During the 16 Days Campaign and on International Human Rights Day 2022, the undersigned national and international civil society organisations, associations, and unions call upon the Royal Government of Cambodia to take specific steps to implement the recommendations in the CEDAW Committee’s 2019 Concluding Observations and further improve women’s human rights in Cambodia.

NGO-CEDAW and partner organisations are releasing the 2021 CEDAW Monitoring Report, which highlights achievements and challenges related to implementing the United Nations Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) during 2021. The report also features a progress report on steps taken to implement the recommendations contained in the CEDAW Committee’s 2019 Concluding Observations following its review of Cambodia’s implementation of the convention.

We call on the government to take the following concrete steps towards achieving the CEDAW Committee’s Concluding Observations and guaranteeing that every woman and nonbinary person in Cambodia has full enjoyment of their human rights.

1) We call for a comprehensive anti-discrimination law that guarantees a legal mechanism for enforcing women’s rights under the Constitution and CEDAW and for the repeal of all articles within existing laws that conflict with those rights. We urge the government to conduct routine gender analyses for every draft law or policy.
2) We continue to call for dedicated, long-term funding for gender mainstreaming work out of the national budget.
3) We call for significant efforts to counter the prevailing mindset that reconciliation in intimate partner violence cases is an adequate result. The government needs to take concrete action to amend and strengthen laws on domestic violence to reflect the rights of survivors to their choice of effective remedies.
4) We continue to urge the government to ratify ILO Convention No. 190 on Violence in the World of Work and to provide clear and comprehensive definitions and remedies for all forms of harassment.
5) We continue to urge the government to provide comprehensive training to all security personnel on how to interact with the public — particularly women protesters and union of Khmer Employees of NagaWorld (LRSU) strikers — in a safe, non-violent, and gender-responsive manner, and to hold personnel accused of perpetrating violence and harassment to account.
6) We urge the government to recommit resources from the national budget to ensure that women and nonbinary individuals receive proper sexual and reproductive health care, including prenatal care and campaigns to vaccinate all pregnant women and to reduce maternal deaths.

This joint statement is endorsed by:
1. Association of Domestic Workers (ADW)
2. Association to Support Vulnerable Women (ASVW)
3. Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR)
4. Cambodian Food and Service Workers’ Federation (CFSWF)
5. Cambodia Labor Confederation (CLC)
6. Cambodian Health and Education for Community (CHEC)
7. Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (LICADHO)
8. Committee for Free and Fair Election in Cambodia (COMFREL)
9. Gender and Development for Cambodia (GADC)
10. Independent Democracy of Informal Economy Association (IDEA)
11. Klahaan Organization (Klahaan)
12. Neutral and Impartial Committee for Free and Fair Elections in Cambodia (NICFEC)
13. The Cambodian NGO Committee on CEDAW (NGO-CEDAW)
14. Reproductive Health Association of Cambodia (RHAC)
15. Center for Alliance of Labor and Human Rights (CENTRAL)
16. Cambodian Human Rights and Development Association (ADHOC)
17. Women's Media Centre (WMC)

For more information, please contact:
▪ Chim Channeang, General Secretary of NGO-CEDAW, 012 668 853
▪ Bunn Rachana, Co-Founder and Executive Director of Klahaan, 089 476 146

PDF: Download full statement in English - Download full statement in Khmer
MP3: Listen to audio version in Khmer