Gender

About 80 workers from a garment factory in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district – which supplies women’s underwear to U.S. retail giant Wal-Mart – protested yesterday, demanding that the factory owner settle their severance payments, workers and union representatives said. Workers at the Kingsland Garment Cambodia factory ...

A lack of legal protections, insufficient commitment from the Malaysian government and an overworked, understaffed embassy are among the major obstacles to lifting the maid ban, according to an internal government report obtained yesterday. Penned by the Ministry of Interior, the 12-page brief details a ...

Free Trade Union of Workers President Chea Mony has announced plans to protest the dropping of charges against former Bavet governor Chhouk Bandith. The former governor was accused of seriously injuring three women when he opened fire on striking workers in Bavet in February. ...

Prominent female land activists Tim Sakmony and Yorm Bopha, who have been locked in Prey Sar prison since their arrest in early September, will face court today on charges rights groups say have been fabricated to stop them and others from protesting. Hundreds of the women’s ...

A former Cambodian governor accused of shooting three garment workers during a labour protest was acquitted in a ruling that prompted outrage Wednesday from rights groups who say it highlights the impunity surrounding the country’s political elite. Former official Chhouk Bandith was governor of Bavet town, ...

Malaysian authorities have freed 105 mostly Indonesian maids who were forced to work without pay by day and held against their will at night, local media reported on Monday. The women were freed Saturday in a raid on a building near the capital Kuala Lumpur where ...

Cambodia on Monday recorded 162 landmine casualties in the first ten months of this year, down 4 percent from 155 casualties at the same period last year, showed a report from the Cambodian Mine and Explosive Remnants of War Victim Information System. The report said that ...

They’re known as the BK13 and they’re not prepared to let greedy developers take the very, very little they have. They’re 13 women – mothers, grandmothers – who live around what used to be Boeung Kak Lake – not far from the centre of Cambodia’s ...

Two land activists from forced evictions in Phnom Penh will not be released on bail as they await trial on incitement charges widely seen as an attack on free speech. The two women, Yorm Bopha and Tim Sak Mony, were arrested in early September and accused ...

Boeung Kak lake land evictions protester Tep Vanny has been honoured for years of activism by receiving an award from an international organisation that recognises the role of women in promoting human rights. Vanny, 32, who has been imprisoned, assaulted and threatened for fighting evictions at ...

Busy juggling jobs, children, and housework, Cambodian women do not have the time, or platforms, to discuss bigger women-related issues like abuse, migration and forced eviction. And that is why a new initiative, called “Gender Cafe,” aims to change that by giving local women a ...

A new made-service company that claims to be the only one of its kind in Cambodia is offering an alternative employment option for the country’s many domestic workers who face insecure, and often abusive, workplace conditions overseas. Ming Hour Home Service, which opened in July, employs ...

Meas Bopha, 47, sits in an outdoor pagoda over a lotus-filled pond on her property in Kampong Speu, home to 10 of her 12 children, and wipes back tears as she talks about her missing teenage daughter, Bophea, who vanished one morning last week. Bophea ...

A majority of small and medium enterprises in Cambodia were not registered, despite the advantages it offered to businesses, participants at a workshop on business registration procedure, intellectual property and business etiquette for women heard yesterday. Referring to 2011 statistics, Chan Sorey, vice-minister of the Ministry ...

Cambodia has made almost no progress over the past six years when it comes to gender equality, and is still the lowest-ranked country in the region, according to the World Economic Forum’s 2012 Gender Gap Index. Ranked 103 out of 135 countries surveyed, Cambodia placed last ...

Gender inequality in education is still palpable in Cambodia, causing women to be undervalued in the workplace and their potential to be untapped, the Under Secretary of State at the Ministry of Women’s Affairs said during the celebration of the United Nations International Day of the ...

Protester’s from Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak and Borei Keila communities demonstrated outside the Ministry of Justice yesterday by employing a new tactic: locking themselves up inside a cage. With about 100 people in attendance, two protesters crouched inside a small cage to protest against the detention ...

Under dazzling white strip-lights, a production line of young Cambodians stitch, iron and fold their way to the day’s target of 820 two-piece children’s pajamas. These garments are destined for the shelves of Los Angeles, shop price $9.97. The workers, mostly women, start at 7:30 ...

Poor education and a lack of skills are still major challenges for Cambodian women and a recent meeting in Phnom Penh with the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and the United Nations Development Program set out to validate an action plan on women’s economic empowerment that ...

Resources to feed and educate a child, access to shelter and a life free of abuse arc fundamental rights, yet each day millions of Cambodians struggle to meet their basic needs alone. With more than 30% of the population living below the national poverty line of ...

Social work, long-established in developed countries but unheard-of in Cambodia, could be set to change the face of child protection in the country as interest in the field grows. Last week, a hundred potential social workers from around the country came to Phnom Penh for an ...

Clashes between garment workers and the local manufacturing industry came to a head in February when three women were shot while protesting for increased bonuses outside their workplace. It was almost five more months before manufacturers and governing bodies agreed to raise the earning potential ...

More than 60 people yesterday rallied at the National Assembly, the UN Human Rights Office, the Danish Embassy and the German Embassy as part of a petition campaign to seek the release of two jailed women from the Boeung Kak and Borei Keila communities. Villagers and ...

 A Millennium Development Goal Acceleration Framework action plan presented yesterday by the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) seeks to address Panha’s and other women’s lagging economic opportunities in Cambodia. The plan will help Cambodia achieve targeted Millenium Development Goals by 2015. Though no date of ...