By UN Journal Kayla Lee

There, people are still being tortured, sold, and dying. Their cries for help go unheard. The regime remains silent, and the authorities turn a blind eye. And that silence is the most brutal accomplice. Imprisoned people are beaten while chained, women are sold to human trafficking rings, and young people are used as slaves for cyber scams.

They are managed not as humans but as numbers, their suffering buried in statistics. This is not crime. It is the collapse of the state. The law is corrupt, the police are bought off, and the judiciary has become a toy of power. Crime is open, violence institutionalized. This country can no longer be called a nation under the rule of law.

Today's Cambodia is effectively in a state of ‘anarchy’. Yet the greater tragedy is that, even witnessing this horrific reality, no one steps forward. The international community's indifference is more brutal than the death of human rights. The UN Human Rights Council leaves only paperwork, while national governments hide behind the shield of “internal affairs.”

Meanwhile, someone is dying from torture. His screams leave no record. Now is not the time to merely chant “human rights.” The international community must act. It must immediately impose economic and diplomatic sanctions on the Cambodian regime. It must freeze the overseas assets of the corrupt ruling class and refer those implicated in crimes to the International Criminal Court (ICC).

A regime that destroys human rights can no longer be a member of the international community. Human history has always guarded against silence. Silence is the absence of justice and the extension of evil. The reality unfolding in Cambodia now asks us all: “Will you remain silent, or will you act?” The international community must now answer.

Sanctions must be imposed now. So that the blood-curdling cries of those groaning under torture no longer vanish into thin air. Save human rights in Cambodia. That is the duty of humanity's conscience.