Saang District-Kandal: Koh Romduol Social Affairs Center in Koh Koh, Saang district was charged with arresting people from other places in Phnom Penh for confinement and for mistreatment. One of centers with fences and closed gates accommodated about 100 people, most of whom were tramps, beggars, narcotic drug addicts, prostitutes and homeless people etc. gathered and transported by Social Affairs officials and police from Phnom Penh to the center for vocational training. Over the period of January-March 2008, the number of people in the center gradually increased up to almost 100 persons. Those people, the mixture of children and adults, were detained in shut-up wood buildings and were restricted to the amount of food to eat, villagers at Koh Kor said.

On June 17, 2008, Investigative Working Group of LICADHO went to the center and saw 21 people being detained there, of whom one old woman was seriously ill. She wasn’t sent to hospital for treatment and one other sick man was referred to another place, Mr. Am Sam Ath, Technical Supervisor of LICADHO said, adding that when asked about sending the sick old woman to hospital for treatment, the managements there were not responsive because she was thought not to be living any longer. The number of people detained in the center increased up to nearly 100 persons and through pictures he saw, the center shouldn’t detain such guiltless people.

According to the villagers living next to the center, detainees there didn’t have to eat and some of whom ran the risk of secretly swimming across the river out of the center. Some detainees who didn’t want to live in the center, behaved badly and were intimidated and beaten up by the managements.

In response to the above allegation, Mr. Pat Thy, a security guard there said that the center only detained some psychopaths due to fear that they would fall into water and drown. They had enough to eat and the managements always persuaded them to eat rice because in the past, some psychopaths were seen to catch a toad to eat raw and even eat other bad things that made inconvenient to the managements. There wasn’t any violence imposed upon the detainees. Only some measures taken to prevent them from causing anarchy.

Mr. Am Sam Ath who followed up this case, praised the purpose of the center in providing the tramps with vocational training. But he opposed some rude behaviors that adversely affected their rights to their living. However, after LICADHO sent a letter to related institutions and ministries to ask for intervention, the center released all detainees and only 5 psychopaths were still kept in place. (By An Channthla)