In Phnom Penh’s bustling cafes, hip-looking young people hunch over their mobile devices. According to Dany Sun, a women’s rights activist likewise armed with a smartphone, this relatively new trend is representative of modern Cambodia.
But the technological progress, Sun observes, has not been accompanied by advances on gender equality. Traditional attitudes and cultural norms, which portray women as subservient and inferior to men, continue to underlie the country’s harrowing statistics on violence against women.
“Since the day we are born, we are less valued than men. We are also still expected to follow cultural norms like those included in the outdated Chbap Srey [women’s code of conduct], which reinforces male dominance and stipulates that women have to be quiet and submissive,” says Sun, 23.
“At the same time, many people don’t realise that what they are doing is wrong because they are uneducated, and often both men and women think domestic violence is normal.”
Sun is one of three women who have been supported by the Asia Foundation to tap into Cambodia’s growing hunger for mobile technology to tackle violence against women. Sun has designed Krousar Koumrou, an educational app meant to prevent domestic violence by challenging negative attitudes towards women. In Khmer, Krousar Koumrou means model family.
A 2013 UN paper on men and violence in Asia and the Pacific found 25% of women in Cambodia said they had experienced intimate partner violence – physical, sexual or psychological harm – at least once. The same study found that among men aged 18 to 49, every fifth man interviewed had raped a women once, either within or outside a relationship. After Papua New Guinea, Cambodia has one of the highest rates of gang-rape in the region, with many young men in urban areas treating it as a recreational activity. The study found that of roughly 1,800 male interviewees, 5.2% confessed to having participated in a gang rape, locally known as bauk.
“The significant factors in Cambodia that increase perpetration of intimate partner violence can be linked to alcohol abuse, media exposure that may normalise or condone violence against women, witnessing or exposure to violence as a child, and level of education,” says Erin Bourgois, manager of the Ending Violence against Women Programme at the Asia Foundation.
“But it is important to note that the cause of violence against women is gender inequality and a sense of entitlement by men,” she says.
Cambodian proverbs such as “men are gold, women are cloth” or “plates in the basket usually rattle” show just how deeply entrenched ideas of women’s inferiority are in society.
The basket, Sun explains, is a metaphor for family and, “since you live together, you are in physical proximity to each other, so sometimes you hit each other and things break”. The prevailing perception is that violence – be it physical, sexual or psychological – is inevitable and normal, she says.
An Asia Foundation report found that 94% of Cambodians own a mobile phone, while 39% of the urban population and 21% of the rural population have smartphones.
Rachana Bunn, who works for ActionAid Cambodia on their safe cities for women campaign, designed Safe Agent 008, a messaging system that sends women’s GPS coordinates to family and friends when they feel in danger and allows them to report violence anonymously.
The third app, 7 Plus, is the brainchild of Sreytouch Phat, a former beer promoter who wanted to help food and service sector workers claim their rights and stay free from sexual harassment and violence in their workplace.Sun’s app uses animation to teach women about their rights. One animation, for example, explains that, contrary to the common belief shared by both men and women in Cambodia, intimate partner violence is not normal and should be talked about.
Perhaps most important, however, Krousar Koumrou connects women with services they might need, such as pro bono legal advice, psycho-social support, shelter or medical care. Sun says this feature addresses the scarcity of public services available to survivors of domestic violence, whose claims of abuse are often ignored by local authority representatives.
While it will take time to gauge the apps’ effectiveness – all three were launched at the beginning of September – women in Phnom Penh seem eager to start downloading.
Kuca Pisa, a 25-year-old sociology student at the Royal University of Phnom Penh, says Krousar Koumrou could change the way Cambodian young people view intimate partner violence.
This, she says, is particularly important in the capital, where it is becoming increasingly acceptable for young women to have boyfriends – a shift in a still traditionally conservative country where, until a few years ago, the idea of “boyfriends” was largely frowned upon. Women were expected to marry their love interest as soon as possible.
“I heard about instances of violence, sometimes even rape, perpetrated by male students, many of whom come here from the countryside and think it is OK to hit their girlfriends because this is what they saw at home,” she says.
But Pisa is less worried about intimate partner violence and far more concerned about her safety on the streets of Phnom Penh.
“Sometimes I don’t even feel safe during the day,” she says.
She is not alone in her anxiety. According to an ActionAid study based on interviews with 380 women, including university students, women working in garment factories, sex workers and beer promoters, 22% said they had experienced sexual harassment in public places in Phnom Penh, with 77% citing verbal harassment, and 25% reporting violent physical attacks.
Pisa moved to the city from Pursat province three years ago to pursue her studies, and she says her social network is not as strong as she would have liked, which is why she will download the Safe Agent 008 app.
“The option of quickly sending a message to my boyfriend and family with my whereabouts when I am in danger makes me feel much safer,” she says.
Bunn believes her app is a “sad necessity”.
“The change in social attitudes towards women will take a very long time,” she says adding that she too often gets hassled by men in the street. “Cambodia remains a man’s world, so as women we need this app.”