Kratie police yesterday sent two Buddhist monks to provincial court to face charges of raping a 15-year-old girl at a pagoda in O’Russei commune.

Keo Srey Sey, provincial director of the Anti-Human Trafficking and Juvenile Protection Bureau, said the monks were apprehended on Tuesday after the victim’s family filed a complaint with local police.

The girl was visiting her grandmother at the pagoda, where she often prepared food for the monks, when a novice asked her to retrieve something for him in the bathroom, Keo Srey Sey said.

“The monk raped the girl in the bathroom and she sat crying outside the kitchen.”

A second monk then lured her to his room by asking why she was crying and forced her to remove her clothes and molested her, Keo Srey Sey said, adding that the two monks told the girl not to tell her parents about the rape.

The victim’s father said he had filed complaints to the provincial court and the local rights group Adhoc.