Commune police are searching for a man who allegedly slashed his wife’s head with a knife on Sunday in Phnom Penh’s Por Sen Chey district, according to local authorities.

Theng Kosal, Choam Chao commune police chief, said husband Pao Y Rim, 26, fled after his wife Sun Makara, 18, complained to the police.

“We received her complaint and are looking for the husband,” Kosal said.

According to a Chaom Chao commune police officer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, the husband had locked the woman in a room and sliced her in the head, preventing her from going to hospital until morning, when she was allowed to go out to receive 10 stitches.

Makara, 18, said in a video of her police interrogation that “he used a knife to cut my head”, but maintained Y Rim “was not really drunk”.

The Choam Chao officer said Makara’s husband had repeatedly accused her of having an affair with another man and used violence in the past.

Domestic violence remains common in many households, and Ros Sopheap, executive director of NGO Gender and Development for Cambodia, said that a lack of financial independence often forced women “to stay with violent husbands”.

Meanwhile, The Chhunhak, a gender equality official at the Ministry of Women’s Affairs, said the main issue was law enforcement. “The victim will think that it’s not easy to complain . . . so they may keep silent and the case might happen again and again.”

ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY LEONIE KIJEWSKI