No Progress in Cambodian Prison Facilities

Cambodia has 27 correctional institutions.

Of these just four offer on-site education and recreation for those children living with their mother's as they do time in jail.

All four of these programmes are run by NGOs not the Cambodian government.

This lack of facilities doesn't appear to faze the judges within the Cambodian court system; rather than allow pregnant women and mothers bail while they await trial, pre-trial detention, even for minor crimes, is the norm.* Diversion or bail for minor crime is most usually not an option.**

Despite the intense hardship faced by children and the pregnant in Cambodian prisons, '...hardly any steps have been taken by authorities to improve the situation...'  notes Licadho in a recent report.

*Pre-trial detention is usually a long process as the Cambodian justice system grinds along mired in corruption and incompetency. 23.3% of the Cambodian prison population are in detention awaiting their trial.

**Just three of sixty-four pregnant women in prisons monitored by Licadho were being held on something other than theft, prostitution, or drug charges.

Cambodian Kids Behind Bars (Final) Lina's Story

Lina is a Cambodian woman doing a 16-year prison stretch for a crime she claims she did not commit. She has a young daughter, Maly, who spent time in jail with her.

She shares her small cell with as many as 25 prisoners and their children at a time.

Sometimes she never leaves her cell for days, even weeks, at a time.

Food and water supplies are scant and often make the prisoners sick.

Clothing and hygiene products are not supplied to any prisoners or their children by the state. 

There was never enough food  for Lina's daughter, Maly.

Prison guards would often hit Lina's young child and the youngster often witnessed jailer violence against other prisoners.

Sometimes other prisoners would get angry with Lina's daughter and the prison guards often stole food and gifts given to prisoners by their families.

Lina concludes:

"Sometimes, like in my case, it is necessary for mothers to bring their children to live with them in

prison. I think that the government and donors needs to give more money to prisoners for food,

clothing, medical care and education. 

However, I think that where children are concerned, the

government and donors need to build a safe place for children to live inside the prison, to build a school

so that children can learn, and to give our children more food, so that some one else’s child will not cry

with hunger every night."

~http://www.licadho-cambodia.org/reports/files/116LICADHOReportPrisonMotherChild07.pdf

Cambodian Kids Behind Bars (11) Lina's Story: Good and Bad

Lina is a Cambodian woman doing a 16-year prison stretch for a crime she claims she did not commit. She has a young daughter, Maly, who spent time in jail with her.

She shares her small cell with as many as 25 prisoners and their children at a time.

Sometimes she never leaves her cell for days, even weeks, at a time.

Food and water supplies are scant and often make the prisoners sick.

Clothing and hygiene products are not supplied to any prisoners or their children by the state. 

There was never enough food  for Lina's daughter, Maly.

Prison guards would often hit Lina's young child and the youngster often witnessed jailer violence against other prisoners.

Sometimes other prisoners would get angry with Lina's daughter and the prison guards often stole food and gifts given to prisoners by their families.

Lina continues her story:

'Most of the prisoners liked my child as she was very smart and knew how to talk and be nice to the

other prisoners. She is very gentle.

The best thing about having Maly live with me in prison was that I got to live with her for a few more

years, I was able to be her mother and take care of her as best as I could. I am also happy that she was

able to learn a little bit of Khmer writing from the other prisoners.

The worse thing about having Maly live in prison was that she was treated just like a prisoner. She

was always locked up and did not have any freedom. She was never allowed to play like a regular child.

and I felt that by being here, she did not have a chance at a good future.'

Cambodian Kids Behind Bars (10) Lina's Story: Prison Visits.

Lina is a Cambodian woman doing a 16-year prison stretch for a crime she claims she did not commit. She has a young daughter, Maly who spent time in jail with her.

Cambodian Kids Behind Bars (9) Lina's Story: Prisoner Violence

Lina is a Cambodian woman doing a 16-year prison stretch for a crime she claims she did not commit. She has a young daughter, Maly, who spent time in jail with her.

Cambodian Kids Behind Bars(8) Lina's Story: Prison Guard Violence

Lina is a Cambodian woman doing a 16-year prison stretch for a crime she claims she did not commit. She has a young daughter, Maly, who spent time in jail with her.

She shares her small cell with as many as 25 prisoners and their children at a time.

Sometimes she never leaves her cell for days, even weeks, at a time.

Food and water supplies are scant and often make the prisoners sick.

Clothing and hygiene products are not supplied to any prisoners or their children by the state. There was never enough food for Lina's daughter, Maly

Lina continues:

'I have never experienced violence from the prison staff, I don’t do anything wrong, I make sure that I keep doing what I need to do to stay out of trouble. However, my child often experienced violence from the staff. 

The prison guards used to hit my child. She would play and run around with the other children living inside prison and sometimes the guards would hit her, because they said my child
disturbed them! She was hit so many times, each time I would be so scared for her in case something worse happened and I would cry. I was so angry at the guards for hitting Maly.

There is a lot of violence from the prison guards inside here. A few weeks ago there was a fight between
two women. One of the other women tried to stop the fight but when the guards came, they started beating this woman with a stick and they broke her arm. The prison doctor gave her paracetamol and nothing else…

My child also often witnessed violence from staff. She often saw the guards beating male prisoners with belts and sticks outside in the grounds.

A lot of times, the guards get drunk and beat the male prisoners for fun, my child also saw this. Also,when the guards are drunk, they often ask the prisoners to massage them, when the prisoners get tired of massaging them and stop, the guards have beaten them to keep working harder.

My child and I have also seen the guards beating the women prisoners. If we have a lot of work to do, such as cooking or cleaning, the guards will beat women if they think they are not working fast enough, to scare us all into working faster.

I don’t know of any woman who has been raped or sexually assaulted by a prison guard, I have not heard of this happening in this prison.'

~http://www.licadho-cambodia.org/reports/files/116LICADHOReportPrisonMotherChild07.pdf

For obvious reasons violence by prison officials is under-reported. Nevertheless allegations of brutal treatment and even torture are common place.

Equally obviously, being witness to violent beating can only adversely affect the development of a child.

Cambodian Kids Behind Bars (7) Lina's Story: Food

Lina is a Cambodian woman doing a 16-year prison stretch for a crime she claims she did not commit. She has a young daughter, Maly, who spent time in jail with her.

She shares her small cell with as many as 25 prisoners and their children at a time.

Sometimes she never leaves her cell for days, even weeks, at a time.

Food and water supplies are scant and often make the prisoners sick.

Clothing and hygiene products are not supplied to any prisoners or their children by the state.

Lina continues:

"It was very difficult having my child, Maly, live with me inside the prison. If I was locked up, so was she. She was rarely allowed to leave the cell even though technically, she wasn't a prisoner. 

Sometimes she was allowed to go to school with the other children living inside the prison and also with the guard’s children, however I would have to stay locked up.

There was never enough food for my child although it helped that we received extra food from an outside donor twice a month, because she was living with me. Every time my child would see the prison food, especially the black, dirty rice, she would cry. It was so sad. I could not bear to see her so sad and I wanted her to get more food to eat, so I would cook meals for the other prisoners and get a small amount of white rice for her to eat.

My child understood what it meant to live in prison because she came in here when she was younger and grew up in here. She always used to say to me “I wish that you and I can leave the prison and
never come back, that we can live together outside of here.”

I did not want Maly to live with me in prison for my entire sentence. I was so scared when my child was living with me in prison, in case something bad happened to her. I was also afraid she would not have a good future, that she would not be able to study, that she would not be able to leave the prison.

 I am so happy that now she is living in a good place where she can get food, go to school every day and that she can come and visit me every month."

~http://www.licadho-cambodia.org/reports/files/116LICADHOReportPrisonMotherChild07.pdf

Cambodian Kids Behind Bars (6) Lina's Story- Clothing

Lina is a Cambodian woman doing a 16-year prison stretch for a crime she claims she did not commit. She has a young daughter, Maly, who spent time in jail with her.

She shares her small cell with as many as 25 prisoners and their children at a time.

Sometimes she never leaves her cell for days, even weeks, at a time.

Food and water supplies are scant and often make the prisoners sick.

Lina continues:

"Since I first arrived here, more than four years ago, I have only ever been given one set of prison uniforms. 

Yesterday I wore my prison clothes and today I am washing them so now I am wearing these pajamas. I do a lot of cooking for other prisoners for no money, I only ask for a little white rice, so when prisoners are released, sometimes they leave me their clothes, like these pajamas."

~http://www.licadhocambodia.org/reports/files/116LICADHOReportPrisonMotherChild07.pdf

Cambodian prisoners receive nothing in the way of clothing or hygiene supplies; they are wholly reliant upon family or other prisoners for such things.

Children serving time behind bars with a parent receive nothing from the state, either.

Cambodian Kids Behind Bars (5) Lina's Story- Food and Water

Lina is a Cambodian woman doing a 16-year prison stretch for a crime she claims she did not commit. She has a young daughter, Maly, who spent time in jail with her.

She shares her small cell with as many as 25 prisoners and their children at a time.

Sometimes she never leaves her cell for days, even weeks, at a time.

Lina continues:

"We get food, if you can even call it that, two times a day, lunch and dinner. Sometimes breakfast is served at 10am or even as late as 11 am and we get dinner at 4pm. We don’t get any food for lunch.

For these other two meals, we usually get dirty rice - rice that is black that sometimes has insects inside it. If we are lucky, sometimes there is also a small fish. I am always hungry.

We only have access to dirty drinking water that is always black and makes me sick. When my child Maly lived here, she used to get very sick from drinking this water. If you don’t have any money to buy coal to boil your water, or money to buy bottled water, then you have to drink this dirty water."

http://www.licadho-cambodia.org/reports/files/116LICADHOReportPrisonMotherChild07.pdf

Cambodian Kids Behind Bars (4): Lina's Story-Caged All Day

Lina is a Cambodian woman doing a 16-year prison stretch for a crime she claims she did not commit. She had a young daughter, Maly, who spent time in jail with her.

She shares her small cell with as many as 25 prisoners and their children at a time.

She continues:


The prison guards are supposed to open our cell doors at 8am and we are supposed to be allowed outside for 2 hours.

I know that we are supposed to be allowed outside the cell from 8-10am and again from 3-4pm.

 What really happens is that if you do not have enough money to pay the guard, you will not be allowed outside.

It costs 2000 riel (US 50 cents) a day to go outside the cell. I am very poor and I cannot afford to pay the guards, so I am locked up and denied my time outside the cell on a regular basis.

There are many days, even weeks when I have never even left my cell…



http://www.licadho-cambodia.org/reports/files/116LICADHOReportPrisonMotherChild07.pdf

Cambodian Kids Behind Bars (3) Lina's Story-Overcrowding

Commissioned artwork used in LICADHO's latest Cambodian prisons condition illustrates the everyday life of incarcerated mother with their child.

Lina is a Cambodian woman doing a 16-year prison stretch for a crime she claims she did not commit. She had a young daughter, Maly, who spent time in jail with her.

"When I first entered the prison with Maly I was so shocked at the bad living conditions of the prison cell. Twenty-five women live in my cell and there are currently two children living in my cell, however this number changes every week.

We are each allowed three hands squared to live in, which makes sleeping difficult, as you can imagine. I sleep all squashed up leaning on my hands and arms which makes them hurt.

 I cannot sleep properly inside here, there is not enough space, there are too many people, it smells, it is hot and I think too much. I usually wake up at 4am, sometimes 5 or 6am."

~http://www.licadho-cambodia.org/reports/files/116LICADHOReportPrisonMotherChild07.pdf


 Cambodian prisons house far more prisoners than they were built for; occupancy rates are at 174% of capacity.

Cambodian Kids Behind Bars (2) Lina's Story- Baby Maly

A Cell Block in one of Cambodia's Prisons

Lina is a Cambodian woman serving a 16 year sentence in one of Cambodia's prisons. You can see here in an earlier post why, according to her, she ended up incarcerated.

Her story continues:

'When I entered the prison, I had no choice but to bring my child with me.* 

My child, Maly, was only a baby at the time. My husband had died and we didn't have any family living near us that could take care of Maly. 

Maly was too young to understand what was happening or to understand what living in prison meant, however I was very sad at the thought that my child would have to live in a prison cell and become a prisoner as well.'

~http://www.licadho-cambodia.org

Cambodia has just one female-only prison.**

Therefore some women prisoners and their children share their prison, although not their cell, with men.

Some of these men have been convicted of violent crimes against women. Others have been incarcerated for pedophilia. Many Cambodian jails fail to keep women convicts and their children apart from the men in prison common areas.

The problem is obvious...


*Children up to the age of six are allowed to live with a parent in jail should it be considered in the best interests of the child.

** Correctional Centre 2, or CC2, sits on the outskirts of Phnom Penh.

http://cambodianbeginnings.blogspot.com/2013/01/cambodian-kids-behind-bars1-linas-story.html

Cambodian Kids Behind Bars(1) Lina's Story- Why She Got Locked Up

"My name is Lina and I am a prisoner in Cambodia.

I have lived inside the prison for many years now.

Before I came into the prison I had a business, a life and a child who I love very much. Before I came into prison, I opened up a restaurant and had three men and three women working for me as waiters and cleaners.

The week before I was arrested, three policemen had come into my restaurant and asked me for money for protection. I told them no, I had just opened my business, I only had a small restaurant, I could not give them any money.



The next week I was arrested - on charges of human trafficking.

The police told me that I was trafficking the waiters and cleaners working at my restaurant, I told them
I was not involved in human trafficking, I was trying to run a small restaurant, however they told me
that a customer of mine had informed them that I sold girls through my restaurant.

I cannot remember my trial clearly – everything just happened so suddenly. At my trial, I did not
know who my lawyer was and even today I do not know who my lawyer is.

At the end of my trial the judge told me that my sentence would be six years, however, he then said
that I needed to give him some money for this sentence, and if I did not pay him this money, he would
increase my sentence.

I did not have any money to give to the judge, so when he asked me to give him $2000, I could not pay
it. He then gave me 16 years imprisonment.

I still have many years left to serve on my prison sentence."

http://www.licadho-cambodia.org/reports/files/116LICADHOReportPrisonMotherChild07.pdf

Lina’s experience is not an uncommon occurrence for Cambodia's judicial system.

LICADHO has received reports of women who are imprisoned for crimes that they did not
commit and/or given harsher sentences for being unable to pay high unofficial fees.

Similarly LICADHO has received reports that prisoners in general (including men, women
and minors) are not allowed adequate access to a competent lawyer who can explain the legal
process and their rights to a fair trial and appeal.