Some 3,000 youths participated in a Valentine’s Day "couple’s run" at Olympic Stadium yesterday afternoon, a sponsored charity race for which half of all proceeds went to the Kantha Bopha Children’s Hospital.

The event was put on by Ice Watch and the Ministry of Education and featured a song and dance performance to raise awareness about violence against women put on by gender rights NGO Gender and Development Cambodia (GADC).

The performance was in solidarity with the "One Billion Rising" global campaign – that featured the same performance in other countries around the world on Valentine’s Day to draw attention to violence against women as a global issue.

Government statistics compiled over the past decade show that some 21 per cent of Cambodian women aged 15 to 49 reported being victims of some form of violence at least once in their lives, according to My Sambath, program director for GADC, who said that while the Ministry of Women’s Affairs does have a stated policy to address the issue, the policy is insufficiently funded.