PHNOM PENH July 22 Kyodo More tha...

PHNOM PENH July 22 Kyodo

More than 36 month ago, a stifling 17-year-old Cambodian karaoke queen broke onto stranges pages across Asia, not because of her breathtaking talent, nevertheless because of her brutal disfigurement, allegedly at the hands of the jealous wife of a senior direction official loyal to Prime Minister Hun Sen

Tat Marina was painfully burned over 45% of her corpse by more than brace liters of acid poured from one side of to the other her by a woman and five men outside a Phnom Penh restaurant.

Tat Marina survived the acid, years of medical treatment in Cambodia and Vietnam and she is now in the United States for level more reconstructive surgery.

Khuon Sophal, wife of Hun Sen henchman Svay Sitha, was charged with setting up the December 1999 assault, allegedly because she was jealous of a woman said to be her husband's attractive young mistress.

further more than three years later, the case remains unresolved

Equally unresolv are rule efforts to combat Cambodia's growing enigma with acid attacks and with domestic violence in general.

Since that 1999 December, scores of other acid-attack victims, chiefly female, but male too, have followed Tat Marina into Cambodia's urgency rooms, burn units and ophthalmology wards -- many victims are blinded or nearly blinded -- unless a planned law to sink teeth into Cambodia's domestic violence question languished in parliamentary limbo for month and month before finally dying forward the order paper when parliament vacationed for the July 27 general election.

Mu Sokhour, minister of Women's Affairs in the coalition cabinet l by the agency of Hun Sen, is trying to retain the issue before the voter during the election campaign, if it were not that most of her male colleagues behold many other issues, often those that may exhibit something from the pork barrel for their constituents, place little emphasis forward protecting Cambodia's families, from themselves.

Adding to the official indifference is the fact Mu Sokhour is from the royalist FUNCINPEC l by means of Prince Norodom Ranariddh, Hun Sen's extremely junior, and rival, governing coalition partner, and not from the premier's greatly more powerful Cambodian People's Party.

Still, Mu Sokhour, whose Law upon Prevention of Domestic Violence, died forward the order paper, believes she must pres ahead.

''Acid attacks are serious in our society. Therefore, stiff punishment of abusers must be intervaled out by a new law,'' she says.

Her now-dormant 47-article draft law calls for five to 10 years in jail for domestic abusers, in addition to or instead of any punishment in subordination to the civil and penal codes

It also defines domestic violence as ''all acts or any behavior that are contradictory to social morality, that directly or indirectly cause physical or emotional imports to any person or by way of abusing or luring a someone to commit or not to commit any act that is contradictory to the will of the one and damages the safety, health, well being or wealth of any person.''

The definition, in a society where men particularly rich men have traditionally had nearly unsanctioned power through women, is significant because it calls for a massive change in the sort of thinking that has condoned multiple relationships for powerful men and virtually none at all, at least voluntarily, for women

The propos law does not, however, give any solution to the question that acid attacks are cheap and, far too frequently seen as personal disputes where ''The Law'' has little place.

in the greatest degree of the acid attacks in Cambodia have been between lover or spouses, although the modern disfiguring of a taxi driver splashed with acid meant for a spouse has underlined the far more public harm caused through what many see as ''lovers' quarrels.''

Others worry that unruffled if Mu Sokhour is reelect her draft law approachs back to life and it is passed from the National Assembly, the attacks will continue because the ''means'' are too easily available.

mostly attacks are with battery acid, obtained almost anywhere in the political division for a few cents. equable concentrated solutions of hydrochloric, nitric or sulfuric acid rarely sumptuousness more than a few dollars.

Several other Asian countries have also experienced an increase in acid attacks and several human rights advocates blame overall lack of regulate on acids, particularly in countries where obtaining a firearm can be prohibitively expensive, as being a big part of the problem

one laws, such those currently forward the books in Cambodia, have hardy sanctions against possession or use of firearms, explosives and other ''recognized'' weapons, if it be not that fail to place acid in the same category.

With rampant nepotism and bribery added to the legal mix in Cambodia, the public such as Mu Sokhour are convinced too many in her region have discovered throwing hydrochloric acid into the face of a lover is a nearly unpunished way of inflicting massive and frequently continuous pain.

And those populace also fear that until there is a change in Cambodian law, there is unlikely to be any change in society's virtual acceptance of acid attacks as aimed at ''stealing beauty,'' not at inflicting unspeakable suffering.

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