Phnom Penh: Minister of Women's Affairs of the Royal Government of Cambodia

said the Ministry supports a setup of Gender Issues' Observatory Centre, which, will become the Women and Gender Studies Centre in Cambodia initiated by the Ministry of Women's Affairs and authorized to the Open Institute to function it.

Stated at the closing of workshop on the "Results of Consultation Meetings on the
Implementation of the National Action Plan to Prevent Violence on Women" at Phnom Penh Hotel, Phnom Penh on 5 May, Her Excellency Dr. Ing Kanthaphavi , Minister of Ministry Women's Affairs emphasized that in Cambodia, it has never had such centre.

She said it is very necessary to have it in Cambodia observing and studying issues
that Cambodian women have challenged and also to prevent and control the communal issues such as violence and sexual abuses.

Her Excellency also released, the Ministry is being cooperated with the Open Institute to help improving the existing libraries and to update the Ministry's website in order to have enough women's works related documents for researchers. In addition, the Ministry will also include its newly released information in which the publics can access and utilize on their own necessity.

Her Excellency emphasized that the promotion of information is very critical and
required both the Royal Government institutions and civil societies to work together to effectively increase and improve a scale and scope in promoting women's works. Although there is no specific figure, but Her Excellency stated the abuse against women in particularly the sexual abuse has significantly increased. She also continued both abusers and victims are young people, which concerned the Ministry and the Royal Government of Cambodia. Following her statement, this caused by several factors include the downgrade of morality and social value, which required a collective participation in preventing and controlling it by increasing a wider and effective promotion.

Her Excellency stated the Ministry has strived very hard to control all kinds of violence against women and we always welcome and open to the collaboration with civil societies nationally and internationally in a discussion about the implementation of National Action Plan. Her Excellency also continued the Ministry has advocated and mobilized supports amongst the line ministries of the Royal Government of Cambodia. The Ministry also appealed to international donor communities to continue their assistance and provide funding to civil societies to enable them accomplishing the women related businesses as the Royal Government of Cambodia alone could not complete this heavy task because we are lacking technical expertise, human and financial resources for the nationwide implementation.

Seeing the advantages of Information Communication Technology in preventing
violence against women, Her Excellency Ing Kanthaphavi has agreed and welcomed the strengthen of use of it by emphasizing, "I fully support Information
Communication Technology"

In this workshop, Ms. Chim Manavy, Executive Director of Open Institute has
announced the small grants which in worth of Euro20,000.00 (twenty thousand Euro) for advocacy works using Information, Communication Technology in preventing violence against women. She also said the Open Institute would organize a forum in the forthcoming day to provide details about this small grant.

Ms. Chim Manavy emphasized that the results of this workshop would bring a better collaboration between the Ministry of Women's Affairs, civil societies and other stakeholders to work together in a joint project addressing violence against women, which is the global concern.

She stated that resulting from the two consultation meetings we have developed the joint strategies in preventing violence against women responding to "National Action Plan to Prevent Violence on Women". She added that she strongly hoped these strategies would be included into their strategic plan of granting to the women's projects in Cambodia by the donor communities.

In relation to the grant award to support women's projects, Ms. Wenny Kusuma,
Country Advisor of UNIFEM for South East Asia Program reminded that civil societies should strengthen its network, and working together for fund raising, as a joined proposal of more NGOs has more potential than a proposal from one NGO.

Please be noticed this was a first workshop that jointly organized by the Open
Institute and the Ministry of Women's Affairs and the other 10 collaborative NGOs
after the Royal Government of Cambodia in particular the Ministry of Women's Affairs has released the National Action Plan to Prevent Violence on Women. This workshop initiated following the two consultation meetings in which the first one was on the 17 February and the second one was on the 12 March this year focused on "The Implementation of the National Action Plan to Prevent Violence on Women". Both consultation meetings have discussed and set priorities formulating into mapping activities and identified joined strategies for achieving common goals in collaboration between civil societies and the government institutions for effective implementation of the National Action Plan to Prevent Violence on Women. This included the use of Information Communication Technology, which is one of the strategies toward achieving Millennium Development Goals by 2015 in particular the Goal #3 on the Gender Equality and Women's Empowerment.

Those 10 collaborative NGOs included PyD, CDP, NGO-CEDAW, PADV, LAC, CWCC,
WMC, PCC, PSF, and LICADHO. This workshop participated by the members of senate, parliament, the Royal Government of Cambodia, the Secretariat General of
Senate, networks of women's organizations, research institutions, donor communities, and media which sum it up together of an estimate of 100 participants.

This workshop is funded by The Association for Progressive Communications (APC)
and the Spanish International Cooperation Agency AECID.

For additional information, please contact Mr. Chhay Sophal, editor of Women Program of the Open Institute at 017 535 535 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting      017 535 535 end_of_the_skype_highlighting.