Rape claims

A woman who claimed she was raped twice by a member of her employer’s family while working in Malaysia, before retracting the allegations days later, returned to Cambodia yesterday.

At a press conference at the Ministry of Interior yesterday morning, 27-year-old Ouk Seng, of Svay Rieng province, denied that she had received compensation in exchange for retracting the allegations.

“I told my mother that I was raped because I wanted to come back home,” she said.

“My boss gave me 6,000 Malaysian Ringgits (US$1,994) to come back home. It is my salary. It is not compensation.”

Her mother Srey Sophal, 66, claimed at a press conference organised by Sam Rainsy Party lawmaker Mu Sochua on April 4 that her daughter had been raped, before withdrawing the allegations at the Ministry of Interior on April 6.

Chiv Phally, deputy director of the Anti-Human Trafficking and Juvenile Protection Bureau, said at the conference that officials would have pursued the case had it not been retracted.

“If the case is true, we will cooperate with our embassy to file a complaint to Malaysian authorities, but Ouk Seng said that it is not true,” he said.