Mu SochuaBy Iris Garcia
Global Fund for Women
Former Global Fund Board Member and Cambodian human rights activist Mu Sochua pulls no punches. At an event this Monday at her alma mater, UC Berkeley, she began her talk by posing a rhetorical question: “Should we compromise in the fight for justice?” Sochua faces extreme pressure and legal punishment from her government back home for speaking out against the ruling party’s intimidation tactics and corrupt practices.
Cambodia in Crisis: Missed Opportunities and Misdirected Aid
In her talk, Sochua strongly emphasized the dire human rights situation in Cambodia: over 4,000 women in Cambodia die each year from child birth; over half of its children cannot attend or drop out of primary school due to poverty or family illness; 250,000 people have been forcibly evicted from their land in the past six years; only 30 percent of forests remain intact; and just 30 percent of the population has access to safe drinking water.
Sochua also drew attention to the flow of international aid: USAID spent over $53 million on assistance to Cambodia in 2008. That same year, Cambodia received $687 million in foreign aid from donors like the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the European Union – almost half the government’s annual budget. However, corruption and lack of accountability means very little of the money reaches its people. Cambodian Women particularly experience the brunt of economic marginalization – as they are highly vulnerable to forced trafficking for sex and labor.
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