Touch Sokun was lucky to keep his job after
an accident - Charlotte Pert
Cambodia’s dangerous roads are claiming – and crippling – more lives
than ever. The victims are mostly young men, often the breadwinners of their
families
Seven months ago, 31-year-old Phaung Sopheap was
driving his motorbike down Street 271 on the western outskirts of Phnom Penh
when another motorbike crashed into him. He fell off and landed with his leg
trapped underneath his bike. The man who had collided with him then drove
over him again in an attempt to finish him off – a well-known tactic to avoid
paying medical bills.
Before the crash, Sopheap was an electrician and able
to pay for his two young children to attend private school and extra English
classes. Afterwards, he was unable to work and deep in debt to the relatives
who paid for his treatment.
The same happened to Chen Boeun in Kampong Speu who in
2010 became the victim of a hit-and-run – his children gave up their studies to
find work in garment factories.
And to Touch Sokun, who had to have his leg amputated
in 2012 after crashing in Phnom Penh. He was about to take up overtime work,
but his injury forced him to miss the necessary training.
All three men are now in debt after becoming victims
of Cambodia’s roads – which are claiming and crippling more lives than ever
before. Many of the casualties are young men. For these family breadwinners,
the repercussions are huge: being unable to work, spiralling into debt, being
unable to provide for their families. Some even become dependent on their
children.
“Road crashes are a new threat to the country’s
future, disproportionately affecting vulnerable groups of road users, including
the poor,” said independent road safety consultant Ear Chariya, adding that
more than two-thirds of the people killed on Cambodian roads are aged between
15 and 44. “Road crashes place a heavy burden, not only on the national economy
but also on household finances,” he said.
Socheata Sann, a Cambodian PhD candidate in road
safety at the Queensland University of Technology in Australia, is conducting
research into the effects of road crashes on Cambodian men. She has mainly been
working with Cambodia’s 11 physical rehabilitation centres, all of which
provide free rehabilitation services to physically disabled people around the
country. Two of them are funded by the government, nine through various NGOs.
In Sann’s research, she found that, from 1980 to 2011,
just 3 per cent of the people treated at these rehab centres were injured in
road crashes. But those figures accellerated rapidly in the study’s last five
years. For 2007 to 2011, the rate was 15 per cent. The real increase is
probably even higher, she said, because there are many road crash victims who
do not use the centres’ services.
A few months ago, Sopheap was undergoing physical
therapy at the Kien Khleang National Rehab Center in Chroy Changvar district,
which has fitted him with a prosthetic leg and where a physiotherapist helps
him to get used to walking again.
Sopheap’s injury was worsened by the perpetrator
running over him again. According to Chariya, despite a 2007 law ordering the
same punishment for a driver who causes death as one who causes disability,
perpetrators remain cognizant that they could still end up paying more
compensation should the victim remain alive.
Prosthetic legs at the centre
“Victims or their family can ask for more compensation
to cover their medical costs and long-term care, which would cost more than
death as a result of a crash,” he said.
Sopheap now attends the rehab centre every morning,
and hopes he will eventually be able to drive again, a skill he needs to be
able to go back to work.
“My family life has really changed since the crash,”
he said. “My children used to go to an expensive school, but I can no longer
afford it. They can’t study English any more.”
The effects of impairment from road crashes are
complex. The cost of medical treatment is high, and many fall into debt.
Because of Cambodia’s poor infrastructure, which brings with it a lack of
accessibility for the disabled, it can be impossible for them to find work. For
people aged between 16 and 60 – a category that makes up 85 per cent of
patients injured in road crashes – the economic implications are enormous.
“Most people are of working or studying age, and are
also the breadwinners of the families. At that age, it affects a lot of areas
of their life – the whole family too,” said Sann, adding that the majority of
those affected are men, partly because Cambodian men are more likely to drive,
and partly because, in her opinion, they are more likely to demonstrate risky
behaviour.
Kien Khleang National
Rehab Center - Eli Meixler
The poorest are worst affected. Treatment is expensive
and, depending on the injury, can last many months or even years. The former
breadwinners become dependent on family members to take them. “Mobility is a
real issue,” said Sann.
Even if those left disabled have the chance to attend
short vocational training courses run by NGOs, these classes may not be
relevant, said Sann. “The training courses might be to repair motorbikes or
cars, but it’s not really about continuing their long-term education,” she
said, adding that some courses include tasks that require heavy lifting, which
are not appropriate for many disabled people.
“It’s a very good idea to provide skills, but these
NGOs need to check first whether they can follow these skills or not, because
some of them might spend a year learning a skill and when they start to work
for three months they cannot continue to do so, so it’s a waste of time”, she
said.
As a result, many are left unemployed. Of the road crash
victims Sann spoke to, 20 per cent were unemployed, compared with the latest
International Labour Organisation figure of 0.20 per cent people nationwide.
And if people cannot work, they become reliant on
their families.
“People really expressed the feeling of becoming a
burden on their families, because they are disabled and cannot get a job.
Sometimes, their children need to stop their education, or their brothers and
sisters need to stop to get a job,” she said.
Boeun, from Kampong Speu, sustained broken bones in
his hand and leg after the hit-and-run. He used to lead a team of construction
workers but had to give up the job due to injuries. While he can sometimes work
in construction or on a farm, he only does what he can manage. His family is
now reliant on his two children, who support them through working in a garment
factory.
A motorcyclist hit Phaung Sopheap then tried to finish
him off - Eli Meixler
“It changed my life a lot, from being a normal family
to a poor family, because I spent almost $7,000 for my treatment. I didn’t have
that kind of money, so I took out a bank loan and now I’m in debt.”
For Sokun, although the recovery from his motorbike
crash is far from smooth, most of his medical costs were covered, partly by
insurance from his work at the Ministry of Agriculture, and partly by the
perpetrator of the crash. He was also able to keep his job, and they even paid
him the same salary while he was off work for 15 days after his operation.
“It didn’t really affect my work. As soon as I could
walk again, I could go back. While I was recovering, the department paid me as
normal, because when I had the accident, I was on the way back from work, so
they understood,” he said, sitting in his cramped fourth floor apartment – which
he still finds difficult to reach – near Phnom Penh’s Orussey Market.
That’s not to say Sokun had it easy. He had intended
to take up some overtime work in the agricultural sector in order to earn more
money, but missed the training because of his injury. This work, out in rural
villages working with farmers, could have made him substantial extra cash to
support his wife and three children, he said.
He also bought a car that he now drives to work,
believing it safer than a motorbike. But it was expensive, and he is now
indebted to his relatives.
“I need to spend more money on the car – petrol is
more expensive. But even though I have to pay more, it’s safer, because fewer
accidents happen in a car than on a motorbike,” he said, adding: “I now think
about safety first. Life is important to me.”
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