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The United Nations must review its support for Cambodia's drug detention centers.
That’s the demand coming from the US based lobby group Human Rights Watch.
The group claims people are being held in the centers against their will, where they are subjected to torture, rape and humiliation.
The Cambodian authorities have denied the accusations and say they are saving people lives at the centers.
Sorn Sarath provides an insider’s view.
He is speaking with one detainee who ran away from a centre on the outskirts of the capital Phnom Pehn.
“During Lunch time I requested to be allowed to go to the bathroom. I got through the hedge and then I swam across the lake. On the other side villagers help me by giving me some money and taking me back into the city.”
Krouen Vin was arrested by the police for begging on the streets. He then was detained for two months at Choam Chao rehabilitation center.
“When I first arrived they hit me with long stick and locked me in a room. They would hit you if you looked at them. We didn’t have enough food to eat. All we had was plain uncooked rice. It was crueler than prison. Sometimes they don’t let us go to the toilet and force us to piss in the bedroom; they do not provide mosquito nets. They do not teach us any life skills only violence.”
There are thirteen such centers across the country.
Many of the detainees like Krouen are picked up by police and military in an effort to get drug users, sex workers and beggars off the street.
Others are sent by their families who pay the authorities to treat and rehabilitate the patients.
26 year old, Soksan was also picked up of the street. But his experience at Okas Knhom or My Chance centre in Phnom Pehn was positive.
“At first time they forced us to do hard labor but they also took us many skills we had class in English, computer skills and farming. We even learnt how to cut hair. They gave us food three times a day, but I do hear that at other center they always hit detainees.”
The US based Human Rights Watch’s in a recently released report says the majority of detainees are subjected to sadistic violence.
This includes being shocked with electric batons and whipped with twisted electrical wire.
Local rights group LICHADHO has also conducted investigations into two of the centers.
Kek Kalabru the head of the organization describes what they found.
“People don’t have enough food to eat, there is no medical care and they are locked in the center. They are meant to be rehabilitation centers but it’s worse than prison and there is no rehabilitation. They were biting, women were raped, gang raped and at least three detainees were killed after they were abused by guard.”
She claims three detainees died from torture at Koh Kor and Prey Spue center in 2008.
Kek Kalabru shows some photos of the Koh Kor centre taken that year.
One shows graffiti on the walls.
“People wrote on the wall, saying that ‘this center is like hell. ‘this center is worse than prison, have pity on me’ in Khmer. So this shows people’s suffering. They scratch there words into the words so it couldn’t be easily erased.”
The centers are run by various branches of the Cambodian state including civil, police and military police. There are more than two thousands detainees.
Moek Dara the Secretary General of Cambodia's national authority for combating drugs says the centers are helping to save people’s lives.
“What we have done is to save them from drugs, it is not torture. There is no reason the government and the authorities would commit torture and violence.”
Dara says Cambodia is facing a serious drug problem.
He says there more than six thousand drug addicts in the country and they plan to establish more centers.
Moek Dara again.
“I have not received any complains from families of detainees. Please show us which center and who is being tortured by electric shock and that way we can work together to improve them.”
Human Rights Watch is calling on Cambodia to close at least 11 centers around the country and is demanding the United Nations conduct a thorough review of its support for the centers.
They have singled out the government - run Choam Chao Youth Rehabilitation Centre in Phnom Penh.
It claims to be an open centre but one patient quoted in the report says people who tried to run away from the centre were beaten until they were unconscious.
The centre receives support from the United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF).
Richard Bridle is the UNICEF representative in Cambodia:
“The participation of young people in that centre is voluntary and the best information we have is that there are consent forms signed by their parents, they can come and go, they are not detained against their will, again to the best of our knowledge.”
Mr Bridle during visits to the centre UNICEF representatives have found no evidence of abuse or forced detention. But he says they let staff at the centre know about their visits ahead of time.
“We monitor from time to time, we don't have people sitting there on a daily basis, we work obviously through our counterparts in the Ministry of Social Affairs. It's a government facility and like any development partner we work on the basis of national leadership, national ownership.”
Mr Brindle says UNICEF won't withdraw funding from the centre until the Human Rights Watch claims are further scrutinised.
“What do you do? Do you withdraw completely and ignore the possibility of some making meaningful reforms on how young people are treated in a country? That is not our approach, our approach is to look for the positive.”
On the streets of Phnom Pehn. Beggars like Krouen Vin don’t see anything positive about going to one of the centers.
Those I spoke with were frightened about being sent to one.
48-years old, Chanthon is a beggar in the capital.
“Allot of beggars have been arrested and sent to these places. I together with my four children was also forced to go there by I was helped by a NGO. Now when see the police we always run way.”
