Systematic Sexual Violence: Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge
This case note documents the occurrence of sexual violence in violent conflict. It contains explicit mentions of different forms of sexual assault. Reader discretion is advised.
Background of the Conflict
After the Khmer Rouge seized power in April 1975, under the leadership of the Communist Party of Kampunchea (Angkar) general secretary, Pol Pot, it pushed Cambodia towards becoming a self-sufficient agrarian society, and this caused a violent conflict that culminated in the death of 1.5 to 2 million people between 1975 and 1979, erasing nearly a quarter of Cambodia’s population in 1975 (Heuveline 2001). Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge received funding from the People’s Republic of China (Kiernan 2008). In order to achieve its goals, the Khmer Rouge emptied out the cities in Cambodia and forced the people to relocate to labour camps. In these camps, people were forced to work, faced physical abuse, and malnutrition and disease (Etcheson 2005). During this time, large swathes of the population were massacred. The state of violence ended with the intervention of the Vietnamese military in 1978 and the subsequent toppling of the Khmer Rouge regime (Etcheson 2005). By January 1979, as many as 1.5 to 2 million people had died because of the Khmer Rouge’s policies.
Prevalence of Sexual Violence
The Angkar ruthlessly reversed the country’s westernization, and targeted civilians with progressive inclinations. Women were targeted by Pol Pot’s militia with rape, torture, and sexual assault, including systemic rape and forced marriage (UN Women 2019). The Angkar also targeted trans people and normalised homophobic violence. The Khmer Rouge claimed that it was “liberating women” to disguise its exploitation and abuse (Global Justice Center 2019). According to the Women and Transitional Justice in Cambodia Project (n.d.), as many as 96.6% women surveyed had faced forced marriage, and had been subject to verbal, physical, and sexual abuse, imprisonment, and forced labor if they refused to comply. They also found that 80.1% of the women were raped post marriage.
Basis of Sexual Violence
The Khmer Rouge regime wanted to have unquestionable control over every aspect of people’s lives – which included reproductive rights as it wanted to increase the population (Global Justice Center 2019). Forced marriage was thus practiced. When women exercised their agency and refused, they were raped either by the military or their husbands as a means of intimidation and humiliation.
The bloody quartet of the Khmer (1975-79) was marked by ethnic erasure as Communism entailed departure from all manner of religiosity. Buddhism, the most followed religion amongst the peasantry, was outlawed, as was Christianity. Women practicing these religions were targeted with sexual violence as a means of torture and intimidation.
Rape and sexual violence were normalized by law. Under code-6, rape outside marriage was designated as a ‘moral crime’ on part of both the victim and the perpetrator. By redefining ‘morality’ in such a manner the Angkar actually incentivized military rapes rather than curb its officers’ excesses: the victims would seldom report any crimes perpetrated against them for fear of being convicted themselves.
References
Etcheson, Craig (2005). After the Killing Fields: Lessons from the Cambodian Genocide. Greenwood.
Heuveline, Patrick (2001). "The Demographic Analysis of Mortality Crises: The Case of Cambodia, 1970–1979". Forced Migration and Mortality. National Academies Press. pp. 102–105.
Kiernan, Ben (2008). The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia Under the Khmer Rouge, 1975–79. Yale University Press.
UN Women (2019). Survivors of sexual violence during the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia speak out https://www.unwomen.org/en/news/stories/2019/11/feature-survivors-of-sexual-violence-in-cambodia-speak-out#notes
Global Justice Center (2019). Breaking Decades of Silence: Sexual Violence During the Khmer Rouge https://globaljusticecenter.net/blog/1127-breaking-decades-of-silence-sexual-violence-during-the-khmer-rouge
Women and Transitional Justice in Cambodia Project (n.d.) https://tpocambodia.org/women-in-transitional-justice/
