3,000 RIELS | VOLUME 20, No.

137
TUESDAY, JULY 20, 2010 CAMBODIA’S NEWSPAPER OF RECORD WWW.PHNOMPENHPOST.COM

Angkor Air set for big take-off

Nguon Sovan Aviation, the organisation in charge Europe. He declined to reveal fi- with Japan comes online,” Thong to encourage more passengers to
of the Cambodian side of CAA, said nancing details, saying this was Khon said. use it,” he said. “We also see that

T
HE Kingdom’s national
airline, Cambodia Angkor
Air is set to buy two new
planes in order to expand
its flight network to South Korea,
China and Japan.
The carrier, set up last July in a
joint venture between the Cam-
bodian government and Vietnam
Airlines, plans to purchase two 168-
seat Airbus 321s – which accord-
ing to a price list compiled by the
French maker cost about US$95.5
million each.
Soy Sokhan, undersecretary of
state at the State Secretariat of Civil
yesterday that the purchases were
planned for “late 2010 or early 2011”.
“The first destinations to fly to are
South Korea, China and Japan, as soon
as the new aircraft come,” he said.
The new aircraft will expand CAA’s
fleet from three aircraft to five.
The company, set up with an initial
investment of US$100 million under
a 30-year agreement, now operates
two ATR-72 aircraft and an Airbus
321 in 16 daily flights serving Siem
Reap, Phnom Penh and Vietnam’s
Ho Chi Minh City.
Soy Sokhan said the planes would
be brought to Cambodia from
confidential.
Officials and analysts alike said
the move could provide a boost to
Cambodia’s economy and tourism
sector.
Minister of Tourism Thong Khon
said: “We are really eager to see our
national carrier fly to those coun-
tries.” He added that there were no
direct flights operating between
the Kingdom and Japan, and that
South Korea and China are the lead-
ing countries in terms of both visi-
tor arrivals and investment in the
Kingdom.
“It’s very good if the direct flight
However, both the minister and the
private sector had words of advice for
CAA as it expands. Thong Khon said
the company should consider launch-
ing regular flights to Sihanoukville
as soon as possible in a bid to attract
tourists to Cambodia’s coast.
President of World Express Tours
and Travel Ho Vandy, who is also
co-chairman of the government-
private sector forum on tourism,
emphasised that CAA must be
competitive.
“On behalf of the tourism private
sector, we’d like to suggest that the
CAA should set competitive prices
service and hospitality on board is
still limited. There should be an im-
provement, and flight attendants’
uniforms should reflect Khmer na-
tional identification.”
But CAA remains confident of its
market appeal, despite modest ini-
tial profits.
Soy Sokhan said: “CAA’s popular-
ity is increasing day by day. For high
season, which starts in October, we
expect that more tourists will fly
with CAA.”
He said CAA had turned a profit
since it began operations last year,
but that it remained “little”.

Dire rights report:

Sex workers face
rape and beatings
Daniel Pordes and Chhay Channyda
HUMAN Rights Watch has accused
the Cambodian government of sub-
jecting sex workers to rape and severe
beatings at the hands of law-enforce-
ment officials at controversial deten-
tion centres.
In a report scheduled for release
today, the United States-based watch-
dog claims to chronicle abuses faced by
sex workers rounded up by police and
sent to the facilities, which have previ-
ously drawn its criticism.
The facilities, administered by the
Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans and
Youth Rehabilitation, are Prey Speu,
located in Dangkor district’s Choam
Chao commune, and Koh Kor, located
on an island in the Bassac River.
The report, titled Off the Streets: Arbi-
trary Detention and Other Abuses
against SexWorkers in Cambodia, draws
from more than 90 interviews during
the course of the past year. The physical
abuse it describes allegedly took place
between 2007 and 2009.
In several instances, sex workers
accused police officers of rape.
Others said police punched them or
beat them with sticks, wooden handles
and electric batons.
“One of the police officers pointed his
gun at my head and pulled the trigger,
but the bullet did not fire,” says Neary,
a transgendered sex worker quoted in
the report.
Describing an incident that allegedly
took place in April 2009 in Daun Penh
district, Neary says: “They kicked my
neck, my waist and hit my head and my
body with a broomstick. It lasted about
half an hour.”
Other interviewees said conditions at
the centres were decrepit, describing
“gross overcrowding and lack of ade-
quate food, clean drinking water, and
medical care”.
The report calls for the centres to be
closed and for arbitrary arrest and
detention to end. It says past abuse
allegations should be investigated.
Cambodia has long faced criticism for
its use of detention centres, where mar-
ginalised groups like sex workers, beg-
gars and drug users are sent after police
street sweeps.
Elaine Pearson, acting Asia director at
Human Rights Watch, said yesterday
that long-standing problems had not
been addressed, and that police and
other officials responsible for them were
not being held to account.
“This report is an attempt to push the
government to investigate the accounts
of abuse,” she said.
Naly Pilorge, executive director of the
rights group Licadho, said her group
had conducted similar inquiries. She
also believes the mistreatment of sex
workers is ongoing.
“These social affairs centres should
be closed. The conditions are terrible,
and the violence and levels of abuse
suffered by some of the most vulnerable
members of society is high,” she said
Officials, however, questioned the
report’s findings.
They kicked my neck, my waist
and hit my head and my body with
a broomstick. It lasted about half
an hour.
Chou Bun Eng, secretary of state at
the Ministry of Interior, said the govern-
ment was quick to respond after abuse
allegations at Prey Speu and Koh Kor
surfaced in 2008.
I am wondering if the new report just
repeated old issues,” she said.
“We do not want Human RightsWatch
to write the same things again and
again.”
The Koh Kor centre is believed to have
been closed. But the report says at least
eight sex workers have been sent to Prey
Speu since May.
A woman identified by HRW as Srey
Thea, 22, said she was held there in June.
She described overcrowded, unclean
rooms, and said she was allowed to leave
only to go to the toilet or bathe in dirty
pond water.
RELATED REPORT > 4 A sex worker pulls up her stocking in a massage parlour in Tuol Kork district yesterday. SOVAN PHILONG
4 THE PHNOM PENH POST JULY 20, 2010

News
Displaced vendors

Sex-worker scandal widens Evictions at

market spur
Daniel Pordes
and Chhay Channyda
lected from sites including Wat
Phnom.
criticism
R
“Their jobs affect society and atanakkiri provincial

N
EW allegations
from Human Rights
Watch of abuses at
controversial de-
tention centres echo similar
claims made by rights groups
two years ago, sparking debate
about whether authorities
have done enough in recent
years to address the issue.
In 2008, rights groups said
abuse was rampant at the
same two rehabilitation cen-
tres criticised in a report set to
be released today.
At the Koh Kor centre, Li-
cadho monitors documented
conditions akin to those at a
“prison” camp during visits in
June 2008. They also reported
witnessing at least two deaths.
Similar conditions were re-
ported at Prey Speu, where
detainees were illegally con-
fined and subjected to a range
of abuses by staffers, including
extortion, beatings and rape,
Licadho said.
Representatives of the United
Nations human rights agency
visited both centres and called
the conditions “appalling”.
Since then, authorities have
reportedly shut down the Koh
Kor facility and reduced the
number of people held at Prey
Speu.
‘A long-term problem’
Christophe Peschoux, coun-
try representative for the UN
Prostitutes wait for customers near Wat Phnom in March of last year. SOVAN PHILONG
human rights agency, said
that while working in con-
junction with the Ministry
of Social Affairs for the last
two years he had seen some
improvements.
“Following our repeated in-
tervention, we have ensured
people are only voluntarily at
these centres, and that staff
from the Ministry of Social Af-
fairs are no longer participat-
ing in street sweeps,” he said.
But Peschoux said authorities
have refused to investigate past
abuse allegations.
“The ministry is ignoring and
rejecting our recommenda-
tions into investigating the al-
legations of abuse,” he said.
“This is a long-term problem
that will not go away by ignor-
ing it.”
Within the next 10 days, a pro-
posal written by various NGOs
and UN agencies will be given
to the Ministry of Social Affairs
as part of an effort to promote
discussion of the problem, Pe-
schoux said.
In the meantime, however,
law enforcement bodies appear
to be continuing with street
sweeps in an attempt to dis-
place sex workers and beautify
tourist sites.
Sok Penhvuth, deputy gover-
nor of Daun Penh district, said
more than 100 people in the last
month had been sent to Social
Affairs centres. Half of them,
he said, were sex workers col-
sacred sites, and we do not want
them to work as sex workers, so
we send them to the vocational
centres,” he said, and pledged
to continue the crackdowns.
But Chan Dina, head of the
Cambodian Prostitutes’ Union,
which represents about 300 sex
workers, said the Social Affairs
centres do far more harm than
good.
“Not only do we not receive
vocational training like the au-
thorities say, but the detention
centres affect those sex workers
who suffer from HIV/AIDS and
are prevented from receiving
their medicine,” she said.
The HRW report also takes
aim at the Law on the Suppres-
sion of Human Trafficking and
Sexual Exploitation, which the
government approved in 2008.
Advocates for sex workers say
the law has given authorities an
excuse to crack down.
“The law means that sex
workers have no choice in the
way they live,” Chan Dina said.
“She is doing her job for finan-
cial reasons, and she is often
shouldering the burden of her
entire family.”
The HRW report recommends
that parts of the law be repealed,
saying it effectively criminalises
sex work and causes “police ha-
rassment, violence and extor-
tion of bribes from sex workers,
trafficked persons and children
in sex work”.
officials yesterday
deployed police to
demolish stalls outside a
newly renovated market, in a
move that drew criticism from
affected vendors and rights
groups.
Em Vun, the police chief in
Banlung town, said yesterday’s
eviction deadline had been an-
nounced last month, and that
the operation had unfolded
without violence. “We just take
apart the stalls and umbrellas
to inform them that we will
not allow them to do business
along the sidewalk anymore,”
he said.
The Heng Dara Company
renovated the market and
reopened it on May 7. Vendor
representative Heng Vin said
none of the vendors previously
operating just outside the
market had been offered new
stalls. Sa Leang, a represen-
tative of the company, said the
area would likely be paved.
Chhay Thy, a provincial inves-
tigator for the rights group Ad-
hoc, said the affected vendors
had been stationed outside the
market for “many years”, and
that officials should not have
dismantled the stalls without
marking off a relocation site.
“The authorities did dismantle
the stalls in an orderly manner,
but there is no solution for the
vendors,” he said. TEP NIMOL

INVITATION FOR BIDS

Country: Cambodia
Project: Centralised National Clearing and Settlement System
Loan Number: 2585-CAM(SF), Contract No.: NBC CSS-1
Deadline for Bids: 15:00 hours local Cambodian time, Friday 10th September 2010
The Royal Government of Cambodia has received a loan from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) towards
the cost of the Financial Sector Programme II and it is intended that part of the proceeds of this loan will be
applied to eligible payments under the contract for the Design-Build and Commissioning of a Centralised
National Clearing and Settlement System capable of processing multiple types of electronic payment
instruments on a nationwide same-day basis.

The National Bank of Cambodia (“the Employer”) invites sealed bids from eligible bidders for each
Lot. The summary description, summary qualifications and Bid Security for each Lot are:
Lot 1: Development of Custom Software and related Project Management Services
Qualifications: 5 years experience, 3 successful projects, 4 specific experts.
Bid Security: USD15,000
Lot 2: Supply, Installation and Commissioning of Hardware, Packaged and Utility Software,
Database and related Project Management Services
Qualifications: 3 years experience, 1 installation in South East Asia, 4 specific experts.
Bid Security: USD30,000
Detailed qualification criteria are included in the Bidding Documents and International Competitive
Bidding will be conducted in accordance with ADB’s Single Stage Two Envelope Bidding
Procedure. Bidders may bid for one or both Lots.
Interested Bidders may obtain further information from, and inspect the bidding documents, at:

National Bank of Cambodia

22-24 Norodom Boulevard
P.O Box 25
Phnom Penh 12202 Fax: 855 23 428 105
CAMBODIA
Attention: Mr Huy Navy, Deputy Director General, Email: huynavy@online.com.kh
Or Ms Say Sam Ath: Deputy Director, Payment Policy Unit, Email: ppu@nbc.org.kh

To purchase the Bidding Document in English, interested Bidders should write or send an email to
the above address requesting the Bidding Document, and pay a non-refundable fee of USD120 for
document delivery at the National Bank of Cambodia or a non-refundable fee of USD150 for
delivery by courier from the National Bank of Cambodia. Payment may be made by cash, certified
check or direct deposit to:
Bank Name: National Bank of Cambodia
Account Name: Bid Doc Fees CH Project
Account Number: 359101063
SWIFT Code: NCAMKHPP
Technical Proposal will be opened immediately after the deadline for submission in the presence of
bidders’ representatives who choose to attend. Late Bids will be rejected.
The price proposals will be opened in the presence of the bidder’s representatives who choose to
attend at a later time and date and address to be advised.
In the evaluation of bids, the Employer will not grant a margin of domestic preference.