FEATURE:
CAMBODIA’S GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE PROSECUTION CLEARANCE RATE DOUBLES IN ONE YEAR UNDER EWMI PROGRAM

In Cambodia, the criminal justice system faces two significant barriers when addressing gender-based violence (GBV) cases. First, many cases either go unreported, or never make it past the police investigation to the court. Second, those prosecutions which do commence have a very poor clearance rate. In 2010, the percentage of GBV prosecutions that led to a final verdict was just 16%, whereas the clearance rate for all other criminal cases in Cambodia averages more than 80%. This second problem of prosecutions dropping away is injurious to society in a number of ways: not only does it rob the courageous survivor (most of whom are minor girls) from receiving justice, it also reinforces a belief in Cambodian communities that the rule of law does not protect them.

EMWI’s USAID-funded Program on Rights and Justice 2 (PRAJ), has been assisting the monitoring of GBV prosecutions in Cambodia since 2009. A case tracking database developed with the Ministry of Justice (MoJ), and used to train the courts and legal aid groups, has been instrumental in this process. In February 2011, PRAJ and the MoJ discovered the abysmal 2010 clearance rate in these prosecutions – which number several hundred a year – and immediately worked with their partners at GIZ in the Ministry of Women’s Affairs (MoWA) to design a yearlong evidence-based training program to improve the success of the prosecutions. The very next month the nationwide program was launched, and by September 2011 over 500 justice sector officials and legal aid lawyers, from every province, had participated.

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