AF3IRM/GabNet LA member, Loralei, honors Women Defender, Theary Seng
Theary Seng
Cambodian Human Rights Activist, Attorney, & Author
Video Profile: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2V-AVVIRFA
Source: http://www1.voanews.com/english/news/a-13-2008-06-17-voa71-66822202.html
Theary Seng’s story is one of hope over adversity. An activist, author and attorney, Seng uses every opportunity to promote human rights in Cambodia. Growing up in Cambodia during the Khemer Rouge, as a child, she collected cow dung among the graves of the victims to fertilize the crops. Her parents died at the hands of the ultra-Maoist group, which ruled Cambodia from 1975 to 1979.
After the fall of the Khmer Rouge, Theary escaped to Thailand and then the United States, where she became a lawyer. Now she is back in Cambodia, working to help her impoverished country. “So, for me, it’s to take my history and the loss of my parents and to shape it, to not let the Khmer Rouge leaders have the better of me - by making it into something more hopeful,” she explains.
Theary heads the Center for Social Development, which works to overcome the dark chapter of the Khmer Rouge. “The Khmer Rouge years have scarred our psychology,” she says. “There is a lot of beauty [in Cambodia], but it’s unfortunately overwhelmed by all these social problems and ills of our current society.”
Today, Theary even hosts a TV show looking to find the country’s next generation of youth leaders. “Really, my work here is not to do anything big, but to be a common citizen back in my homeland, where I’ve suffered a lot,” says Theary. “And now, I’m taking that suffering, and shaping it into hope, and trying to work with individuals who had not the time and space to heal that I’ve had.”
