Two students were convicted yesterday of raping an underage girl in a forest last year in Phnom Penh’s Por Sen Chey district.

Heng Kesaro, Phnom Penh Municipal Court presiding judge, sentenced Roeun Khaem, 21, to six years in prison, while Park Thy, 17, was sentenced to three years.

The girl was only 14 when she was raped on July 28, 2013. Khaem and Thy were convicted of having sexual intercourse with a minor under 15.

“It has been ordered they jointly pay 6 million riel [$1,500] to the victim”, Kesaro added.

According to Captain San Peth, chief of Kakab commune police, the pair was arrested a day after the incident, based on a description by the victim.

“They persuaded the victim to go for a walk and ride a motorbike with them. But later they brought her to a nightclub in Phnom Penh and forced her to drink beers until she was drunk”, he said.

“After she got drunk, they brought her to a forest in Chamkar Auloek village, raping her once each,” he added.

He added the pair sent her back home after raping her, but the victim and her parents reported them to police the day after.

Neither the accused nor their defence lawyers could be reached for comment yesterday, but during their trial on July 1 they confessed to having sex with the victim that night.

“She was my girlfriend and we have loved each other for many months, and we’ve had sex many times before,” Roeun Khaem said. “I did not forcibly rape her. She consented to having sex with me.”

According to a United Nations report released last year, about one in five Cambodian men between the ages of 18 and 49 acknowledge having raped a woman – more than half of those men were younger than 20 when they raped for the first time.

The verdict in a similar case, involving two men accused of raping a young woman earlier this year, is due to be announced today.