Khmer Women take note

A new book looking at the lives of women in Cambodia has been published by University of Hawaii Press this month and is called Khmer Women on the Move: Exploring Work and Life in Urban Cambodia by Annuska Derks. She gets out there to talk to Cambodian women who've moved from the countryside to work in Phnom Penh in the garment industry, prostitution and street trading and gives a fresh insight into what shapes their lives and how they balance their own aspirations with family obligations and long-held cultural ideals. In my lopsided view, women are the heartbeat of Cambodia, they make this country tick and deserve a better deal than they generally get. The greater focus given to women and their successes will I hope give confidence to others to take up the cudgels and start to make inroads into the male-dominated Khmer society. A few have done it already but their numbers are small.