When she showed up, there clearly was a group of terrified young people
Image © 2002 Doreen Cheong
She are employed in a manufacturing plant regarding the 70s whenever she try purchased from the Khmer Rouge commanders to assemble regarding the town hallway. Oum Shi’s basic believe try you to definitely she’ll be conducted.
As an alternative, brand new boys and you will girls — altogether 20 of those — was in fact matched right up. Oum Shi, up coming 19, know the new boy across regarding their only because of the sight; they had never verbal.
The latest terrified community lead, not as much as requests of one’s genocidal Khmer Rouge government, advised the students visitors to replace matrimony vows.
“There’s a little address that said, `Feel devoted every single other’,” she recalls. “That has been they. We had been hitched.”
Such as for instance forced marriage ceremonies — imposed adopting the Khmer Rouge grabbed energy for the 1975 — insulted just about any really worth Cambodians stored dear.
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