Family, children and youth

Even by his own admission, it is an extraordinary change in fortunes for Adam Whittington. Eight months ago, the so-called “child recovery agent” was languishing in a stark Lebanese jail facing kidnapping charges after a failed attempt to snatch two children from the streets of Beirut ...

Civil society organizations and youth groups have called for young people to be more involved in human rights and the environment. They also demanded greater protection for young activists who have suffered threats, violence and court action. The call was made in a youth forum on young ...

In a move activists fear could endanger thousands of Cambodian children, Thailand plans to reduce the number of children of illegal migrants living in the country to zero by 2020, according to a newspaper report. Thailand is the top destination for Cambodians seeking work abroad, with ...

Young potential voters who have migrated abroad in search of work are facing the loss of their voting rights due to a lack of information and documents required to register to vote from a location different to their registered address, civil society groups said yesterday.​ ...

The Ministry of Social Affairs yesterday confirmed it would construct a new national facility to rehabilitate child offenders. The news follows a meeting last Thursday when spokesman Touch Channy told attendees that the new centre to detain juvenile offenders would be built following the recent adoption ...

To mark 20 years of the work of NGO Pour un Sourie d’Enfant (PSE), a new film about the founders was premiered at the Chaktomouk Hall on Phnom Penh’s riverside on Friday evening when Queen Mother Norodom Monineath was the guest of honor. ...

The government will meet this month to begin addressing concerns that the lack of regulation for the surrogacy trade could lead to a proliferation of brokers working in Cambodia and foreign couples traveling to the country to take advantage of their services. The Ministry of ...

Cambodia’s justice system often fails to support children who are victims of and witnesses to crime, many of whom are so terrified to appear in court that they’re unable to give testimony, children’s rights experts said yesterday. ...

Officials at the Prey Speu Social Affairs Center in Phnom Penh’s Por Senchey district are scrambling to deflect criticism after reports surfaced that a young boy and a man were beaten and injured there, with the director of the center saying the boy injured himself ...

Twenty-nine homeless Cambodians, including 20 children, will be repatriated from Ho Chi Minh City today. Apart from the children, the group consists of nine adults – three men and six women. Of the 20 children, 10 are boys and 10 are girls, according to Ministry of ...

Slow action from courts and police, a dire lack of mental health counselling and sparse government funding were named as ongoing challenges in Cambodia’s quest to eliminate violence against women at a conference yesterday.   ...

The deadline for the country’s orphanages to register with the Ministry of Social Affairs has been extended once again as the government continues its months-long efforts to begin regulating the residential child care system. ...

A new report has ranked Cambodia 125 out of 163 countries in terms of its protection of children’s rights, even as the government works to finalise a sub-decree and code of conduct to better shield children from abuse, exploitation and neglect. ...

Seven years after Cambodia put a stop to its own international adoption programs, the Catalan regional government in Spain signed a memorandum of understanding with the Ministry of Social Affairs on Tuesday that will allow its residents to adopt Cambodian children.   ...

Cambodia’s minister of social affairs on Sunday departed for a visit to Spain, which will be followed by a trip to Malta, to discuss and sign adoption agreements with both countries, according to a statement released Sunday. ...

Children in Cambodia face a range of threats to their safety including violence, sexual abuse and economic exploitation, with the justice system failing to prosecute alleged offenders, according to a 68-page report by a host of children’s welfare NGOs. ...

About 55,000 Cambodians are victims of forced marriage in Cambodia and they comprise 22 percent of the estimated 256,800 people in modern slavery in Cambodia, according to an Australian NGO’s findings cited in the Global Slavery Index report released yesterday. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen on Tuesday told Phnom Penh authorities and the Ministry of Social Affairs to either improve the city’s notorious Prey Speu detention center or shut it down in order to spare his government more embarrassment. ...

Nearly half of the known orphanages in Cambodia missed on Tuesday’s deadline for registering with the government, further delaying attempts to reform the country’s wayward residential child care sector, an official said on Tuesday. ...

Backed by the U.N., Cambodia on Wednesday launched a national action plan to completely eliminate hunger in the country by 2025, the first step in an ambitious initiative that the government signed on to last year. ...

Australians could help children in Cambodia receive an education and avoid the possibility of life in child sex trade by funding an innovative mobile centre.   ...

The government was unaware of about half of the residential child care centers operating in four provinces and Phnom Penh prior to a study conducted last year, according to a report released on Thursday. ...

A new survey released by Cambodia’s Social Affairs Ministry on Thursday showed that the number of residential care institutions in the country’s five key provinces increased to 267 last year, up 92 percent from only 139 in the year before. ...

The World’s Children’s Prize (WCP) ceremony, to be held on Sunday at the Artscape Theatre, will tell the story of the 2015 award ceremony in Sweden and South Africa’s participation. ...