More than two weeks after a ban on sending maids to Malaysia began, work on a bilateral agreement that would protect Cambodian maids working in Malaysia has not begun, officials said yesterday. Ho Vuthy, deputy director general at the Ministry of Labor’s department of labor, said ...

Union leaders gathered in the capital yesterday to discuss strategies to curb the garment industry’s widespread use of temporary contracts for hiring workers, saying employers were using them to discourage unions and ensure their workforce remained docile and easy to exploit. They also accused employers of ...

After a year of mounting concern over the treatment of migrant workers both within and outside Cambodia, the Ministry of Labor, NGOs and recruitment agencies yesterday reached an agreement on standardized contracts aimed at minimizing the possibility for exploitation. The groups agreed on a contract between ...

Dramatic new video footage of the January 18 Kratie province land dispute shooting has been released on the internet, depicting TTY rubber company security guards opening fire on a crowd of unarmed villagers. The 48-second video, recorded by a villager on a mobile phone and uploaded ...

Panellists at the first “Permanent People’s Tribunal” on wages and conditions for Cambodian garment workers yesterday released their findings, declaring that a living wage for workers should be considered a “human right”. The hearing included two days of testimony by workers, labour experts and brand-name buyers. While ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday blamed illegal immigration for contributing to a current shortage in the Cambodian labor market but said workers could benefit from rising wages as a result of the demand for workers. Mr. Hun Sen said the shortage was hitting the agriculture sector ...

The decreasing amount of farmers harvesting soybeans last year has limited supply and raised prices at the markets roughly 42 percent to 4,000 riel per kg, or about $1, according to an agricultural official and farmers. Cheam Chan Sorphaon, director of the provincial agriculture department in ...

The government has already granted roughly 300,000 hectares in economic land concessions (ELC) so far this year, according to data released by a local rights group yesterday. The figure, which amounts to 40 percent of the total land concessions granted in all of 2011, has ...

Government officials and a representative at Unesco in Phnom Penh yesterday said that Sotheby’s in New York had no right to a 10th-century Khmer statue worth more than $2 million that US federal agents were expected to seize from the auction house today. On Wednesday, New ...

On the day 55-year-old Leangkim Theng was selected as a village health volunteer, she was not sure she could do it. The work required her to educate women on maternal and newborn health in Serei Sokha village of Kratie province. While she did not feel she ...

Sihanoukville has long been a part of the government’s plan to develop the Southern coast as Cambodia’s next tourism hotspot after Siem Reap, and if recent arrival numbers are anything to go by it seems to be growing in appeal. However, as new property developers ...

The Interior Ministry is hoping last year’s relative decrease in traffic accidents and deaths during the Pchum Ben holiday is a sign of things to come and asked citizens again this year to drive safely as they crisscross the country to celebrate the holiday. In a ...

A lack of working capital has remained a challenge for the Kingdom’s rice industry and has impeded rice export growth for years, industry insiders said. The comments were made at a meeting between the state-owned Rural Development Bank (RDB) and the Cambodia Rice Federation (CRF) on ...

Cambodian and Russian experts yesterday concluded discussions on the possibility of constructing and establishing a Nuclear Science and Technology Centre in the Kingdom.​ The discussion, which was held in Siem Reap province over two days, took place at the 3rd meeting of a Cambodia-Russia joint ...

The Labour Ministry is prioritising efforts to digitalise the public employment services system to respond better to changes in the labour market.​ He was speaking at the launch of the two-day Asia-Pacific Conference of the World Association of Public Employment Services under the theme “Digitalisation ...

Countries in the region need to move faster to reduce the economic gaps between Asean nations if they are to successfully integrate and establish the Asean Economic Community by 2015, Prime Minister Hun Sen said yesterday. Speaking at the 44th Asean Economic Ministers’ Meeting in Siem ...

Cambodia is lighting up with solar power as international politics gluts the world market with inexpensive equipment options, according to industry insiders. The lowering or complete end of subsidies for US, European and Australian firms, along with China’s backing of the renewable energy sector, has seen ...

When Heng Hak escaped from Phnom Penh maid recruitment center in March 2011, falling several stories in the process, she unwittingly became part of a groundswell-one in a series of mounting cases highlighting severe mismanagment of recruitment agencies, and the abuses incurred by both trainees ...

Ten months after the government suspended sending Cambodian women to work as maids in Malaysia, following numerous reports of abuse by employers and recruitment companies, families say they have completely lost contact with their loved ones who continue to work in Malaysian households. Local rights group Adhoc has recorded ...

A female garment worker died and 24 other workers were injured when the truck in which they were traveling careened into a pond in Phnom Penh’s Sen Sok district Wednesday morning, police said. More than 30 garment workers were on board a small, open-backed truck in Prek ...