Theng Cheng Hour

She is Theng Cheng Hour , 24, born in Kompong Cham province, on the eastern part of Phnom Penh.  She moved from Kompong Cham to Palin province, located on Northwestern part of Phnom Penh since she was two years old. She attended in elementary school for only two years there because her father died of stepping on landmine while walking to collect old and second-hand things to sell to deal with daily standard of living. 

When she lived in the village, the man, named Tho, wanted to get engaged to her, but her mother did not accept his engagement because she said that she was too young to get married – she was 12 years old. One day, when she visited her aunt, she was raped by that man by beating her until she lost consciousness, and then he completed his sexual passionateness. After having heard from his criminal commitment on her, her mother put her formal complaint at the police station. She asked the man to pay Hour’s reimbursement, i.e to repay a vaginal deed in cash 1,000,000 riels (about US$250.00), but that man bargained to repay only 600,000.00 riels. Because of lack of her knowledge in law, she decided to withdraw her formal complaint and eliminated the case by getting the money from that man in agreement. 

Owing to being ashamed in the village, she herself returned to her home village in Kompong Cham province and lived with her grand-parents. When she lived with her grandparents, her elder uncle, named At, who is an elder brother of her mother called her mother who lived in Pailin to offer her to live with his family, and her mother accepted her to live with her brother as requested.  During her stay with her uncle’s family for a few months, her uncle wished to rape her thrice – first, he entered her room and said to her that he was thirsty; secondly, he entered her room and said to her that he was hungry; thirdly, she was naked while sleeping in her room, but she woke up hurriedly on time to run away, escaping from his rape, and told his daughter and his wife about his evil act, and then she went back to live with her grandparents.  

A few weeks later, she had a friend who lived in the same village to come to work in Phnom Penh, so she challenged her to work in Phnom Penh as a cake maker, and she decided to come to Phnom Penh to apply for a cake maker to get monthly salary (50.000 riels a month). While working in Phnom Penh, she stayed at her friend’s family. One day, when her brother-in-law of her friend was sick and he told his wife to stay at home and her wife and her friend went to market to sell cakes, he asked her to get paper tissue to give him in his room, and then he wished to rape her by forcing his effort violate to have intercourse, but did only a few kisses and she tried to get out of his room right away. And then, she decided going back to leave to live with her mother who moved from Palin to Battambang Province since 2007. 

Her mother is a groceries seller and got married to a second husband, named Vanna, 54, the same age as her mother. He is an ice-cream seller in Battambang Province. When she returned to live with her mother, she was a young woman who carried water to fill a jar at each home – one jar cost 3,000.00 riels or one basin cost 5.00 Thai Baths. She could not live with her mother because her mother was jealous of her with her second husband. Her mother saw her lying on her husband’s labs because her husband searched for lice while being free, and she was afraid that her daughter would be taken as his wife some day; thus she was sent to Handicap International organization in Battambang because, at that time, she has had a polio problem on her whole body step by step since she was 15 years, and has got it a little by a little up to now; that’s why, her mother sent her to learn skills and live there. 

While living there, she was raped by a landmine victim, named Chas Neum, 38, who had a wife and one child already. His work was a grass cutter and cleaner who came to this organization to fix his artificial leg. He raped her when she came back from the bathroom and he caught her until he succeeded in having sexual intercourse against her will. She said nothing, but she only cried a lot and accepted to follow him to live in Sway Ampil Pram Deum village in Battambang for a few days and then moved to live and work near Thai-Cambodia border with that man as a housemaid for a husband for a few months, and after that her husband and she moved into Thai territory to work as a chicken-raiser and her husband was employed as chicken food maker for three years. 

During living together, first, she was two months pregnant, and she aborted after two months; secondly, she got a pretty daughter, named Anick, for four months, then she died of serious illness – Lungs problem; thirdly, she aborted after three months and, fourthly, she aborted after one month. She had an abortion many times because her husband hit her firmly with his hand and sometimes wanted to kill her with an axe. Whenever he was drunk, he always beat her a lot by different violation.  Sometimes, when she advised him not to play a joke with other young women who lived nearby her house, he was absolutely furious at her and beat her seriously.  Because of being hit all the time, she could not bear living with her husband anymore; so she made a decision to leave from her husband to come back and stayed with her mother in 2012. 

She was sent to live at the Cambodian Center for the Protection of Children’s rights (CCPRC) in Battambang province for a few months. Owing to being adult, she was accepted to live and work as a thread spinner in the center for a while; then she got transferred to the Cambodian Center for the Protection of Children’s rights (CCPRC) in Phnom Penh, and she could not live there because she was adult, so CCPRC manager tried to find out the place where she can stay and learn skills for a long time till she can get the exact skills to live on herself and any association can encourage her feeling to be warm, calm and happy as well as she is well known for her advocacy of women’s rights.  Finally, the CCPRC manager found CHA to be safe, happiness, and honest for her to live for long.

Right now, she is very glad to live and learn skills, social life as well as foreign languages. She said that she is very scared of being a wife of someone else because of being raped and hit all the time. The uses of being violated, tortured and raped from the men must disgust her in her whole life. Living in safety and happiness,  learning skills and social life as well as other subjects with CHA members with disabilities and poverty at CHA make her forget everything bad and evil in the past time.  She can find out new skill for a new life because other young women who have been trained at CHA have had the same issues as her and they can learn skills, social life and others like normal person in the communities in Cambodia. 

CHA is her best place to live in happiness, safety, prosperity and honesty in her life. She determines exactly what to learn at CHA and will get exact skills in order to get it to make her living with her mother with good will and purpose in the near future when going back to her home village.