Why job of clearing Cambodia’s landmines is giving locals the chance to improve their lives

NGOs striving to clear Cambodia’s minefields are giving opportunities to local mean and women, including landmine survivors and female labourers

With women able to earn far more than as employed as labourers, and receiving insurance and maternity leave, positive changes are occurring to local society

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A cloud of dust and smoke rises into the sky as deminers from the Cambodian Mine Action Centre, with the help of non-governmental organisation Halo Trust, explode landmines in the western province of Kampong Speu, Cambodia. Photo: AFP

Published: 5:00am, 27 Feb 2020Updated: 5:24am, 27 Feb 2020

Six years ago, Soy Kossal stepped on a landmine as he walked along a well-trodden path to his fields in Battambang province in northwestern Cambodia.

The force blew off his right leg, leaving the 28-year-old part-time carpenter a cripple, with no immediate hope of being able to support his wife and family. His tale is all the more tragic because it was an occurrence so regular as to be almost unremarkable in Cambodia.

“I was so depressed. I was ashamed and isolated myself from everyone. I didn’t want to live. People were telling my wife she should get a divorce,” says Soy Kossal.

Luckily his wife, Kolab, paid no heed to the doomsayers, helped him to overcome the trauma and encouraged him to seek other employment. Furnished with a prosthetic, Soy Kassal found a job as a deminer with a charity, and promptly took on a new lease of life.

Six years after losing his leg to a landmine in Cambodia, Soy Kossal now works as a deminer.

“It took me a long time to cope with the emotional struggle,” he says. “I knew I had to continue to support my family, but at the same time I didn’t want other people to suffer the same fate that I did. I want to clear all the mines in the country, every single one.”

Soy Kossal is one of thousands of innocent victims – estimated at 64,000 – who have fallen foul of unexploded ordnance (UXO), a hideous legacy of the conflict that ravaged Cambodia late last century. There’s now a hospital in Battambang that treats anyone injured by UXO for free – though there’s no shortage of victims lining up for service.