[3] She has received national and international recognition and numerous awards for her work and endeavor with Cambodia's orphans and poor, HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention, and her emphasis on women's issues with efforts to improve domestic safety and empowerment through education and vocational training.

These two events deeply affected her and when the exiled Prince aligned with the Communist Khmer Rouge and issued a call for Cambodians to fight against Lon Nol's government, Rany secretly joined the National United Front of Kampuchea.

[citation needed] In March 1974, Rany met Hun Sen (through Le Duc Tho) who, having joined the Khmer Rouge in 1970, commanded most of the soldiers that were treated at her hospital.

[1] As the Khmer Rouge leadership forbade fraternization among the people and strictly controlled every facet of life, including courtship and marriage, they carried on a romance through intermediaries and occasionally on the pretense of official Party business.

Hun Sen officially requested the Angkar to allow a marriage in late 1974 but despite his reputation as a good leader, was told to wait until Phnom Penh was captured and the whole country was under Khmer Rouge rule.

Considering him now to be disabled, Bun Rany's superiors decided he was not suitable for marriage and instead attempted to arrange for her to marry a series of prominent men in Krouch Chhmar District, all of whom she rejected.

Likewise, Hun Sen's superiors attempted to find a "more suitable" partner for him, suggesting, among others, a high-ranking Party woman twelve years his senior.

In early 1976, the Angkar organized a group marriage ceremony with twelve wounded and handicapped soldiers and notified Hun Sen and Bun Rany that they could marry as part of this event.

Hun Sen, who had risen to the rank of Battalion Commander, became paranoid and fled with his followers into Vietnam where they joined a rebel army and replacement government organized by the Vietnamese in advance of its effort to overthrow the Khmer Rouge regime.

During the post-1988 process of Thai-Cambodian rapprochement, she forged a close personal relationship with the wife of Thai Prime Minister Chatichai Choonhavan, and became deeply involved in the rapidly growing legal and illegal trade between Cambodia and Thailand.

[15] In October 2013 critics including Prince Sisowath Thomico and Sam Rainsy accused her of abusing her position when, at a Cambodian Red Cross flood relief event in Pailin, she spent the majority of her speech denouncing the opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party (CNRP)[9] in the wake of a controversial national election that spawned some of the biggest protests Cambodia has seen in decades.