A U.S.-based rights group has called for the immediate closure of Cambodia’s eight drug detention centers, saying they are holding inmates illegally and subjecting them to abuse, including torture, sexual violence, and forced labor.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the call was based on its extensive study of the centers located in Battambang, Banteay Meanchey, Siem Reap, and Koh Kong provinces, as well as in the capital, Phnom Penh, and based on interviews with 33 former inmates. It said that along with drug users, authorities had also locked up homeless people in the centers, as well as beggars, street children, sex workers, and people with disabilities.
The centers, which the government claims were built for treating drug dependency, are run by the Cambodian military, gendarmerie, police, Social Affairs Ministry, and municipal authorities, the rights group said.
The New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said the call was based on its extensive study of the centers located in Battambang, Banteay Meanchey, Siem Reap, and Koh Kong provinces, as well as in the capital, Phnom Penh, and based on interviews with 33 former inmates. It said that along with drug users, authorities had also locked up homeless people in the centers, as well as beggars, street children, sex workers, and people with disabilities.
The centers, which the government claims were built for treating drug dependency, are run by the Cambodian military, gendarmerie, police, Social Affairs Ministry, and municipal authorities, the rights group said.
The 55-page report documents the experiences of people recently confined in the centers, who described being thrashed with rubber water hoses and hit with sticks or branches. Some described being punished with exercises intended to cause intense physical pain and humiliation, such as crawling along stony ground or standing in septic water pits. Former female detainees described rape and other sexual abuse by male guards. Many detainees said they were forced to work unpaid in the centers – and in some cases, on construction sites – and those who refused were beaten.
In China, Cambodia, Vietnam, and Laos, over 2.5 million adults currently use opiates and over 3.5 million use amphetamines. In all four countries, drug use is primarily treated as an administrative infraction and not a criminal offense. In Vietnam and Cambodia, government officials often state that people dependent on drugs are “patients,” rather than “criminals.” In Laos, the national drug law states that “[d]rug addicts are to be considered as victims.” In China, the law requires that drug users be rehabilitated.
However, the use of administrative law, along with the rhetoric of “patients” and “victims,” masks an approach to drug use that sees dependency as a moral failing, rather than a medical condition. In all four countries, drug “detoxification,” “treatment,” or “rehabilitation” centers hold individuals suspected of drug use (regardless of dependency) for extended periods. These centers are neither prisons nor hospitals: individuals are held without due process protections or judicial oversight of detention. At the same time, the centers lack evidence-based drug dependency treatment and, often, any trained health care personnel. While drug rehabilitation in China and Vietnam is historically grounded in the long-established, political system of “re-education through labor,” compulsory drug “treatment” centers are a more recent phenomenon in Cambodia and Laos.
A child in a Cambodian drug rehabilitation centre was forced to perform oral sex on a military police commander while women in the same institutions have been raped for days on end, a damning new report from Human Rights Watch (HRW) has found.
The study titled Torture in the Name of Treatment: Human Rights Abuses in Vietnam, China, Cambodia, and Lao PDR, also found Cambodian inmates were forced to build houses for guards and were often detained despite no clear evidence they were addicted to drugs.
Treatments shown to work based on evidence are absent from the centres in Cambodia and Vietnam, yet despite this and the systematic abuse uncovered, donors and UN agencies working with relevant government authorities did little to intervene, the report states.
Cambodian children told Human Rights Watch of how they were beaten, shocked with electric batons and subjected to sexual abuse by staff.
“Some massages I had to give were sexual ... if I did not do this, he would beat me. The commander asked me to ‘eat ice cream’ [perform oral sex]. I refused, and he slapped me ... Performing oral sex happened many times ... how could I refuse?” it quoted an anonymous child as saying.
Former women detainees had spoken of how others were sexually assaulted after they were taken away on the pretext that they had made a mistake.
“Sometimes, they raped the same women five days consecutively because there were no new arrivals … They raped a mute woman about five or six times. I saw this with my own eyes,” one detainee said, according to the report.
“Other times, I heard her scream ... I just heard the way [she] tried to make a sound.”
Among other human rights violations found inside Cambodian centres during the five-year study, detainees had been tied up in the sun without food or water for hours and placed in isolation cells.
Khieu Samorn, director of the anti-drug department at the Ministry of Interior, slammed the accusations as “baseless” observations made outside the country and said HRW should focus on helping the government crack down on drug producers and criminals.
Human Rights Watch Slams Cambodian Drug Detention Centers
Link Resource Page: Asia's Pacific Drug and Development Issues Committee
Launched in 2011, UNODC's Community-Based Drug-Treatment (CBTx) program is a vastly different alternative to the Compulsory Centres for Drug Users (CCDUs) currently in place throughout Cambodia. Studies from around the world show that community-based models of treatment for drug addiction are far more effective than compulsory treatment largely because they create long-term supportive environments for users that include family and the community.
With assistance from the local community, the Cambodia Community-Based Drug Treatment program provides drug users with voluntary, cost-effective and sustainable drug treatment, rehabilitation and reintegration services. Community stakeholders include public hospitals, health centres, HIV/STI services, non-government organizations, families, community leaders and the police. At any stage of their drug use and dependence, drug-users can freely and continuously access services that include counseling, self-help and harm-minimization education.
Local support available is extensive. This encourages more people to access drug treatment and creates a virtuous cycle that benefits the community. The Commune Chief visits drug users at home while local non-government organizations provide transport for drug users to service providers. Community based treatment project participants now have greater job opportunities, while the community has benefited from improved security and safety within the commune.
With assistance from the local community, the Cambodia Community-Based Drug Treatment program provides drug users with voluntary, cost-effective and sustainable drug treatment, rehabilitation and reintegration services. Community stakeholders include public hospitals, health centres, HIV/STI services, non-government organizations, families, community leaders and the police. At any stage of their drug use and dependence, drug-users can freely and continuously access services that include counseling, self-help and harm-minimization education.
Local support available is extensive. This encourages more people to access drug treatment and creates a virtuous cycle that benefits the community. The Commune Chief visits drug users at home while local non-government organizations provide transport for drug users to service providers. Community based treatment project participants now have greater job opportunities, while the community has benefited from improved security and safety within the commune.
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