Her Excellency Mu Sochua also pledged to find money and technical assistance for a comprehensive program of monitoring and documenting women's rights in Cambodia. This will include the adoption of a national plan against trafficking and violence, the adoption of a national policy on AIDS, enhancing the capacity of women in advocacy, and creating community legal assistance for women. In a country that has long been a byword for lawlessness and violence, it was heartening to hear this from a prominent Cambodian politician. In the Philippines, some women seek power for themselves. Many men, the other hand, have pushed hard for changes in the laws on rape and violence.
International law is an important weapon in the fight against women's violence.
The relevant treaties range from the 1949 convention on the suppression of trafficking in women, to the 1984 convention outlawing torture and other cruel inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment. The list is surprisingly extensive, and even though many of the treaties are fairly obscure, they could be very useful. For example, one calls for equal remuneration for work of equal value. Another, adopted in 1962, allows for the right to marry and also not be married against one's will. Yet another international treaty, adopted in 1941, covered the political rights of women.