Cambodian doctor rejects Bruni cash
Parents support children’s doctor in Cambodia who rejected funds from the sale of naked shots of Carla Bruni.
THE CHILDREN’s doctor in Cambodia who turned down €57,000 raised by the sale of a nude picture of Carla Bruni has been supported by the parents of the youngsters in his charge.
Swiss paediatrician Beat Richner, head of the Kantha Bopha Children's Hospital Association said he did not want "to be involved in the media exploitation of Madame Bruni."
Mr Richner said: "My decision was taken out of respect for our patients and their mothers.”
“Accepting money obtained from exploitation of the female body would be perceived as an insult.
“The use of nudity is not understood in Cambodia in the way it is in the West.”
His refusal to take the money was supported by the parents of the children at the hospital.
Bou Koeun, the father of a two-month-old boy who is being cared for at the Phnom Penh hospital, said: "There are many ways that people can raise money and donate it to the hospital, not by nudity."
Song Lai Sreng, 25, whose baby girl is also receiving treatment at the hospital, said the paediatrician had made the right decision.
She said: "Talking about nudity is not acceptable in our culture.”
Cambodia has a visible sex trade, but at the same time conservatives laud modesty as part of the local culture.
The nude photo, which was taken during a modelling shot in 1993, was auctioned in New York last week.
The picture gained notoriety after it was used by the British press before and during Nicolas Sarkozy’s first state visit to the UK, accompanied by wife Carla Bruni.
Swiss photographer Michel Comte persuaded the seller, German collector Gert Elfering, to offer the money through the sale to a humanitarian cause.
The money will now instead be donated to a Swiss research institute developing the recycling of used water into fresh drinking water in poor countries.
Photo: Afp Timothy A. Clary
