The Constitution refers only to the rights of the ethnic Khmer majority, thereby complicating the legal status of the estimated 200,000 to 500,000 Vietnamese residents. The Khmer Rouge has massacred scores of Vietnamese villagers in recent years. In April, it killed at least 21 ethnic Vietnamese villagers in Kompong Chhnang province. Traditional norms relegate women to an inferior status, and domestic violence is common. In April, police forcibly ended a Phnom Penh demonstration by garment workers protesting poor working conditions at foreign-owned factories.
Official corruption is widespread.
In 1996, Khmer Rouge leader Ieng Sary nominally defected to the government with several thousand soldiers, but he has been allowed to maintain control of the area around the western town of Pailin. This Khmer Rouge remnant rules its minuscule territory in a brutal manner, denying basic rights and largely banning Buddhist religious practices. In the spring of 1998, heavy fighting between Cambodian troops and Khmer Rouge guerrillas drove approximately 30,000 villagers to the Thai border. The last remaining active Khmer Rouge fighters no longer hold territory.