The Situation of People with Disabilities in Cambodia

This section gives a brief overview of the situation of people with disabilities in Cambodia. It is based on the DAC Secretariat’s report Country Profile: Study on Persons with Disabilities (Cambodia), completed in early 2001 with support from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (Cambodia). See the sidebar on the right for more details about the report.

Background

Cambodia’s recent history of prolonged civil war and turmoil, genocide and international isolation has given Cambodia what is generally accepted as one of the highest per capita rates of disability in the world. National socio-economic surveys conducted between 1996 and 1999 have variously estimated the number of disabled persons in Cambodia to be 311,000 (1996), 203,000 (1997) and 169,000 (1999), or about 1.5 to 3 percent of the population. However, these statistics appear unreliable due to the large discrepancies between surveys. The total population of Cambodia was 11,437,656 in the 1998 National Census.

Cambodia’s devastated health and social services and educational facilities have neither the money nor the human resources required to cope with the overwhelming needs of Cambodians with disabilities. Rehabilitation services for people with disabilities (PWD) are still very limited, especially for women and children with disabilities.

Types of Disability

Among disabled people, the distribution of disability by type was estimated in the 1999 Cambodia Socio-Economic Survey as follows:

Causes of Disability

According to the 1997 Cambodia Socio-Economic Survey, the most common causes of disability are illness or disease (30 %); congenital (24.8 %); accident (13 %); war or conflict (12.7 %); and landmine explosion (8 %).

Go to Problems Faced by PWD