On the eve of the ACSC and the APF, the 1st Cambodian Women's Forum (CWF) gathered over 120 Cambodian NGOs who advocate for Women's and Children's Rights

On 21-22 March, 2012, SILAKA hosted the first Cambodian Women’s Forum with the support and collaboration with regional and international donor organizations including Oxfam Great Britain (Oxfam-GB), Life With Dignity (LWD), United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UNWOMEN), and Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD).

As the residing chairman and the host of the ASEAN Summit,  it is essential to harness the opportune moment to collectively voice our concerns regarding the pertinent issues plaguing Cambodia and the Cambodian people to insure that our issues are addressed during the upcoming ASEAN Intergovernmental Meetings leading up to the ASEAN Summit later in 2012. 

Participants represented various network of National Non-governmental Organizations whose efforts to promote and advocate for the protection and promotion of women and children’s rights. The forum was attended by over 120 participants from different Cambodian NGOs, and it was held for two days focusing on different topics which were previously identified and strategize during a plenary session on 12 March, 2012 lead by Mrs. Thida Khus, SILAKA Executive Director and the National Focal for Cambodian Women’s Caucus (CWC). 

 The forum objective set out to collect concerns, problems, recommendations, and suggestions of affected and vulnerable women from Cambodia to put in the joint statement to be presented during the upcoming ASEAN Civil Society Conference (ACSC)/ASEAN Peoples’ Forum (APF) will be held in Phnom Penh, on March 29-31, 2012.
 

Related Links

Cambodian Women's Forum Participant List                                                            PDF file click here

Cambodian Women’s Forum (CWF) Joint Statement 20-21 Mar 2012- Khmer       PDF file click here

Cambodian Women’s Forum (CWF) Joint Statement 20-21 Mar 2012- English      PDF file click here

Cambodian Women Skeptical of ASEAN

Participants at the Cambodian Women's Forum by Meng Kimlong

‘”Cambodian women have the most to lose from the planned 2015 ASEAN integration, a coalition of more than 100 Cambodian women said yesterday at the Cambodian Women Forum.’”

By Tep Nimol

Thursday, 22 March 2012

Phnom Penh Post

 Workshop participants listen to speakers at the Cambodian Women Forum yesterday afternoon. Women have the most to lose from ASEAN integration, the forum says. Because Cambodian women are so poorly educated, when the job market opens up, competition from other countries like Thailand or Malaysia will adversely affect the unemployment rate of Cambodian women, attendees said.

“The ASEAN integration in 2015 will badly affect Cambodian women, particularly in such areas as economics, industry, unemployment and external labor migration,” Thida Khus, Executive Director of SILAKA, said.

“This is because of how poorly educated women are.”

The Cambodian Women Forum will be calling on ASEAN to reconsider the current integration plan for 2015.

Thida Khus said, ‘”The Cambodian government should raise questions with ASEAN about how this integration will affect competition in the job market between the women in other ASEAN countries.’”

The forum also discussed labor issues and said that garment workers, karaoke parlour employees and domestic workers are the most abused, underprivileged women in Cambodia.

Soun Sokunthea, a garment worker in Phnom Penh, said worker representatives also intend to send a complaint to ASEAN about the abuse, ill health and low wages of workers making high-priced garments.

Tun Sreyphea, 23, a karaoke worker, said that problems in her industry were common across ASEAN.

Cambodian Women's Caucus Statement to AICHR on AHRD

Cambodia Women Caucus Statement on AHRD

Women’s Rights are ASEAN Human’s Rights

In solidarity with ASEAN Women, we ask that the ASEAN Ministerial whom going to meet in Phnom Penh in a couple a days, to ensure that the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration (AHRD) is shaped by a process founded in transparency, inclusiveness and accountability to the 600 million ASEAN peoples, with the aim to strengthen institutional understanding and capacity of states to implement its human rights obligations.

We recognized the effort of ASEAN in conducting the process with limited consultation with Civil Society Organization at the national and regional level, but however, only Malaysia, Thailand, Philippines, Indonesia, and Cambodia have conducted national consultation. The Consultation conducted only on key principles of the AHRD, but didn’t release the first draft of AHRD to participants for review and comments.

The Cambodian Women Caucus, as a member of Southeast Asian Women Caucus on ASEAN, we hope that this process would be the step towards engaging with various communities. For the AHRD to be relevant to its people both men, women, and children; it must go further in the processes to be informed by the realities on the ground, which can be provided only with the feedback from practitioners, with genuine interest and effective mechanisms to engage grassroots communities included unions in meaningful dialogues, and offer all of us the sense of ownership and pride ASEAN.

But the previous consultations  lacks  genuine consultation , we are concerned that the AHRD will have the language and substance below the international human rights standards. The AHRD must refer to the treaties, legally binding documents, and Universal Declaration on Human Rights especially should refer to the Convention on Elimination of all Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) and the Convention on the Rights of the Child (CRC).

We urge the ASEAN member states to fully incorporate state obligations to the international human rights treaties and agreed commitments of the various rights-based global policy documents in shaping the spirit and text of the AHRD. The AHRD must assure that the important gains and struggles of women’s movements around:

1.      the rights to bodily integrity;

2.      the sexual reproductive health and rights;

3.      the sexual orientation and gender identity;

4.      the rights in marriage and family life; and

5.      Freedom of movement and citizenship especially in a region. 

If these women rights are not guaranteed, women and girls are bearing dangerous consequences. The ASEAN region   must inspire to be model for the rest of the world on women’s human rights. As part of the bigger women’s movements, we forge on to keep these from being overlooked or diluted. As AHRD will set the tone for other human rights documents, including an ASEAN Convention on Women, for instance, this document are fundamental to the people in the region. 

We reiterate that women’s rights are ASEAN human’s rights!

This is the only way forward for ASEAN to shape an enabling environment for people-centered sustainable development, economic growth, peace and security!

Women’s Caucus Submission on the AHRD in Khmer Language

On March 1 2012, the Cambodian Women Caucus (CWC) through SILAKA Organization and Positive Change for Cambodia were contracted by Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD) to implement activities in correlation with the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration (AHRD) Campaigning Project.

Subsequently, a localized version of the Women’s Caucus submission on the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration is now available in the Khmer Language. The submission was translated by SILAKA. The original English version was submitted to AICHR on 21 October 2012, as a result of a series of consultations.

PDF file below:

English Version PDF file click here

Khmer Version PDF file click here (Under Construction)

More information of Southeast Asia Women's Caucus Visit there page at: SEA Women's Caucus Official Website

Localised AHRD Campaign Material available in Khmer

On 21 October 2011, the Southeast Asia Women’s Caucus on ASEAN made a submission on the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration (AHRD with the goal of advancing women’s human rights in the first

Rights Human Declaration in ASEAN and the Asia Pacific region.

In the process of gaining support for this submission, the Women’s Caucus (WC) embarked on a     serious of national and regional campaigns which would essentially promote the need to integrate the perspective of women’s human rights into the AHRD draft. The activities required to implement the campaign included translations of the submissions into the national language, publication of the case studies showcasing the stories of ASEAN women, workshops on AHRD, cost effective budget sensitive campaign materials, meetings with ASEAN officials and/or other international missions, videos production, road tours, media briefings, and key messages diffusion via video and radio plugs.

Subsequently, on March 1 2012, the Cambodian Women Caucus (CWC) through SILAKA Organization and Positive Change for Cambodia were contracted by Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development (APWLD) to implement activities in correlation with the ASEAN Human Rights Declaration (AHRD) Campaigning Project.

The action-oriented goal were set to provide a real, measurable ways to support a specific objective for the project implementation activities which include: to spread awareness on the Women’s Caucus’s submission on the AHRD and to translate and produce campaign material that will reach out to the masses with an ultimate aim of increasing visibility and citizen’s overall knowledge base on ASEAN and AHRD.

Outputs for the project included the translation of the submission of WC Submission on AHRD in Khmer and produce cost effective budget sensitive campaign material that will be utilized during the Women’s Caucus Campaign within the local context.

Campaign Material available: 
AHRD Poster in Khmer (A2), PDF file here