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As Cambodia prepares for the Human Rights Committee (the Committee) to consider the country’s second State Party Report (State Report), we must note that corruption remains endemic and violence against government critics is systematic. The nation’s corrupt and politically-influenced justice system continues to prosecute more government opponents, while State actors and well-connected individuals continue to enjoy unfettered impunity. Activists and journalists have been murdered and the authorities have consistently failed to properly investigate these crimes and bring the perpetrators to justice.

Cambodians who use drugs confound the notion that drug dependence is a self-inflicted condition that results from a character disorder or moral failing. When Human Rights Watch talked with these people, they were invariably softly spoken and polite. They talked openly and honestly about difficult childhoods (in many cases still underway) living on the streets, or growing up in refugee camps in Thailand. Often young and poorly educated, they spoke of using drugs for extended periods of time. Despite many hardships in their lives, their voices rarely became bitter except when describing their arrest and detention in government drug detention centers. They did not mince words when describing these places. One former detainee, Kakada, was particularly succinct: “I think this is not a rehab center but a torturing center.”

The government’s singular attempt to address overcrowding can only be characterized as missing the point: In April 2011, authorities in Bantey Meanchey transferred 38 accused drug users from prison to a local “drug treatment” center run by the Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation (MoSAVY) – essentially another prison. A Human Rights Watch report described similar facilities run by the same ministry as being havens of torture, physical and sexual violence, and other depravity.

All of this means that Cambodia’s prisons are still bursting at the seams. At least 12 facilities are at or near double their intended capacity, and some are allocating less than one square meter of cell space per inmate. Construction of new prisons and cells continues, but it is clearly not enough.