From: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu (Rich Winkel)
Subject: Cambodian Women Bereft of Males
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: rich@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: PACH
Date: Sat, 10 Oct 1992 03:33:40 GMT

/** reg.seasia: 214.0 **/
** Topic: Cambodian Women Bereft of Males **
** Written  9:35 pm  Oct  7, 1992 by cscheiner in cdp:reg.seasia **
From: Charles Scheiner <cscheiner>
Subject: Cambodian Women Bereft of Males

COPYRIGHT PACIFIC NEWS SERVICE
450 Mission Street,  Room 506
San Francisco, CA 94105
415-243-4364

NEWS FEATURE -- 790 WORDS

CAMBODIAN WOMEN STRUGGLE IN A SOCIETY BEREFT OF 
MALES 

EDITOR'S NOTE: In a society where war and genocide have wiped out 
much of the male population, Cambodian women struggle to survive 
and find meaning to their lives without husbands, fathers, sons. PNS 
editor Andrew Lam, a Vietnamese American writer, spent three 
months in Indochina. Photographs accompanying this article are 
available from Pacific News Service. 

BY ANDREW LAM, PACIFIC NEWS SERVICE

PHNOM PENH -- In Cambodian mythology, men and women once 
competed to build the tallest mountain and the women, through 
cunning, won. 

Today, in Battambang, the Mountain of the Women towers over her 
squat rival. But the mythic victory now seems bittersweet. After three 
decades of war and four years of genocide by the Khmer Rouge, two-
thirds of Cambodia's eight million people are female. Much of its male 
population has been wiped out. 

"The women survived starvation and hardship under the Khmer 
Rouge much better than the men," observes Robert Piper of the United 
Nations Development Program here. "But in peace time, they are the 
ones who most need help."

Krun Narin, a 45-year-old widow, lost her husband and three of her 
five children to the Khmer Rouge. Recently repatriated from Thailand 
by the U.N., she lives with her two children in a cardboard shack in 
Battambang. "The U.N. gave me $40 and some rice but I do not know 
what I will do when the money runs out."

U.N. administrators in charge of the repatriation program admit they 
should have paid more attention to the disproportionately high 
percentage of refugees who are single women. Away from the 
communal security of the refugee camps, many are falling through the 
cracks of a shredded social fabric. "The result is even greater urban drift 
and homelessness which will make rebuilding Cambodia that much 
more difficult," one official says.

On the outskirts of Phnom Penh impoverished women from the 
countryside have set up household in ramshackle huts -- forming what 
one Cambodian American calls "rings of desperation" around the 
capital. While 85 percent of Cambodia's population still lives in the 
countryside, the loss of men has ravaged the rural labor force, leaving 
widows and their families no choice but to seek a livelihood in the 
capital.

In Stung Treng province, Dara Sann, whose husband died fighting for 
the Hun Sen government, recently slaughtered one of her three oxen 
and sold its meat at the market. "Without my husband I cannot plow 
the field by myself, and I have no money left," she sighs. "Soon I will 
have to sell my land and maybe move to the city."

The lack of men is a problem that extends far beyond economics. In 
Cambodia's pantheon of divinities, none embodies the Khmer soul so 
much as the goddess Apsara, whose divine role is to entertain heroes, 
kings and gods. It is Apsara's image that holds up the vast stone 
columns of Angkor Wat. It is Apsara, too, who graces the doors of 
temples and dances on the walls of Phnom Penh's newly built villas.

But what is Apsara's purpose now without her men? 

Chuong Riem, who lost her leg from a Khmer Rouge land mine, 
confides that she has also lost all hope. "My mother says, 'A woman 
without a leg is not a woman,' and that even if I find a man to marry, 
my husband would leave me."

Ien Nguon lost her husband not to death but to a younger, lighter 
skinned Vietnamese. "My children need their father but he does not 
need us," says the newspaper vendor and mother of five. "He says I am 
ugly and old. We have been living in misery since he left."

In a majority female society it is, ironically, the men who hold the clear 
advantage as a precious commodity. Polygamy, once practiced only by 
the rich, has become increasingly the norm as more and more women, 
willingly or under pressure, share husbands or boyfriends. "I have four 
wives in four different villages," one taxi driver in Battambang boasts, 
"and they are all happy to see me when I visit."

But if the women now seem more desperate, they are anything but the 
passive sex. In sheer numbers they form the backbone of the country's 
labor force and of family life. "Women work a lot harder than men in 
Cambodia but with less pay and no gratitude," remarks a foreign 
woman observer.

The observer ponders over the possible difference women might make 
in next year's elections now that they also form the majority of 
Cambodia's electorate. For their part, Cambodian women seem more 
concerned about marriage than about the vote.

Bonn Srey, 29, a beautiful, dark-skinned woman who witnessed the 
death of all 13 members of her family at the hands of the Khmer 
Rouge, is convinced she is ugly. "My skin is so dark, nobody would 
marry me," she confides. "I don't think much about my future."

What about the triumphant myth about the Mountain of Women? "I 
don't know about the story of the Mountain of Women," Srey 
responds. "I only know that in Cambodia there is a Mountain of 
Ghosts."

(10071992)      **** END ****    COPYRIGHT PNS

** End of text from cdp:reg.seasia **
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