Jul 31, 2013
Workshop
Organizing Women in the Agricultural Sector
Panelists
• Elaine Jones, Director of Global Trade Program, WIEGO (Women in Informal Employment: Globalizing and Organizing), United Kingdom
• Touriya Lahrech, Executive Office/Coordinator of Women Department, Confederation Democratique du Travail (CDT), Morocco
• Rosa Julia Perez Aguilar, Secretary of Women’s, Child and Adolescent Affairs, Sindicato de Trabajadores de la Empresa Camposal, Peru
• Iris Munguía, Coordinator, Latin American Banana and Agro-Industrial Unions
• Geeta Koshti, Coordinator for the Legal department of Self Employed Women’s Association (SEWA), India
Moderator
Hind Cherrouk, Solidarity Center Deputy Country Program Director, Morocco
Hind Cherrouk opened the workshop by defining its objective as engaging in a dynamic, participatory discussion on the most pressing issues facing workers in the agricultural sector and discussing strategies to organize in the sector as a way to effect social change through collective action. The workshop continued the conversation started in the first day of the conference during the plenary, “Women Worker Rights in Agriculture: the Reality, Challenges and Opportunities,” which laid out extensive female employment in agriculture and their extensive exploitation.
Elaine Jones reminded participants that “workers are not a homogenous group” and discussed the categories of informal workers (related to employment status and the degree of economic risk they experience) and how the precarious nature of their work status affects their relative bargaining power and ability to form unions. She shared results of case studies that demonstrate how participation in collective forms of enterprise linked to fair trade markets can engender economic empowerment and increase leadership among women producers through increased incomes and enhanced status. Influencing social change must accompany economic empowerment for success, she said.
Jones reviewed the key factors for organizing success, including leadership capacity-building; good organizational management and governance; time commitment of group members; formalization of groups (to promote access to banking and credit); skills training; and fair trade networks. She posed the difficult question of how women in small-holder production systems might be organized into cooperatives (another category of informal worker), when they are generally heavily reliant on family workers, who frequently are not compensated.
These cooperatives are most effective when they have gender equal membership criteria and avoid stipulating land ownership and production minimums. She also emphasized the need to educate smallholders and other employers about worker rights. In fact, some programs that certify products in supply chains make labor rights part of the certification process, recognizing that “providing good working conditions for hired workers brings benefits to smallholders as well as their workers.” WIEGO reaches out to many localities, bringing representatives to central clusters for trainings.
WIEGO is a consortium research partner with the Solidarity Center in the USAID-funded Global Labor Program. (Download WIEGO/Solidarity Center reports on a variety of worker issues.)
See her full presentation.
Discussions in this session evolved around the internal (yet externally imposed and enforced), self-devaluing feelings of inferiority and isolation that could impede women’s empowerment. In Morocco, Touriya Lahrech, explained, “Women are raised in an environment of shame,” and this sense of inferiority is codified in family law, including inheritance law which stipulates less inheritance for women with female children than with male children, and results in decreased access to credit for women. She said that workers “come to unions because they suffer from discrimination in the workplace, lower wages, and lower perception from society, and they come to us to advocate on their behalf.” She also noted that women are sometimes subjected to additional discrimination within the union, where leadership is overwhelmingly male.
Recognizing the importance of showing these marginalized workers that they are on par with men, Lahrech described a CDT meeting in which male participants expected the women to serve them tea. Union leaders tell the women, “Don’t you offer them the tea, you are here for union work, the men can serve themselves! And why don’t they serve you?” This is a simple way to demonstrate to members and leaders that traditional societal roles do not restrict women in this space, and it is a way that CDT seeks to enhance self-confidence of its women members. Their voices are necessary to include in union work, particularly in drafting union demands so that they reflect women’s concerns.
Other CDT education methods include role playing, comedy and parody, and avoiding academic jargon. The best method is engendering conversation and listening, Lahrech said, because it instills participants with the value they deserve. The Iraqi participants commented that they were impressed by the self-confidence and public speaking skills of the union speakers at the conference, and this fear barrier is also something they work to face in Iraq.
Rosa Julia Perez Aguilar discussed the strategies her union uses to promote women’s participation. For example, to overcome workers’ fears of joining union activities, the union reaches out to explain its work on issues most relevant to women, such as health services. The approach has worked slowly but surely, and has achieved higher levels of women’s union activity and leadership positions. Rosa told the story of a union sister who began working at age 11 as a farmworker assistant, helped to establish a union at a new workplace at age 15 and also helped establish the union at Campesol. Rosa was asked to run for General Secretary of her union, and has decided to do so, with the objective of involving more women in the union.
Iris Munguía spoke about organizing specific to women in the banana industry. A critical first step in the process involved developing and implementing a sectoral needs assessment in which the union studied working conditions, women’s role in the union, and how women interacted in society. The diagnostic identified the information that led to the platform of demands the union now uses across the region, and formed the template for the clauses addressing women’s concerns that the union includes in collective bargaining agreements with local businesses and multinational corporations.
She spoke positively about the value of banana sector workers meeting with their counterparts from around the world at conferences where workers transcended language barriers to identify their commonalities, and about the usefulness of discussing issues with employers’ representatives. “The space for dialogue is important, despite the work that needs to be done and the advances that still haven’t happened.”
Geeta Koshti discussed the challenges of organizing women in the informal economy in India. A chief issue for these workers is the lack of laws regulating their rights, especially access to health insurance. SEWA has been organizing women in the informal sector for 30 years, and has achieved important successes at the state level.
Read her presentation.
Jul 31, 2013
Nina Benjamin described a unique process for achieving gender equality her team facilitated in South African unions. Credit: Matt Hersey
Presenter
Nina Benjamin, Gender Research Program Coordinator, Labour Research Service/Gender at Work, South Africa
Moderator
Imani Countess, Solidarity Center Africa Region Director
Nina Benjamin provided highlights from a Solidarity Center-commissioned report compiled by the organization, Gender at Work, and the Labour Research Service in South Africa.
The report, “Bringing Back the Heart: Gender Action Learning Process with Four Trade Unions in South Africa,” detailed the Gender at Work process with unions that are grappling with the complexities of gender inequality. The project utilized an analytical framework for achieving gender equality in organizations, with “a lot of our work…at the consciousness-raising level,” said Benjamin.
Before describing the four case studies, Benjamin made three points about South Africa:
- Official unemployment is 25.6 percent, with the unofficial jobless rate estimated at between 36 to 40 percent.
- There are extremely high levels of sexual violence in all spheres of life resulting in high levels of trauma.
- Neither employers nor the government have moved toward concrete commitments to achieving gender equality.
She briefly described the four unions that took part in the program.
• The South African Commercial Catering and Allied Workers Union (SACCAWU) represents retail workers who, because they are low paid and on contract or short-term work assignments, face ongoing threats of retrenchments.
• Sikhula Sonke is a farm workers union that was founded by, and represents primarily women agricultural workers.
• Building, Construction and Allied Workers Union (BCAWU), representing an almost entirely male building and construction workforce, was interested in finding innovative ways of recruiting women into the union.
• Health and Other Service Personnel Trade Union of South Africa (HOSPERSA), is battling the public’s perception that nurses are the problem in the health care system and the process of rebuilding with the union involved extending its focus beyond the normal union concerns of wages.
Gender at Work facilitators begin the process, which averages 18 months for each organization, by working with individuals to engage in sustained collective effort, Benjamin said. By engaging with the “whole being,” the process situated learning that goes beyond rational or intellectual capacities and works with the body, heart and mind. Each team involved in the “change process” saw the need to experiment with alternative models of power and alternative structures to the silence and status quo, she said.
Benjamin detailed the structure of the Gender at Work Action Learning Process (GALP) and overviewed some of the outcomes for each union. These include:
• SACCAWU – The union is working with shopping mall committees that bring together workers, especially women, from different companies in spaces where they can speak more freely about their day-to-day lived experiences.
• Sikhule Sonke – The union is in the process of strengthening the committee that helped to create new layers of women leaders who are directly in touch with the day-to-day challenges of farm workers.
• BCAWU – Through its education committee, the union began bringing women workers together in “safe spaces” where the focus shifted from “educating them” to facilitating the sharing of experiences and strategies.
• HOSPERSA – The union is building on the “Lekgotla” dialogue process to open similar dialogue spaces, for example, during constitutional meetings and provincial congresses.
She concluded by saying that “ensuring systemic change requires ongoing and sustained reflection and action. It remains a methodological and cultural challenge for unions to sustain the creation of learning and reflection spaces as part of on-going union organizational culture when the GALP ends.”
Jul 31, 2013
Panelists discussed their efforts in helping women in light manufacturing get a voice on the job. Credit: Tula Connell
Panelists
• Morium Sheuli, General Secretary, Bangladesh Independent Garment Workers Union Federation (BIGUF)
• Evangelina Argûeta Chinchilla, Coordinator, General Workers Confederation (CGT), and FESITRATEMASH, Honduras
• Claudia Santos Reguelin, Brazilian Metalworkers Union of the City of Osasco, Brazil
• Lynda Yanz, Executive Director, Maquila Solidarity Network, Canada
In the first plenary of the second day of the Women’s Empowerment conference, Tim Ryan opened by setting the stage for discussion with images from the April Rana Plaza building collapse in Bangladesh. More than 1,200 garment workers were killed in the disaster. “One of the things we’re going to be doing today is hear about women in the light manufacturing sector and the tools they use to empower themselves,” he said: “Apologists for garment manufacturers say for some women to be able to earn $38 a month is empowering.” But to be really empowered, Ryan said, “women need good jobs and have to be able to empower themselves.”
See the photos from the Rana Plaza building collapse.
Morium Sheuli began by saying she started work in a garment factory when she was 9 years old and organized her first union at age 14. She recently was elected general secretary of BIGUF, the country’s largest independent garment worker federation, which represents 1.1 million workers. Women make up 80 percent of the 4 million garment workers in Bangladesh and 70 percent of all women employed in the nation’s manufacturing sector. Formed in 1996, BIGUF believes in women’s leadership in the garment sector and initiated the idea that women should hold the primary leadership positions. In the last five years, BIGUF assisted workers in filing 1,265 formal cases around missing wages and other workplace issues.
Read her full presentation.
Evangelina Argûeta Chinchilla also started working in the apparel sector at a young age: 15. She noted the textile industry is one of the largest in Honduras, with 115,000 workers, 57 percent of whom are women.
Thirteen unions represent textile workers in Honduras, and there are three central bodies. One of them, the General Workers Federation (CGT), includes three unions with women presidents and cooperatives headed by women. “We think we have overcome enormous barriers,” Argûeta said.
Since the 2009 presidential coup, worker rights are more vulnerable and there has been an erosion of rights. Laws now allow temporary work and work by the hour—all of which undercuts workers’ ability to support their families. Despite Honduran laws allowing unions, in reality unions often “are forbidden from doing our work.”
Because of the struggle to organize factories in the last 10 years, Honduran unions reached across the border for allies. Argûeta cited the success of this strategy in the case of Russell/Fruit of the Loom, Inc., the largest private employer in Honduras. When it closed a factory, an international campaign by students forced Russell/Fruit of the Loom to rehire 1,300 workers. As part of the agreement, all seven Russell/Fruit of the Loom supplies were required to respect labor rights. As a result, other companies signed agreements—but some would rather leave the country, she said. Argûeta pointed out that brands have a moral obligation to be responsible for what’s happening in suppliers’ factories. Brands look at productivity but not social costs. It’s the same in Bangladesh, Nicaragua, China…
International support also extends to training, and the unions are allied with a Honduran women’s NGO that trains women labor leaders to be legal assistants.
Throughout the struggles to organize workers, Argûeta and her cohorts have fought gender discrimination. “In any union structure, there is sexism, of course” she said. “But we can still carry on our work.” Women are at the bargaining table and labor/management councils include equal numbers of men and women workers.
As Argûeta concluded: “In Honduras, we started off demanding our rights and demanding brands are responsible for working conditions through their suppliers.”
Tim Ryan noted that two important issues emerged from the presentations: the role of brands and the macro political impact on wages and working conditions.
Claudia Santos Reguelin overviewed the women’s collective of metalworkers union, formed in 2007, which she described as having strengthened the 50-year-old Brazilian Metalworkers Union of the City of Osasco. Many factories in Brazil are made up of more than 80 percent women workers, she said, and the collective’s goal is to strengthen representation of women in unions and serve as a tool for organizing women workers. Members of the collective, who work at different factories, meet monthly, and the collective provides a space for women to network and have time for themselves.
Reguelin showed photos of women metalworkers taking part in the collective’s training programs, which cover such issues as health and safety; communications; organizing; a solidarity economy, in which low-income and middle class workers benefit as well as the wealthy; women in media; cultural activities; and election participation. The collective also sponsors a trip to the May Day exhibition, holds special activities for Women’s Month each March and plans leisure activities.
One of collective’s campaigns centers on “shared responsibility”—work time and free time for both women and men.
She closed with an image of a sign saying, “Strong woman for me, for us, for everyone.”
Linda Yanz opened with an overview of the Maquila Solidarity Network, which she described as formed 20 years ago to work on corporate campaigns to pressure brands such as GAP and NIKE to take responsibility for the workers who made their products. Twenty years ago, brands wouldn’t take responsibility, she said. The organization works with the Worker Rights Consortium, the International Labor Rights Foundation and the Clean Clothes Campaign to answer the question, “How can we get the brands to take seriously the systemic problems in the garment industry?”
Before the Rana Plaza disaster, the coalition was answering that question by pursuing framework agreements such as the one in Honduras with Russell/Fruit of the Loom. In the wake of the Rana Plaza disaster, nearly 90 corporations have signed onto the Bangladesh Fire and Safety Accord, a five-year binding agreement which covers 1,800 factories in Bangladesh. The accord mandates that both brands and the companies they source from fix building and fire hazards and ensures unions are a key part of this process. Before the accident, Yanz said, “we had two brands signing on.”
“These kinds of agreements are a new game plan for corporate responsibility work,” she said. Shifting from “voluntary cooperation” by brands to binding agreements is essential. “Since the crisis, we have moved toward getting agreements signed, so that brands sign commitments around particular issues and particular cases.”
The next step, Yanz said, is to “figure out how to deal proactively to get brands to deal with freedom of association, precarious work, closures, crises and poverty wages.” She noted that real wages have declined recently and “the only place that garment wages have increased is in China, but it will take 40 years to get China’s wages up to a living wage at the rate the wages are growing.”
Yanz then turned to women’s empowerment. She said that although “many of us work with women, women leaders, women’s organizations, somehow we’re not moving forward the dial on women’s leadership.” It’s easy to talk about women making up 80 percent of workforce in sectors but it’s “a whole other thing to put women front and center in these unions.”
Priorities like precarious work are key, “but we spend very little time discussing the enabling issues—what is behind women not taking leadership roles?” she asked, adding that lack of child care is one factor. Another question that needs to be discussed: “What would it mean if we put women’s needs on the agenda” to enable women to be leaders?
In the global labor movement, Yanz concluded, “we’ve got to make sure that global leadership is not out of step with the work on the ground”—leaders should be part of the process.
Jul 30, 2013
Panelists
• Khamati Mugalla, Executive Secretary, East Africa Trade Union Confederation (EATUC)
• Aruna Jain, Working America, AFL-CIO, USA
Facilitator
• Molly McCoy, Solidarity Center Regional Program Director for the Americas
There are few young female workers in union leadership structures. She noted that as the panelists discuss the increasing participation of young people in the workforce and in unions, they will share their varied approaches in reaching out to young workers. She pointed out that the Solidarity Center and partner organizations also have used media and other methods to reach out to young men and women workers. Molly McCoy introduced the workshop by pointing out that young workers’ socio-economic situation around the world needs to be seen in the context of gender and as a part of the overall theme of this conference. Young people, particularly young women, often are employed in exploitative and low-paying jobs, mirroring in many ways women’s overall economic situation. Many young workers are not members of trade unions.
See the presentation.
Aruna Jain described Working America, created by the AFL-CIO in 2003, as a member organization formed by the AFL-CIO to connect with U.S. workers not being reached by traditional unions and to expand the ranks of organized working people in the face of declining union membership and ongoing attacks by anti-union groups. Working America engages in extensive door-to-door outreach, with two out of three people contacted being signed up as an associate union member. In its first year, Working America signed up 1 million members and now has 3 million members nationwide.
Jain pointed to Working America’s use of social media and traditional media outreach to promote union issues and provide information about unions. Many in the United States aren’t familiar with the labor movement and unions, which creates obstacles for union organizing. Some 500,000 young workers have signed up as Working America members.
Many young workers are unemployed and sometimes don’t qualify for unemployment benefits because they have not worked long enough, Jain said. The rise in student debt rates is a major new issue for young people, as these rates have doubled under new laws. Because of these issues, young workers sometimes delay getting married, having children and moving forward with their lives. Many live with their families and find it difficult to obtain the skills needed to get work. Many young workers have distant relationships with employers, are contract employees and have difficulty identifying as workers. This is true of both college graduates and those without degrees as well.
Working America has mobilized students and young workers on these issues by seeking out young people on campuses, bars, and other places where young people go. Many don’t identify themselves as workers and younger people often don’t know much about unions, which are seen as bastions of older white men. On the other hand, unions need to be convinced to focus on young workers’ issues and recruit them into unions, especially since young workers are one of the few growth areas for U.S. unions. Unions have sought to change their traditional approach by establishing youth committees and by including young workers and these committees as part of overall national level union work.
Khamati Mugalla said her country and union are experiencing problems similar to those described by the preceding speakers. Women and young people are twice as likely to be affected by economic issues, she said, citing as an example the lack of adequate pensions in Tanzanian employment sectors which employ many women. The export processing zone in Tanzania, the banking sector and other economic sectors with high numbers of women workers are especially affected by the ongoing economic crisis. Starting a business or becoming an entrepreneur is a good way to get out of these difficult economic circumstances, but most young people and recent graduates are unable to take advantage of this kind of opportunity.
Single mothers do not have access to child care and, partly as a result, can’t find jobs. Social insurance is a big concern for many young workers without secure jobs. Without job security, workers worry more about immediate concerns, rather than longer term issues, such as pushing lawmakers to raise the minimum wage. Yet they need both job security and higher wages. Domestic workers, who are often young school dropouts, are paid very badly. Many women and young workers are having difficulty finding jobs and may never get decent work and advance.
Mugalla, who has a degree in biochemistry, has been involved with trade unions since 2005, when she was 24. Her father was the general secretary of a union in Kenya, giving her early knowledge of the labor movement. However, most youth do not understand what unions do. Unions need to engage young people and enable them to better understand the trade union movement.
Yet unions’ gender and youth departments are often underfunded. Many staff and cooperating partners are men who don’t fully understand the need for gender programming and how it should be conducted. They don’t have the knowledge to implement gender programs or know how to find the capacity to implement these programs. But women leaders need to be proactive to accomplish more, Mugalla said. They need to have sufficient funds to conduct gender programs, which should be more mainstream. More women, men, older people and younger people need to be involved in gender activities.
“We have to be sure to include gender and youth issues in labor activities such as social dialogue, organizing, and productivity and to take a holistic approach to program training and implementation,” she said. “We need to look at the whole picture in Africa, and to take into account gender and issues of importance to young people.” Even though cultural complexities and prerequisites can make this much more difficult, it’s important not to ignore these types of issues.
Mugalla said her union has a relatively new youth section that was formed in 2007. Her union also has new constitutional provisions regarding youth and women. Youth and women are now included in more higher level union meetings, since most union secretary generals are older men. A youth conference is planned during the fall on the informal sector, social insurance coverage and youth employment. The union is also planning a mentorship program for young people and women to assist in bringing them more into active roles in unions and the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC).
Read her full presentation.
Summing up the three presentations, Molly McCoy said they each offered similar observations about why young workers and women need unions. Panelists discussed the need for access to social protections and to child care; as well as the effect of the economic crisis on women and young workers and how good industrial jobs have disappeared. The high cost of obtaining a good education is a big problem.
After graduating, many young people are unable to get a job or find a job in their field. Panelists discussed why young workers and women need a voice that clearly represents their needs and interests and how unions responded by instituting formal structural and constitutional changes, which made a good start in addressing these issues and how workers can have a voice in making changes. Obtaining adequate funding for these activities is important, because they are sometimes made a lower priority by union leaders.
Jul 30, 2013
Panelists
• Ziona Tanzer, Solidarity Center Law Program Counsel, Rule of Law
• Matt Hersey, Solidarity Center Rule of Law Program Officer
• Lais Abramo, Director, ILO Brazil
• Bothchakrya Sary, attorney, Community Legal Education Center (CLEC), Cambodia
Facilitators
• Neha Misra, Solidarity Center Senior Specialist, Migration and Human Trafficking
• David Welsh, Solidarity Center, Country Director for Cambodia
Ziona Tanzer opened the workshop by overviewing historical references to gender equality in international law. The 1919 Treaty of Versailles peace agreement, for example, which ended World War I, includes the principle that “men and women should receive equal remuneration for work of equal value.” The 1944 Declaration of Philadelphia, which outlines the aims and purposes of the ILO, also includes language asserting that all people, regardless of race, creed, or gender, have the right to equal opportunity.
Adopted in 1951, the Equal Remuneration Convention contains the principle of “equal remuneration for men and women workers for work of equal value.” This statement is stronger and more broadly applicable than the principle of equal work for equal pay, because work of an entirely different nature, but of an equal value, should be remunerated equally. This principle of equal remuneration applies to all workers. Legislation prohibiting wage discrimination is not sufficient. Rather, the state is obligated to promote the principle of equal remuneration for work of equal value and to ensure its application.Tanzer explained that following World War II, the ILO adopted two key conventions related to gender discrimination: Convention 100: Equal Remuneration Convention and Convention 111: Discrimination (Employment and Occupation). Both were incorporated into the ILO’s 1998 Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work.
The ILO adopted the Convention on Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) in 1958. It promotes equality of both opportunity and treatment and defines discrimination as “any distinction, exclusion or preference made on the basis of race, color, sex, religion, political opinion, national extraction or social origin.” Importantly, the discriminatory effect, regardless of the intent, is considered. The convention applies to discrimination in law and in practice and also considers multiple acts of discrimination.
Matt Hersey followed with a presentation highlighting technical tools for protecting confidential information, which can help human rights defenders expose the actions of human rights violators who “operate with impunity because their crimes are not exposed.”
Hersey described the Martus database software, an important tool for human rights defenders. This free software is designed to be easy to use and works on any computer. The database is encrypted and the system is engineered to include a variety of safeguards that ensure that data remains confidential. The software is fully customizable and includes support for multiple languages. Hersey mentioned that human rights defenders in countries around the world, including Burma, Colombia and Mexico, are successfully using the database to securely compile information. Hersey provided the software and instructions on USB drives to interested participants at the end of the workshop.
Read the full presentation.
Lais Abramo discussed using ILO conventions to protect not only worker rights, but also expand gender equality. She listed some of the many ILO conventions and recommendations that relate to gender issues, noting that conventions have the force of law.
Abramo overviewed the progression of the prevailing ILO approach toward gender issues, beginning with the ILO’s founding, when ILO conventions focused on protecting women in their reproductive role, to the present, with Convention 100 (Equal Remuneration Convention) and Convention 111 (Discrimination (Employment and Occupation) now among the ILO’s eight fundamental conventions. She described the Maternity Protection Convention, initially adopted in 1919 as Convention 3 and revised and strengthened twice, first in 1952 as Convention 103 and again in 2000 as Convention 183.
She concluded by highlighting Convention 189: Domestic Workers Convention, adopted in 2011, which applies to millions of workers, primarily women, who have long been overlooked by national labor laws. She praised the convention, describing it as broad with many important protections. She noted that it has so far been ratified by eight countries and that many national labor movements around the world make promoting its ratification a priority.
Bothchakrya Sary provided perspectives from Cambodia and pointed out that gender issues are important in developing countries. She noted that gender equality was discussed during the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Summit in Phnom Penh in April 2012 and that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave a major speech on gender equality during her visit to Cambodia in July 2012.
Sary explained that the major export industries in Cambodia, including the ready-made garment industry, are dominated by women workers. However, abuses of fundamental labor rights are extensive in these industries. For example, employers routinely hire workers on fixed-duration contracts that circumvent maternity leave provisions in the law. Also, the minimum wage of $81 per month in the garment sector is not sufficient to meet the basic needs of a family.
Sary cited several recent instances of using legal mechanisms to win justice for workers, but noted that success was achieved only after struggle. For example, workers at the closed Kingsland garment factory won $200,000 in back pay in early 2013, but only after a two-month strike. Families of victims of the Wing Star shoe factory received compensation, but only as a result of extensive advocacy. Wing Star collapsed in May, killing two workers. Sary highlighted the importance of continued vigilance, stating that “the problem in Cambodia is not the law, it is the implementation of the law.”
