Documentary record Bound by Fear
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Conviction Buddhist institutions and contexts Buddhist institutions and lineages Siem Reap, Cambodia · 2016

Vong Chet: former pagoda chief sentenced for sexual abuse of novice monks in residential care

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Record class

Core record

Evidence status

Convicted

Authority role

former chief monk, pagoda head, religious teacher, residential custodian

Organization

Wat Ratanak Moni

Archive classification

This is the archive's application of its published inclusion test. The cited record appears below.

Vong Chet was the chief monk and residential authority over novice monks entrusted to the pagoda. The evidence described his control of discipline, living conditions and religious instruction, together with payments and threats used to suppress disclosure. That custodial spiritual authority was material to the abuse.

  • Guru or spiritual-teacher authority
  • Institutional obedience or isolation
  • Other spiritual authority or belief

Evidence structure

Proceedings

  1. 2016-06-09 · criminal conviction and sentence

    Siem Reap Provincial Court, Cambodia. The court sentenced Vong Chet to 15 years in prison after convicting him of purchasing child prostitution and sex with minors involving novice monks in his care.

Documented coercion mechanisms

  • custodial religious authority
  • strict monastic discipline
  • payments for silence
  • threatened beatings
  • institutional dependency

Cited record

Sources

reliable contemporaneous court reporting verdict and sentencing report The Cambodia Daily, 'Pagoda Chief Gets 15 Years for Rape of Boys' (June 11, 2016).

Contemporaneous court reporting records the conviction, 15-year sentence, custodial relationship and evidence involving novice monks at Wat Ratanak Moni.

reliable contemporaneous reporting arrest and authority report The Cambodia Daily, 'Pagoda Chief Confesses to Raping Boys' (Nov. 10, 2015).

Contemporaneous arrest reporting documents the head-monk role, complaints by families, residential custody, threatened discipline and payments used to discourage disclosure.

official government policy institutional authority context Kingdom of Cambodia, Ministry of Cults and Religion and Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation, Child Safeguarding Policy for Pagodas (2020).

The official safeguarding policy recognizes that Cambodian pagodas provide residential care and education, defines duties to prevent and report abuse, and specifies additional procedures when the alleged abuser is a head monk.

Source provenance

Source access and integrity log

This log records source retrieval and file integrity. It does not mean that an automated process independently confirmed every statement in the source.

Source and tier basis
https://english.cambodiadaily.com/2016/06/11/pagoda-chief-gets-15-years-for-rape-of-boys/ Corpus classification: reliable-contemporaneous-court-reporting; evidentiary role: verdict-and-sentencing-report. SHA-256 30ceac1ca74f9bdcc40358339772a270be6cce88ca75f02728116c6d445f5e9a
Retrieval
2026-07-20 · Preserved
Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger
Source and tier basis
https://english.cambodiadaily.com/2015/11/10/pagoda-chief-confesses-to-raping-boys/ Corpus classification: reliable-contemporaneous-reporting; evidentiary role: arrest-and-authority-report. SHA-256 a89ac2120301dfae8082107e9c253b712557639c39aeb58c02c9b10d98229e3c
Retrieval
2026-07-20 · Preserved
Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger
Retrieval
2026-07-27 · Retrieval failed
Bound by Fear automated source-preservation ledger

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