Family, children and youth

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. ...

A 60-year-old Mexican national working at a school in Sihanoukville was convicted of sexually abusing two young girls yesterday and sentenced to two years in prison, with one year of the sentence suspended, according to APLE Cambodia, a child rights NGO. ...

A Social Affairs Ministry report published yesterday showed that provincial departments of social affairs, veterans and rehabilitation assisted 2,437 homeless children in 2015, 715 of whom were girls. ...

The sexual abuse case involving a 57-year-old German national and at least five underage boys continued in Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday. Udo Sabiniewicz, owner of FX Animation Studio in Phnom Penh’s Chbar Ampov district, could be sentenced to one to three years in prison ...

A report released today by glo­bal advocacy group Child Rights In­­­­ternational Network (CRIN) ranked Cambodia 166 out of 197 coun­tries for the effectiveness of its courts in protecting children. ...

The Child Rights International Network (CRIN) has released its worldwide rankings of countries’ protection of children’s legal rights, with Cambodia coming in at a lowly 166th place out of 197, just ahead of Libya and just behind Tongo. ...

Patrick Heuveline sat among villagers in Cambodia, showing them photos of his daughter to establish common ground with a group of people whose culture he had yet to fully understand.Heuveline, a UCLA sociology professor since 2007, has now spent about 15 years studying the effects ...

The Cambodian government on Monday launched its first nationwide policy for child development, aiming to enhance education, promote social welfare and strengthen protection for children in the Kingdom. ...

The Child Protection Unit (CPU), a police unit supported by the Cambodian Children’s Fund, investigated 292 cases involving serious crimes against children in 2015, its director of operations said on Tuesday. ...

A lack of knowledge about sex is posing a risk to the health and education of adolescents, according to the Ministry of Education, which has created an online program to help better inform and equip the young people who make up 60 per cent of ...

A new set of standards for orphanages that the Ministry of Social Affairs plans to enforce over the coming months, combined with a global move toward community-based care, has at least one organization worried it will be forced to close down. ...

The Ministry of Social Affairs yesterday issued a new sub-decree ordering all orphanages to get a permit, submit to inspections and limit the conditions under which children can be admitted.According to many experts, including Social Affairs Minister Vong Soth, orphanage care does more harm than ...