FOCUS: Cambodia's vote scuttles crackdown on acid attackers

Asian Political News, July 28, 2003

PHNOM PENH, July 22 Kyodo

More than 36 months ago, a sultry 17-year-old Cambodian karaoke queen broke onto news pages across Asia, not because of her breathtaking talent, but because of her brutal disfigurement, allegedly at the hands of the jealous wife of a senior government official loyal to Prime Minister Hun Sen.

Tat Marina was severely burned over 45% of her body by more than two liters of acid poured over her by a woman and five men outside a Phnom Penh restaurant.

Tat Marina survived the acid, years of medical treatment in Cambodia and Vietnam and she is now in the United States for even more reconstructive surgery.

Khuon Sophal, wife of Hun Sen henchman Svay Sitha, was charged with setting up the December 1999 assault, allegedly because she was jealous of a woman said to be her husband's attractive young mistress.

But more than three years later, the case remains unresolved.

Equally unresolved are government efforts to combat Cambodia's growing problem with acid attacks and with domestic violence in general.

Since that 1999 December, scores of other acid-attack victims, mostly female, but male too, have followed Tat Marina into Cambodia's emergency rooms, burn units and ophthalmology wards -- many victims are blinded or nearly blinded -- but a planned law to sink teeth into Cambodia's domestic violence problem languished in parliamentary limbo for months and months before finally dying on the order paper when parliament recessed for the July 27 general election.

Mu Sokhour, minister of Women's Affairs in the coalition cabinet led by Hun Sen, is trying to keep the issue before the voters during the election campaign, but most of her male colleagues see many other issues, often those that may offer something from the pork barrel for their constituents, place little emphasis on protecting Cambodia's families, from themselves.

Adding to the official indifference is the fact Mu Sokhour is from the royalist FUNCINPEC led by Prince Norodom Ranariddh, Hun Sen's extremely junior, and rival, governing coalition partner, and not from the premier's much more powerful Cambodian People's Party.

Still, Mu Sokhour, whose Law on Prevention of Domestic Violence, died on the order paper, believes she must press ahead.

''Acid attacks are serious in our society. Therefore, severe punishment of abusers must be spelled out by a new law,'' she says.

Her now-dormant 47-article draft law calls for five to 10 years in jail for domestic abusers, in addition to or instead of any punishment under the civil and penal codes.

It also defines domestic violence as ''all acts or any behavior that are contradictory to social morality, that directly or indirectly cause physical or emotional effects to any person or by abusing or luring a person to commit or not to commit any act that is contradictory to the will of the person and damages the safety, health, well being or property of any person.''

The definition, in a society where men, particularly rich men, have traditionally had nearly unsanctioned power over women, is significant because it calls for a massive change in the sort of thinking that has condoned multiple relationships for powerful men and virtually none at all, at least voluntarily, for women.

The proposed law does not, however, offer any solution to the problem that acid attacks are cheap and, far too often, seen as personal disputes where ''The Law'' has little place.

Most of the acid attacks in Cambodia have been between lovers or spouses, although the recent disfiguring of a taxi driver splashed with acid meant for a spouse has underlined the far more public harm caused by what many see as ''lovers' quarrels.''

Others worry that even if Mu Sokhour is reelected, her draft law comes back to life and it is passed by the National Assembly, the attacks will continue because the ''means'' are too easily available.

Most attacks are with battery acid, obtained almost anywhere in the country for a few cents. Even concentrated solutions of hydrochloric, nitric or sulfuric acid rarely cost more than a few dollars.

Several other Asian countries have also experienced an increase in acid attacks and several human rights advocates blame overall lack of control on acids, particularly in countries where obtaining a firearm can be prohibitively expensive, as being a big part of the problem.

Some laws, such those currently on the books in Cambodia, have strong sanctions against possession or use of firearms, explosives and other ''recognized'' weapons, but fail to place acid in the same category.

With rampant nepotism and bribery added to the legal mix in Cambodia, people such as Mu Sokhour are convinced too many in her country have discovered throwing hydrochloric acid into the face of a lover is a nearly unpunished way of inflicting massive and often continuous pain.

And those people also fear that until there is a change in Cambodian law, there is unlikely to be any change in society's virtual acceptance of acid attacks as aimed at ''stealing beauty,'' not at inflicting unspeakable suffering.