The mutilated body of a 16-year-old girl has been found in a rice field near her home in Takeo province’s Traing district, and officials said yesterday they believed the victim was raped before she was killed.

So Sokhorn, chief of Smorng commune, where the crime occurred, said the girl’s body was found on Monday

evening.

“Her skin was swelling, and each breast was skinned,” So Sokhorn said, and added that her nose was broken and her stomach and left shoulder had been burned.

She said the girl had last been seen alive on Monday morning as she left her home to hunt for snails in nearby rice fields.

She declined to discuss the case further, citing an ongoing investigation.

Hor Nead, provincial coordinator for the rights group Adhoc, said the girl appeared to have been strangled to death.

“Police officials have not detained the suspect yet, but we think [the girl and the suspect] knew each other; that’s why the suspect decided to kill her” after the rape, he said.

He said Adhoc had recorded 24 rape cases in Takeo province in the first 10 months of this year, a decrease from the 32 cases recorded in the same period last year.

In the first nine months of this year, the rights group Licadho recorded 200 cases of rape across Cambodia, 176 of which involved victims younger than 18.

Am Sam Ath, a senior monitor for Licadho, said seven of the 200 cases had been rape-murders.

Meanwhile, police in Banteay Meanchey province’s Poipet town yesterday arrested and detained a brothel owner accused of torturing a sex worker.

Um Sophal, the police chief in Poipet, said the 48-year-old woman was arrested yesterday evening following a complaint filed by one of her employees.

He said the woman had not been charged, but would be held overnight before being sent to the provincial police station.

Her husband, meanwhile, has fled.