By Jared Ferrie, Foreign Correspondent
The National (United Arab Emirate)
PHNOM PENH // They are abducted and held against their will in centres where many – some of them children – are beaten, whipped, and shocked with electric batons. These are allegations made in two recent reports about conditions in drug treatment centres in Cambodia, including one that receives funding from the United Nations’ child protection agency, Unicef.
The claims, which government officials denied, have UN agencies scrambling to come up with a cohesive response. Both UNAids and the World Health Organisation have called for all the facilities to be closed immediately, while Unicef has denied that there is abuse in Choam Chao, a youth centre to which it provided US$28,440 (Dh104,000) last year.
In late March, Unicef’s representative in Cambodia, Richard Bridle, told the Phnom Penh Post newspaper that Human Rights Watch (HRW) had made a mistake when it alleged abuse of children at Choam Chao. Mr Bridle suggested that researchers had confused Choam Chao for another centre.
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