Let's read what Kosal, one of the winners, had to say in response to the question "What is it like to be a woman in Cambodia in 2012?" The essays were not judged on the accuracy of the information, the grammatical structure or being inline with views held by JWOC or myself. I was simply looking for students who had tried really hard to express their views, whatever they were, which is not easy when learning a new language. Jackie, EVM, JWOC.
In the year of 2012 Cambodia is a peaceful place with development on everything. So people in Cambodia might be happy and enjoy their living. And how about women and girls in Cambodia? Can they get what they want?
Life of the women and girls in Cambodia are not the same. They live in their own family. So their lives are different. A girl or a woman in a rich family is so different from a girl or a woman in a poor family. A rich girl or rich woman lives with happiness they live in big houses with comfortable life. They have cars servants etc. but in a poor family woman and girl usually work hard. They have to be strong to help their family. In the countryside women and girls leave their villages to find jobs far away from their house sometimes they go abroad or any places in country. And a girl or woman in a simple family is easier than the poor.
Now the women and girls are offered the rights for good living in society. They can go to study at school they can work like a man they can share the ideas, they can make decisions etc. It’s better than before that girls and women were just kept as housekeeper. But women and girls still have problems in the society or in the family like violence. The violence usually suffer the woman and children in the family some girls were deceived by dishonest people by many ways. However woman can live better than man if she’s smarter and she can find a good job when she finished school like a man in Cambodia. When we look at the jobs in Cambodia we can see it’s easier than before. Now the number of woman at work is increasing in Cambodia and also there are many kinds of work that women can do such as work in the hotel, restaurant, organization, company, enterprise, or in government too. And we can see that women are very important in each country in development, politics, economy and education.
Kosal proudly holding his prize
