships to poor students. Also, it should build more schools which are equipped with clean toilets in rural areas or build school dormitories, which make it easy for female students to go to school. Moreover, women the rural areas should get free health care service. And the government should develop some non-formal education regarding sexual reproductive health and nutritional awareness to villagers. Moreover, it should encourage women to take part in all kinds of social activities or even the political factor should be taken into account as well. Last, the government should, if possible, make and enforce laws that promote gender equality. References: Klaassen, H. (1995). Cambodian women in socio-economic transition. Cambodia for Development. Cambodia. Larsson, K. (1996). Country gender profile: Cambodia. Asia Department. Ledgerwood, J. L. (1996). Women in development: Cambodia. Asia Development Bank. Manila. Ministry of Women s Affair. http://www.mwva.gov.kh. NGO Forum on Cambodia. http://www.ngoforum.org.kh/documents/sectoral%20paper%20prd2003/gender.htm USAID (March, 2006). Gender analysis & assessment: USAID/Cambodia: Gender analysis 5

(Vol. 1). World Bank (2001). http://www.worldbank.org.kh/pdf/chapter_4.pdf World Bank (2004). Corruption, power and poverty. Center for social development. Cambodia. 6