Newsletter

Juanita Rice, a distinguished alumna from the University of Minnesota, has served as a trial lawyer and district court magistrate in Colorado. She also served as a senior legal adviser in Cambodia on the Cambodian Court Training Project, part of a United States Agency for International Development-funded provincial court reform program in Cambodia. She taught and mentored Cambodian judges, prosecutors, and court staff members, all survivors of the bloody Khmer Rouge regime of the 1970s.

Rice recently retired from her position in Colorado and has moved to Cambodia, where she plans to work as a teacher of law, court reform, and English. She shares some observations about Cambodia’s struggles with gender-based violence, child abuse, and deforestation.

“I have been traveling some since my arrival. There are many new signs along the roads advocating against domestic violence with both words and drawn pictures, such as one with a woman standing up to a man, who looks quite guilty with his head hanging down and she holding her hand out against him. Notably 85% of Cambodians cannot read and write their own language, so having pictures to explain human rights concepts helps tremendously. There are others with an entire family sitting down together and signage about stopping domestic violence, spending time with the family, and parenting children effectively so that they can grow up to be healthy emotionally and physically.

“This is quite surprising, since domestic violence has been rampant in Cambodia and is simply a way of life for many, not unlike other places in the planet. Husbands in the past have viewed their wives as mere chattel, to be treated like their water buffalo, dogs, or cattle, beaten or kicked brutally when they misbehave. They learn it young, from watching parents and elders interact in the same fashion toward women, and since women have been tremendously marginalized, it is a very challenging social issue.

“Phnom Penh is very overcrowded, hot and extremely polluted—air, water everything. In the rainforest in northern Cambodia I viewed mass destruction of the ancient trees; there are large expanses of treeless, brick-like baked soils, with dust ever-present and blowing across everything in its path, smoky strata from folks cooking, making charcoal and causing trees to die out from the bottom up. People make small holes in the base of ancient trees and burn away for days, so that ultimately the tree dies after decades of growth. Small children live and play in grass huts, with no electricity or water source except for a small well which depletes the aquifer under the brick-like soils. The children have no opportunity to go to school.

“Elephants, tigers, and monkeys are all gone, due to loss of habitat. Some families clear-cut an area, selling the wood or charcoal, and then growing a banana patch instead of maintaining the ancient trees. The banana patch becomes a cash crop which can be turned quickly and easily.”

She concluded her letter by marveling at the beauty of Angkor Wat, the ancient temple complex, and the surreal contrast with the ravaged woodland areas and polluted urban life. She will send updates on her work to bring the rule of law to a country still struggling with the impact of the genocide of the 1970s.