Women in Cambodia : Looking at the Status of Cambodian Females through HDR Statistics

Megan McAdams



The Kingdom of Cambodia displays the incredible achievements but also the hateful atrocities of which humankind is capable. On the one hand, the country showcases the magnificent architectural marvel, Angkor Wat, one of the ancient wonders of the world. However, Cambodia also became the site of horrific crimes against humanity under the Maoist Khmer Rouge regime. Just as the country itself showcases conflicting images, expectations surrounding Cambodian women are similarly bifurcated. While Khmer (the term used to describe Cambodian citizens) girls are taught to be shy, obedient, and acquiescent, they are also expected to be strong, competent, and expressive (Hill and Ly 2004). To situate the discussion to follow historically, this paper presents a description of Cambodia ’s recent past. After giving this background, I analyze statistics from the United Nations’ Human Development Report to investigate the experience of women in Cambodia .

The Kingdom of Cambodia

The Kingdom of Cambodia is located in Southeast Asia and home to about 14 million people. Cambodia gained independence and became a constitutional monarchy in 1953 under Prince Norodom Sihanouk (Duggan 1997). In 1970, Prime Minister General Lon Nol took advantage of Sihanouk’s absence to stage a military coup. Following this political move, the country plunged into civil war for the next five years (Duggan 1997). The Khmer Rouge, a Maoist regime, took control of the country in 1975. This group of rural rebels, led by the tyrannical Pol Pot, forced urban dwellers to leave their homes behind for the countryside in an attempt to purge Cambodia of its corrupting Western ways (Hill and Ly 2004). Khmer Rouge soldiers rolled through the country killing or imprisoning anyone with an education who might threaten their regime. The Khmer Rouge directly, or indirectly through starvation and unsanitary conditions, caused the deaths of about 2 million men, women, and children (DCCam). The Documentation Center of Cambodia provides a wealth of information on the genocide including: a history of the Khmer Rouge, updates on the legal proceedings, genocide education, and survivor stories (www.dccam.org).

The Khmer Rouge’s violent regime finally came to an end in 1979 after a successful campaign led by the Vietnamese-backed socialist government (Hill and Ly 2004). This victory, however, failed to bring stability to the region as the country plunged, yet again, into civil war. Scholarship regarding Cambodia tends to focus on the genocide rather than more recent events (Duggan 1997; Ayres 2000). In 1991, through the Paris Peace Accords, the United Nations gave the first documented recognition of Cambodia in the international sphere (Hilly and Ly 2004). With the support of the UN, Cambodia held its first national elections between the Cambodia People’s Party and FUNCINPEC, supporters of the royal family, in 1993. Following the United Nations’ recognition of the country, development assistance and the presence of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) has increased significantly (Hill and Ly 2004). Currently, these organizations are working to address the many years of instability and past injustices and give Cambodians a brighter future.

Cambodia and Development

Given this brief introduction to Cambodia ’s recent past, this paper uses available statistics from the United Nation’s Human Development Report (HDR). To understand these statistics, I present information about Cambodia ’s neighboring Southeast Asian countries: Thailand , Burma (officially known as Myanmar ), and the Lao People’s Republic (commonly known as Laos ). First, this paper looks at these countries’ demographics in terms of development indicators. After presenting this general information, I examine the status of women in Cambodia in comparison to these other nations on a variety of economic, social, political, and educational indicators. (For more information regarding the calculation of these indicators and others please see the UN’s HDR website at http://hdr.undp.org.)

Examining Cambodia ’s level of development in terms of its Human Development Index (HDI), percentage of population living below $2 a day, population under 15 years of age, electrification rate, life expectancy, and refugees fleeing the country paints a dire picture. A complete summary of these statistics is presented in Table 1. First, the HDI measures “three basic dimensions of human development: a long and healthy life, knowledge and a decent standard of living” (HDR). Cambodia ’s HDI of 0.6 places this country within the UN’s loose definition of a “medium developed” nation. Neighboring Thailand falls into the same category despite a significantly higher HDI of 0.78. Burma (HDI = 0.58) ranks slightly below Cambodia while Laos (HDI = 0.6) falls slightly above. Globally, Cambodia ranks in the bottom quarter of the UN’s recognized nations (HDI ranking = 131).

Other statistics further illuminate the level of development within Southeast Asia and the Kingdom of Cambodia . More than three quarters of Khmer people lives on less than $2 a day. In contrast, only one quarter of Thailand ’s population clings to survival in this way. Of these countries, Cambodia is home to the youngest population with two of every five Khmer citizens under the age of 15. In both Burma and Thailand , the population is much older with only one in every five Thai or Burmese citizens being children. The youth of the Cambodian population puts a lot of strain on family relationships and could also account for the large number of children on the streets of the capital city of Phnom Penh and the growing sex trade involving minors (Hill and Ly 2004).

The access of a country’s citizens to electricity also demonstrates a nation’s level of development. Compared to Thailand where nearly all Thai citizens have access to electrical power, only 20 percent of Cambodians have electricity. With almost 19.7 percent of the population residing in urban areas, this statistic indicates that the countryside has very limited access to electricity. Nearby, Burma has a strikingly lower electrification rate of only about 11 percent. This darkness in the rural areas could preclude important activities like schoolwork for children and also enable more harmful acts to be carried out against women in the shadows.

A country’s life expectancy points to the nation’s level of development in terms of healthcare. Cambodians born today have a life expectancy of only 58 years compared to Thai citizens expectancy of 69 years. Burma and Laos both have higher life expectancies than Cambodia which indicates the need for an improved healthcare system in the country.

The number of individuals seeking asylum for political, social, or economic reasons points to instability within a country. Due to the recent situation in Burma this country has the highest number, about 203,000, of people fleeing the country. Laos has the second highest incidence of asylum seekers with about 26,000 refugees. Cambodia , however, still has about 18,000 people fleeing the situation, most likely bound for neighboring Thailand or the United States . Adding further to Cambodia ’s refugee situation is the country’s history of genocide. After the Khmer Rouge’s devastation, countries like Thailand , the United States , and Canada opened their border to take in survivors of the genocide. As a result, Cambodians leaving the country may also be trying to reconnect with family who previously emigrated. Largely as a result of the country’s less fortunate neighbors, Thailand accepted about 133,000 refugees in 2004. In comparison, the United States became the new home of 844,000 individuals seeking asylum. This general analysis of some of Cambodia ’s demographics thus completed, I focus on the status of Cambodia women.

Cambodian Women

I examine HDR indicators to illustrate the status of Cambodian women, including: the Gender Empowerment Measure (GEM) and economic, social, educational, political and material resources. According to the HDR website, the GEM “is a composite indicator that captures gender inequality in three key areas: the extent of women's political participation and decision-making, economic participation and decision making-power and the power exerted by women over economic resources” (HDR). Cambodia has a lower value (GEM = 0.38) than neighboring Thailand (GEM = .47). These GEM values are significantly lower than that of the United States (GEM = 0.76). To better capture the experience of Cambodian women, more indicators are taken into account and compared to neighboring countries.

In the employment sector, Cambodian women appear to be important participants in economic activity and earn a reasonable salary in comparison to men. Table 2 shows that women’s economic activity is nearly 93 percent of men’s participation. This high rate could be due to the driving force of poverty. Since such a high percentage of the population lives below $2 a day, all able-bodied women would be put to work to keep their family alive. Furthermore, much of this work is occurring in the agricultural sector. In neighboring Thailand , only 81 percent of the female population is working in comparison with the male employment. This finding points to the lack of economic necessity in the country and also the shift away from agricultural work towards more of a service industry. The United States has a comparable female economic activity rate to that of Thailand further illustrating the effect of a decreased economic need on a subsequent decrease in women’s work. Compared to both Thai and American women, Cambodian females make almost three quarters of what men earn in the country. In Thailand and the U.S. , women’s income makes up a smaller share of the overall household earning.

Socially, a woman’s use of contraceptives points to the ability of these individuals to control when to have children and how large her family will be. This indicator thus provides an indication of both the amount of knowledge regarding sexual behavior, the influence of Western family planning practices, and the degree to which women have control over their bodies (Kulig 1988). Only about one quarter of married Cambodian women of childbearing years use contraception. Both Burma and Laos report comparable percentages. This statistic points to a combination of the lack of knowledge regarding sexual behavior, the lack of awareness of Western family planning practices, and Cambodian women’s reliance on traditional methods to prevent conception (Kulig 1988). Furthermore, this data demonstrates the lack of control women in Cambodia have other their own bodies. Women who become pregnant often must give up any hope of pursuing higher education or gaining employment outside the household sphere. In comparison, the vast majority of Thai women, about 80 percent, use condoms. This high level of contraceptive use also points to the impact of the sex industry and the response to the threat of HIV in Thailand .

Both Thailand and Cambodia have become attractive not only for natural wonders but also the growing sex tourism industry (Biemann 2002). The unsafe conditions in the brothels and on the streets have led to an HIV/AIDS epidemic that spread from heterosexual men, to their wives at home, and finally their unborn, innocent children (Ayres 2000). As a result, NGOs in Thailand have worked to educate prostitutes and the rest of the population about safe sex and family planning strategies. While these initiatives have been successful among Thai women, more work must be done to educate Khmer women and their partners about condoms and other forms of contraceptives.

Education is fundamental to the empowerment of women in developing nations. The adult literacy ratio is one way to compare women’s education to that of them men in each country. A lower score indicates women are much less likely to be literate than male citizens. Cambodia ’s adult literacy ratio of 0.76 demonstrates that men have the most access to education of the countries surveyed. As following statistics support, Cambodian women do not have as many opportunities to pursue an education.

This trend is further supported by looking at female enrolment at the secondary and tertiary levels of education. Of its neighboring countries, Cambodia has the least number of women pursuing a high school or college education. Only one quarter of Cambodian high school students are women. Compared to other countries, 40 percent of women in Laos and Burma have the opportunity to attend high school. Thailand , of the countries surveyed, has the highest rate of female students. Nearly three quarters of Thai girls pursue a high school degree. In all the countries with available data, women represent a far smaller proportion of college and university students. That being said, nearly one half of Thai women are pursuing a college degree. In Cambodia , only 2 percent of the female population has access to higher education. From the stance of an American citizen, one who often takes her education for granted, this statistic is staggering.

This paper now focuses on Cambodia ’s material resources, in the population’s access to water, and women’s political voice within the country. Historically, women’s roles as subsistence farmers and mothers tie them intricately to the land (Fedirici 2004). Scholarly work also suggests that women, in particular, are more affected by the location of a water source and the quality of that water because they are in charge of providing safe water to their families and caring for their children during sickness (e.g. Fuentes et al. 2006a; Fuentes et al. 2006b; Schneiderman and Reddock 2004). Therefore, the more access a woman has to an improved water source, the more freedom she has to attend school and pursue employment. Of the Southeast Asian countries in this study, Cambodia has the lowest access to safe water, compared to neighboring Thai citizens who all have such access. As a result, when a polluted water pump sickens children, women must give up their opportunities elsewhere to nurse them back to health. Therefore, this finding could, in part, explain the lack of women able to pursue higher education.

Calls for women’s rights are most effective coming from within the government. However, in Cambodia , as in many developing nations, women have a very limited political voice. Hill and Ly (2004) note that the Cambodian constitution outlines certain guidelines for women’s rights. However, political leaders have proven inactive on issues of domestic violence, rape, and the sex tourism industry (Hill and Ly 2004). With 93 percent of Cambodia ’s government being male, women lack the political voice within the government to change their situation effectively. In the United States , a country valuing equality above all else, only 14 percent of government officials are female. NGOs in Cambodia focused on women’s rights are working to find a political voice but they are meeting resistance from the present male-dominated regime (Hill and Ly 2004).

Khmer Women and Development

Cambodia’s status as a “medium developed” country creates a dire situation for women. For the global capitalist machine to be successful, it must locate the cheapest labor force possible. Companies draw on the fact that women and children in developing nations work for the least amount of money. As a result of this trend, Cambodia , a country where people fight to survive on less that $2 a day, has become a prime location for these transnational companies (Duggan 1997). Blumberg (1995) focuses on the “gendered nature of economic transformation” in developing countries (1). She argues that “women’s control of economic resources, especially income, relative to men is the single most important” indicator of gender equality (3). The key issue for Blumberg is that women, rather than their husbands, must be in control of their economic capital. She continues to say that this type of control then increases women’s self-confidence, their input in household decisions, and also their control over “life options” like divorce and marriage (1995: 5). Therefore, while Cambodian women do make a large part of the family income, this finding does not necessarily translate to increased autonomy for these women.

Cambodian women, unwittingly or explicitly, have become part of the “patriarchal bargain” (Blumberg 1995, 47). Blumberg (1995) uses this term to describe how women choose subordination over freedom so that the men will protect and care for them. For example, Cambodian women often defer to men regarding economic and family planning issues (Kulig 1988). Furthermore, the assumption that men must be the primary providers of income underlies this patriarchal bargain. In Cambodia , as in other developing countries, families without a male present are often the poorest households (Chow and Berheide 1994). This deference to male authority and lack of household income also has implications in the growing sex trade industry in the country (Biemann 2002).

While the sex trade’s presence in Cambodia is almost taken for granted, levels of prostitution and human trafficking are on the rise (Hill and Ly 2004). This industry’s prevalence comes from the driving force of poverty. Fathers, forced by dire economic necessity, give their daughters away in return for false assurances of their safety (Hill and Ly 2004). This industry’s impact is being felt not only by these girls’ parents but also the men, women, and children finding out they are HIV positive. Hill and Ly (2004) write that there are almost 20 new HIV infections per day in Cambodia . With nearly 97 percent of these infections through heterosexual intercourse, more women and unborn children are becoming exposed to the epidemic (Hill and Ly 2004). Without sufficient anti-retrovirals, parents pass away, leaving young children behind. The HIV/AIDS epidemic could be one factor in the large proportion of Cambodia ’s population under 15 years of age. Work must be done to provide these women with information regarding the disease.

Furthermore, the sex tourism industry speaks to the larger situation in the country. Women’s commercialization of their bodies speaks to a lack of economic alternatives. This analysis has demonstrated that despite assurances from the United Nations, much work still must be done in Cambodia . In terms of Khmer women, their status in regards empowerment, economic, social, educational, material, and political factors indicates that development in Cambodia must include women.



TABLES

Table 1. HDR Indicators in the United States , Thailand , Cambodia , Laos , and Burma

Table 2. Gender Empowerment and Economic, Social, and Political Indicators in the United States , Thailand , Cambodia , Laos and Burma



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