Women in Cambodia
Women in Cambodia, due to the influence of the dominant Khmer culture, are traditionally expected to be modest and soft-spoken.
The school system were largely restricted to males and the écoles franco-cambodgiennes and Manufacture Royale au Palais for girls only offered an education to domestics or manufacturer of tourist objects, and only a small minority upper-class women had access to higher education at the Collège Sisowath (Lycée Sisowath) and from there to university abroad, foremost in Saigon.
In recent years, Buddhism has also been examined in conjunction with feminist thought to navigate issues of domestic violence that impact women.
In Buddhism as in international law, people must intervene when a man has criminally attacked his wife, despite some alluding to a ‘cultural defense’ of the perpetrator.
Recent developments have included the idea of monks carrying out preventative work by educating communities on non-violence using the precepts of morality in the dharma, disabusing culprits of their sense of entitlement and impunity.
According to a World Bank Report[citation needed], 63% of girls and 52.5% of boys complete secondary school in Cambodia.
Other factors include extreme poverty, the distance between home and school, as well as an ever-present fear for personal safety while traveling alone.
Young women from ages 20–35 who were garment factory workers or had a higher level of education generally thought politics was related to issues such as “law, resources, the national minimum wage, employment, land and services.” Garment factory workers, who are predominantly female and make up the labour force of the country's largest industry, have a history of being involved in politics in Cambodia.
[16] Cambodia has taken steps to improve reproductive and sexual health, such as introducing the Birth Spacing Policy in 1995 and the Abortion Law in 1997.
However, a 2019 investigation by the World Health Organization revealed that only one-third of Cambodian villages had active distributors of contraceptives, such as birth control pills and condoms.
[17] According to a report from the World Bank[citation needed], 160 women die per 100,000 live births due to pregnancy-related causes in Cambodia.
[5] Due to limited education, many Cambodian women are unable to protect themselves from discrimination, gender inequality, violence, and abuse.
Local activists argue for the transformation of patriarchal norms and an emphasis on championing women's rights without locating gender-based violence in an unchanging culture.
However, patriarchal views on marriage remain prevalent, hampering the implementation of legal protections for women, especially those in rural areas and members of the LGBTQIA+ community.
In recent years, young women in Cambodia have been influenced by Western ideas which are contrary to traditional Cambodian culture.
One example, found particularly in the capital of Phnom Penh, is that young female Cambodians are overtly consuming liquors and other alcoholic beverages in restaurants.
Other areas in which Western influence is detected include a sense of equal rights between men and women, peer pressure, companionship, experimentation, trouble within the family, abandonment by a boyfriend, and through advertising.
