Mrs. Seng Chanbou is a deputy governor of Ban Lung District and also the chair of the gender-based violence response working group (GBV WG) at Ban lung in Ratanak Kiri Province. As a leader of GBV WG, she is responsible
with GBV survivors is a challenging job that needs to have a very strong commitment, I am highly confident in leading this working group to function well and get sustainable implementation,” says Chanbou.
For many years, her team has faced many difficulties to support GBV survivors. Remarkably, rape cases is increasing among poor families within their members, even though there are signs that people’s knowledge on GBV issues is increasing. Service providers serve the survivors within their own expertise, however coordination between agencies is lacking. For inter-agency coordination, service providers aim to use the Women’s and Children’s Consultative Committee (WCCC) and Commune Committee for Women and Children (CCWC) who work too broadly for women and children’s issues. This referral process though requires formal letters and takes lot of time.
Establishing and strengthening the sub-national mechanism on responding to GBV including Ms. Chanbou is a key part of the CARE’s project funded by the Australian Government through the ACCESS program, and in collaboration with Ministry of Woman Affairs (MoWA) and Provincial Department of Woman Affairs (PDoWA). Since CARE has supported and developed capacity on essential skills for working with the survivors and GBV-related knowledge for the Ban Lung GBV WG, she and her team have seen significant improvements and better understand their roles and responsibilities on supporting the survivors. There are also improvements in terms of the referral coordination, both intra-agency and inter-agency on GBV survivors. Furthermore, the GBV WG is created a platform for GBV service providers to get to discuss exclusively on GBV issues. Direct calls to get immediate intervention from other service providers or GBV members for urgent GBV cases, especially rape cases can be facilitated. Consequently, Seven GBV cases were reported and shared among relevant service providers in order to get quicker support from the group.
Through the hard work of the working group members, Mrs. Chanbou has really appreciated her leading role and being better accountable to members and services providers. Now she and her group can receive more information and intervene faster on GBV issues with other agencies to provider services based on the survivors’ need. “It is crucial that we are a service provider being available and supporting GBV survivors, to keep a quality of work we must use our heart to work with them and put ourselves on their shoes.” Says Chanbou.
Due to great importance of functionality of GBV WG under her leadership, ChanBou has committed to lead this group to function more effectively and sustainably. She will include more activities of the GBV WG in the quarterly meeting and some training into the district investment program.
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