Labor policy and administration

Their ranks are small but growing, and they want their government to join an international labor treaty. “If we organize, we can help each other,” says a 25-year-old housekeeper who started working when she was 10 and earns $75 a month. ...

Nineteen Cambodian men were repatriated Sunday morning after being rescued by Indonesian authorities from slavery on Thai fishing boats, according to Foreign Ministry spokesman Koy Kuong. ...

The head of the Interior Ministry’s general department of immigration issued a statement on Wednesday reminding foreigners working in Cambodia that they are required to hold a work permit—and will face fines if they do not. ...

The Kompong Cham Provincial Court on Wednesday charged two women with human trafficking for allegedly luring five other women to China with promises of jobs, only to force them into marriage. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen on Monday met with a visiting delegation of U.S. Congress members, including House of Representatives minority leader Nancy Pelosi, a government spokesman said. ...

Anti-human trafficking police arrested a woman Wednesday after they discovered she was running an unlicensed training center in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district that promised to send students to work in Japan or South Korea after paying for courses, an official said Thursday. ...

A worker was seriously injured on Monday at a Phnom Penh construction site owned by the Overseas Cambodia Investment Corporation (OCIC), just four months after a falling pipe killed a passing motorist at another site owned by the politically connected developer, police said. ...

About 40 workers from Phnom Penh’s Meroson garment factory delivered a petition signed by 700 of their colleagues to a representative of Prime Minister Hun Sen on Tuesday, calling on the premier to intervene in their dispute over what they say is the factory’s failure ...

UK retailer Marks & Spencer and the Garment Manufacturers Association of Cambodia (GMAC) have disputed the details of a report alleging labour rights abuses are still rife in the country’s garment factories, with both claiming they are committed to providing and supporting safe working conditions. ...

On a dusty highway on the edge of this port city, thousands of young women and a few hundred young men block evening traffic as they stream out of the New Star Shoes factory. ...

Gender equality is “humanity’s biggest project,” Lakshmi Puri told the U.N. this past week. Puri, the deputy executive director of U.N. Women, wants to achieve “Planet 50-50” by 2030. When it comes to the workplace, equal employment opportunities aren’t just a benefit to women. Several new ...

A Cambodian couple “trafficked” to work in Malaysia returned home Friday morning after being “rescued” by the Cambodian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur, a government official said yesterday. ...

The owner of an independent radio station engulfed in a bitter dispute with a number of his employees blamed the conflict on a prominent union leader on Friday. ...

Cambodia has rejected a U.S.- based Human Rights Watch’s “labor abuse” report, saying the report is groundless, according to a statement released by the Ministry of Labor late on Friday. ...

Nearly 200 rubber plantation workers in Mondolkiri province on Thursday ended a three-day strike over wages and working conditions, despite not having resolved their concerns with Socfin KCD, the controversial French firm that owns the plantation. ...

Human Rights Watch says lax labor laws in Cambodia are allowing garment factories, including many suppliers for Western brands, to take advantage of vulnerable workers. In a report released Thursday, the New York-based rights group documented a “persistent pattern of labor rights violations,” including forced overtime, ...

Human Rights Watch says it has uncovered alleged abuses at Cambodian garment factories that supply Marks & Spencer, Gap, H&M, Adidas and Armani. The pressure group found evidence of discrimination and anti-union practices, it says. ...

A new union has been founded pledging to offer members a post-retirement pension with a novel twist – it will be funded by sponsorship from private companies. The head of the new Workers Retirement Fund of Cambodia Union president, Sidney Sok Ke, claims to have spent ...

Workers at a factory that recently shuttered due to bankruptcy protested yesterday and vowed to continue to do so, after they were paid only part of their severance stipulated under the Kingdom’s Labour Law. Kui Xing factory in Phnom Penh’s Chbar Ampov district closed its doors ...

More than 600,000 migrant workers in Thailand who would have faced deportation at the end of the month when their temporary work permits were set to expire now have until the end of June to apply for a one-year renewal, an NGO said Tuesday. ...

The Ministry of Environment is set to join the Ministry of Labour in the monitoring of garment factory workplaces, after creating a working group that will probe the environmental safety of all plants in Cambodia. At a press conference at the ministry yesterday, Minister of Environment ...

Some 170 workers at a rubber company in Mondulkiri began striking yesterday for the right to unionise, the reversal of a recent pay cut and the reinstatement of two staffers who were allegedly fired unjustly, workers said. ...

About 25 former employees of the Chang Sheng Garment factory in Phnom Penh—which was destroyed in a fire last year—protested Sunday outside the offices of the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers’ Democratic Union (CCAWDU), which they accuse of withholding severance packages owed to some 180 ...

A businesswoman who was arrested in Thailand in December and extradited to Cambodia over charges of plotting to rape and murder the wife and daughter of the country’s commerce minister claimed after being denied bail by the Appeal Court on Tuesday that the minister was ...