On 7 May 2019, 26 community representatives including 7 women, attended a networking meeting held by ADHOC’s provincial office in Oddar Meanchey province. The purpose of provincial networking meetings is to bring together representatives from communities within each target province, allowing them to share achievements, constraints and experiences, identify problems, and improve their knowledge. It further aims to strengthen networks across communities within a given province, allowing for coordinated responses to the rights violations that they face and enhanced solidarity.
Through community empowerment activities such as provincial network meetings, ADHOC seeks to set social change in motion across the country by empowering ordinary citizens to defend their rights and advocate for full respect for human rights in Cambodia.
ADHOC has been holding these meetings throughout the country since 2017, targeting rural communities with high levels of rights violations and little, if any, access to justice, in order to empower them to defend their rights and lead advocacy activities, also assisting in preventing future violations. Participants are selected based on their commitment to promoting and protecting human rights and their position within their communities. ADHOC staff members then assist participants to analyse problems, formulate solutions and provide required information on the legal framework and complaint mechanism.
Land rights violations linked to Economic Land Concessions, land grabbing by powerful and individuals in high places and, more recently illegal logging and natural resource violations are amongst the most widespread rights violations experienced by communities living in Oddar Meanchey province, next to human trafficking, labour abuse and drug use and trafficking.
These meetings are, therefore, beneficial and essential to strengthen the highly vulnerable communities leaving in one of Cambodia’s most remote provinces and who have limited access to information. These meetings increase solidarity between communities. The selected community representatives, often victims of such violations themselves, are actively committed to defending their community members’ rights and have been very active in doing so by sharing information and knowledge gained with their community members and encouraging them to participate in advocacy actions such as petitions, protests and meetings to make their voices heard by local authorities. Their efforts have paid off as several communities have been able to get their land back while others have succeeded to reach out to the relevant authorities in the hope of finding a solution to their land dispute.
For S.L., a 36-year-old female participant as a community representative from Kok Sampor commune, these meetings are about understanding the basic law related to her community’s issues and learn how to deal with these challenges. S.L. has been attending sensitisation sessions and provincial network meetings organised by ADHOC in Oddar Meanchey since 2016. She reported feeling weak and scared of high ranking officials and local authorities in the past when her community was affected by land disputes. As she gained knowledge and a better understanding of the law and her fundamental rights, she began to be more proactive in her community. She is now a very active community representative able to help both her community and communities nearby to claim their rights through meetings and protests to the provincial hall, despite receiving threats from local authorities at times. She feels that the situation in her community has improved as community members became stronger and therefore more willing to defend their rights. S.L. is determined to maintain her efforts to help her community dealing with current and potential future human rights violations and wants to deepen solidarity among her community members to show a united front when dealing with the powerful individuals involved in the land disputes affecting the community.
“I am seeking justice for my community, and I want to fight for my community members. I see ADHOC’s meetings as an opportunity for the communities in our province to meet, grow stronger and join forces to claim our rights together” – SL, Kok Sampor commune, Oddar Meanchey.
Mr C.L. is a 40-year-old farmer and community representative in Alon Veng district. He has been participating in ADHOC’s community empowerment activities since 2014 when he reached out to ADHOC for help due to a land grabbing case affecting his community. C.L. said that provincial meetings have made him stronger. It has enabled him to realise that effective advocacy demands efforts and time. Meeting other community representatives facing similar challenges made him want to be more active and lead advocacy actions to solve the land conflict affecting his community. Having faced threats by authorities in the past, he also feels more confident now as he has far more knowledge and therefore feels less vulnerable than before. C.L. also keeps strengthening the network he has built with other community representatives via social media.
“As a land rights violation victim before becoming a human rights defender, I am hurting, and I do not want others to face such violations and experience the same struggles that I have. I want to fight so others don’t have to endure what I have endured and am still enduring” C.L., Along Veng district, Oddar Meanchey.
