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The girls behind the development and launch of this web site have been kidnapped, assaulted through having unwanted virginity tests forced upon their bodies, blackmailed, threatened, and forced to lie. The money promised to them and their families never materialized once the organization behind the attacks upon them had used them and got their way by succeeding in the conviction and imprisonment of several innocent men, in the process raising their own profile with their US and Australian and other international benefactors, and improving their revenue.
The girls and their parents thus used were simply cast aside. The position of the girls was now as follows- made to lie, forced to suffer shameful virginity testing, branded as 'victims of rape', which named and shamed them and damaged or sabotaged their marriage prospects - they were literally defiled by an organization masquerading as their protector. In one case, a father that had overspent on the promise of money to come committed suicide and his wife soon followed him to the grave. But what was the girls' main subsequent motivation and action? All the more astonishing in view of the fact that the court that condemned the men on the basis of their forced false accusations refused to let them give evidence retracting it, their main motivation was to clear the innocent men by telling the truth.
How did they do this? First they sought out and spoke to the only Western woman journalist they could find in Cambodia. She tipped off a couple of overseas journalists and book authors, one of whom took up the cause of the girls. There are two sets of girls from the two villages of Khok Dong and Chikraing. The
Khok Dong girls were involved in allegations against two Australian men, while the Chikraing girls were involved in allegations against a New Zealand man. Both sets of girls however were inveigled into the scheme of accusing the men by the same organization, the one they are accusing here - the Cambodian Women's Crisis Centre (CWCC).
We can only give a brief summary of their courage and fight here. One of the Chikraing girls was ten years old when the CWCC tried to get her to accuse New Zealander Graham Cleghorn. Despite being seized by them she refused and still holds out. She and her friends were refused permission to speak in his defence at his original trial in Siem Reap. The authorities moved him for his appeal in December 2004 to Penohm Pen, hundreds of kilometres from the girl's village. With assistance from friends they were bussed up to the court which also meant an overnight stay. Once again the judges to allow them to testify.
The Khok Dong girls, who were involved in the accusations against the two Australian men, Bart Lauwaert and Clint Betterridge, wrote the letters that are on this web site, made statements, and two of them and their mother made a taped interview. They then wrote to the Prime Minister, made a banner which declared one of the two men that had been accused innocent (the only one of the two still in Siem Reap Prison, as the other is imprisoned in Australia).The banner shown on this site attacked the CWCC whom they claimed kidnapped and coerced them into making the false accusations. They tried to hold a press conference, but could not afford the trip and overnight stay in Phnom Pen. They managed to get their story told prominently on the web site of Inquisition 21st century, where it began to receive wide publicity.
The CWCC fought back and sent representatives to their villages. In the case of one of the three convicted men (Cleghorn) they took some of the girls back 'into their protection', but in the case of others involved with that man's conviction they could not get them to 'recant their recantations'. The girls involved in the accusations against the Australians held their ground and still stand firm. This must be seen in the context of penniless girls and an organization with both huge funds and the police in their pay. They cannot get these girls to move from their position of wanting to tell the truth.
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