Sok Sophal: From struggle to standing with women and children in crisis

Date: Friday, 17 July 2026

This profile is part of a Beijing+30 Action Agenda Gender Champions series by UN Women and Cambodia’s Ministry of Women’s Affairs.

A teacher stands at the front of a classroom and holds up a poster with colorful pictures. Several schoolchildren sit at wooden desks and face the teacher. One child stands and looks at the poster. The children wear yellow shirts. There is a blackboard and a whiteboard behind the teacher. The classroom has open windows and wooden pillars, with sunlight coming in.

Sok Sophal is Chief of the Office of Social Affairs and Social Welfare in Kampong Chhnang District, where she helps protect women and children and advocates for women’s leadership. Photo: UN Women/Lim Sophorn

Sok Sophal grew up in the shadow of war, her childhood marked by separation, poverty and responsibility far beyond her years.

“My early life was filled with deep struggle,” she says, recalling how while other children went to class, she was kept at home to care for her baby sister. “When they came home from school, they would play together and mock me. They would say, ‘Look at her, she just stays at home watching the baby. She doesn’t go to school’.”

After her mother died, changes in the family’s circumstances finally made it possible for Sophal to go to school, and she threw herself into the opportunity with extraordinary determination. Her father built her a small shelter near the school, just large enough to sleep in.

“It was a tiny palm-leaf hut, about three metres long,” she says. On Saturdays, she would walk the long journey back home, some 15 or 16 kilometres away, because she had no bicycle. “The children of wealthy families all had bicycles. I walked the whole way.”

Sok Sophal | Cambodian Gender Champions Changing Public Life

Even as many of her friends dropped out of school and married early, Sophal kept going.

“I was very determined,” she says. “My father never had to wake me up. At 4 a.m., I was already up studying.”

One by one, her classmates left. By the final exams in 1987, only a few remained. Some questioned why she kept trying if she could marry, farm and survive. But Sophal did not give up.

“I felt that since I had studied this hard, I had to persevere,” she says. “No matter how hard it was or how far I had to walk from home, I had to struggle to achieve it.”

Part of that determination came from her father telling her that civil servants were respected and could lift up an entire family: “Hearing him say that sparked a fire in me.”

A person in a light brown uniform sits at a desk and writes on a sheet of paper. The person holds a pen in one hand and a document in the other. There are stacked folders and a closed book on the desk. A window on the left lets in natural light. In the background, there is a chair and a plain wall.

After years of hardship and study, Sok Sophal achieved her childhood goal of becoming a civil servant. Photo: UN Women/Lim Sophorn

For Sophal, becoming a civil servant was not only about stability. It was about dignity, service and proving that education mattered. “I wanted people to know that working hard for an education is not a waste of time,” she says. “It truly matters.”

Today, as Chief of the Office of Social Affairs and Social Welfare in Kampong Chhnang, Sophal works closely with women and children facing violence, abuse and crisis. When women experience domestic violence, they know they can turn to her office. For child victims, her team intervenes directly, visiting families, offering encouragement and connecting survivors of rape to shelters or other support.

“If there was no shelter, we would visit them frequently, bringing donations or some money to support and encourage them,” she says. “They always have my phone number. Whenever there is an issue, they contact me.”

Two people sit across from each other at a stone table outdoors and talk. One person wears a patterned outfit, and the other wears a light blue shirt. There are benches around the table and trees that provide shade. In the background, there is a fence, plants, and a small building.

In Kampong Chhnang Province, Sok Sophal works tirelessly to support women and children in crisis. Photo: UN Women/Lim Sophorn

Sophal is deeply concerned about girls’ education. In a factory-heavy area, she sees many girls leaving school as early as grade 7 or 8 to work, sometimes pushed by families seeking quick wages. She speaks out against this whenever she can.

“Youth from age 15 to 16 is a time for growing,” she says. “You must not force children to work in factories.”

Education, she believes, creates choices. Even for those who do work in factories, knowledge can open better opportunities, from administration to supervision.

For Sophal, the message is clear: educate daughters, support women’s leadership and expand women’s roles so women can help shape solutions for other women.

“Nowadays, the number of women in these roles is increasing,” she says. “I hope that in the future, there will be even more women playing vital roles in leadership, so that they can do even more work for women.”

Accelerating the achievement of women's full and equal decision-making power in private and public domains, and at all levels of government, is a priority action area of the Beijing+30 Action Agenda. This Gender Champions series is part of the UN Women project Beijing+30 Activation: Strengthening Women's Leadership to Accelerate Progress on Women's Rights in South and South-East Asia supported by the Republic of Korea’s Ministry of Gender Equality and Family.