Cambodia jails couple for torture of girl slave

A CAMBODIAN teacher and her husband have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms for torturing an 11-year-old girl they had bought to be their domestic slave, holding her captive for more than a year.

Meas Neary, 41, was sentenced to 20 years in jail, and her husband, Va Sarouen, a 62-year-old retired Ministry of Education official, will serve 10 years.

Police arrested the couple in October, acting on a tip-off from neighbours that the couple were abusing their young maid.

Officers found the girl's body was covered with more than 200 wounds that the couple admitted inflicting with coat-hangers, brooms, electric wires, sometimes using pliers to nip her flesh. The Phnom Penh Municipal court convicted the couple on charges of torture and human trafficking. Each had faced a maximum of 25 years in prison.

The couple had paid $400 (260) to the girl's 62-year-old guardian in early 2008 for her to help with domestic chores, authorities said. Both of the child's parents had died.

Desperately poor Cambodia has been working to crack down on the buying and selling of children for domestic work, brothels or street-begging rings inside and outside the country.

The court also sentenced the girl's former guardian, Thoeng Reth, to five years in jail for human trafficking, the judge said.

The girl, who was not identified, is now in the care of a Swiss-based Christian organisation, Hagar International.