A female land defender in Kampong Speu province takes on the citizen journalist role to report human rights and land issues in her community to the general public.
Her struggle for land rights
Mrs. Mom Sophy, aged 41, was born in Peam Ros Village, Raksmey Samaki Commune, Oral District, Kampong Speu Province. She has four children, one boy and three girls. She is very active in social work and long fought for community land rights in Reaksmey Samaki community located in Oral district, Kampong Speu province.
A land dispute in Reaksmey Samaki community has been going on since 2011 between local residents in two communes and Tycoon Ly Yong Phat’s sugarcane company. Over one thousand households, including Sophy’s family, have been affected by this development and still fighting for the community land despite the dissatisfactory compensations and offers by the company and the Ministry of Land Management.
During this dispute, Mrs. Sophy has brought the complaints to numerous relevant ministries and even to the office of the Prime Minister Hun Sen for intervention with the hope of solutions on their community land.
Losing her 4-hectare farm to the company, Sophy said her family started to lose income and the whole family members were kept under surveillance and restriction to advocate for their land rights.
She recalls that the mainstream media seems to ignore the voices of land defenders while rich people assumed all the power to silence the land victims and those who dare to speak to the media about the issue.
“The mainstream media missed out on local issues, especially land conflicts in my area. Whenever we traveled to Phnom Penh to bring a complaint to appeal for government intervention, we rarely saw reporters or journalists came down to cover our stories”, she added.
Interest in citizen journalism
Mrs. Sophy said now she found a way to address her situations and disseminate the issues that are happening in her community to the public by joining citizen journalists’ network, thanks to CCIM’s initiative and support.
Mrs. Mom Sophy attended the capacity training on “Basic Journalism and Digital Security Skills” as a citizen journalist under the auspices of the Cambodian Center for Independent Media (CCIM) in May 2021. Then, she participated in other training courses, such as the “Mobile Journalism” and “Hard News Writing and Reporting Skills on Human Rights.”
Her interest to become a citizen journalist is to voice out her community concerns and spread the issues that are affecting the community and push for solutions, especially land issues with the company.
“I personally experienced social injustice, especially land grabbing and development plans that are not respecting people’s rights. This prompted me join citizen journalist with CCIM”, she added.
Through field mentoring and coaching support by CCIM in September 2021, Mrs. Mom Sophy and her team in Kompong Speu had the opportunity to enhance their journalistic skills and story development such as brainstorming of story ideas, identifying relevant sources, catching story angles, interviewing skills and writing reports.
Her first article is entitled “Oral villagers criticize local authorities for inaction over sick cattles” and another report is “A woman community leader demands justice for her broken hand by aggressive soldiers in Udom Sre Pus”, which addresses the ongoing controversial conflicts between villagers and militant families, whom the latter are given social land concessions by the government in Udom Sre Pus community in Kampong Speu province.
“I learned to catch story angles and propose questions for each source in the story. Now, I see many stories to write and I wish to address the land issues in Kampong Speu province”, she added.
Continued support to citizen journalists
CCIM’s Citizen Journalist Coordinator Mr. Pich Chamrong states that our aim is to strengthen and empower citizen journalists and local people, like Mrs. Mom Sophy, to report information to the media and give voice to the voiceless.
“We also provided her a smartphone and guidance on news writing. We intend to train our citizen journalists to publish what matters most in their communities that the mainstream media missed out”, he said.
Between 2019 and 2022, CCIM have expanded citizen journalists’ network in 23 provinces across the country by engaging 138 community people in capacity training, including 46 CJs selected as “team leaders” and 92 CJs as “members”. The citizen journalists come from different backgrounds such as local people, human rights and land activists, youths, indigenous people, and forestry members etc.
As of 2021, CCIM have trained over 400 CJs in all provinces in Cambodia, in which 205 CJs are considered “active”, including 118 males, 82 females and 5 LGBTQs. (Pich Chamrong)
