Legal framework

Danet* is fourteen, and lives in a house built on wooden stilts, with no walls, and only tarpaulin for shelter. The ‘virginity trade’ is rampant in Cambodia, particularly in the capital, and is “a big problem”, says Tim Huon from Action Pour Les Enfants (APLE), ...

A Cambodian school director has been arrested for trafficking teenage students to have sex with foreign donors, police say. Waha Long, the 32-year-old founder of the Underprivileged Children School in the northwestern tourist hub of Siem Reap, could face up to five years in jail if ...

The Thai Public Health Ministry is looking into a report published in The Cambodia Daily about a Cambodian woman allegedly running an organ-transplant racket in which she reportedly persuades people to sell their kidney to patients in Thailand. Dr Thares Karasnairaviwong, deputy director general of the ...

A day after Prime Minister Hun Sen pointed out the need for more effective child protection in Cambodia, police in Koh Kong arrested and released a woman who admitted to chaining her 4-year-old “adopted daughter” inside their house eight hours a day for the past ...

In yet another attempt to stem the looting of Cambodia’s forests, lakes and rivers, the Interior Ministry has given all cities and provinces until July 20 to submit detailed reports on all the illegal logging and fishing taking place in their jurisdictions. The latest initiative comes ...

The Interior Ministry’s internal security department arrested 78 Chinese nationals Thursday for their alleged involvement in a VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) extortion scam in coordinated raids in Phnom Penh and two provinces. The men and women were arrested in Phnom Penh and Siem Reap and ...

A villager was arrested and authorities fired shots Thursday in an attempt to quell a protest against the pending eviction in Preah Vihear province of more than 80 families at the hands of timber magnate Try Pheap, villagers said. Lor Chan, provincial coordinator for rights ...

Naming and shaming factories that fail to ensure a basic standard of conditions for their workers is starting to improve standards in the crucial garment sector, according to the International Labor Organization (ILO), but persistent offenders remain. Nine factories are included in the “lowest compliance” category ...

Sixty restoration workers at Ta Prohm temple in Siem Reap province put down their tools Thursday and protested in front of the temple alongside 31 former workers who lost their jobs last year and are demanding to be rehired by the Archaeological Survey of India ...

Two former board members of the country’s largest independent garment sector union asked the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Wednesday to suspend president Ath Thorn and two fellow officials over allegations of embezzlement. Oum Visal and Roeung Chanthorn, founding board members of the Coalition of Cambodian ...

Acting Thai Foreign Minister Sihasak Phuangketkeow said yesterday that Thailand would eventually resume talks with Cambodia regarding the International Court of Justice’s decision last November that clarified Cambodian sovereignty over the promontory on which the Preah Vihear temple sits. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen marked National Fish Day on Tuesday in Kompong Chhnang province by urging fishermen to refrain from illegal fishing and report lawbreakers. The government bans fishing in the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers during the breeding season to allow fish stocks to ...

Despite a number of agencies dispatched to solve land dispute, rights workers say people continue to face forced evictions and rights abuses by land developments. These problems are not being handled at the local level, fueling mistrust in local government, rights workers say. Rights workers from myriad ...

Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong expressed support Monday for Japan’s plan to give its Self-Defense Forces a greater role to contribute to global peace and stability, Japanese Foreign Minister Fumio Kishida said after meeting with his counterpart in Phnom Penh. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe plans ...

Interior Ministry police arrested a former Phnom Penh deputy governor and municipal councilor on Thursday for questioning over allegations of land fraud, but released him the next day, police said Sunday. Chea Sothon, who served as a councilor from 2009 until earlier this year and was ...

Thailand’s military government has announced plans to fast-track work visas for thousands of Cambodians after a crackdown on illegal workers. Three temporary offices have been set up along the Thai-Cambodian border where migrants will have their work permits processed. ...

National Assembly spokesman Chheang Vun on Friday defended Cambodia’s decision to reject four human rights proposals and merely take note of another 38 during the adoption of its second universal periodic review report in Geneva on Thursday. In all, Cambodia accepted 163 of the 205 recommendations ...

Authority has asked all mobile network operators in Cambodia to stop delivering free Sim Cards without getting a copy of identification card from their clients, warning that they would face legal action if they disobey the order. The warning was made during a meeting on Thursday ...

The single-party National Assembly on Thursday approved the 2014 to 2018 National Strategic Development Plan (NSDP), which will cost an estimated $26.58 billion to implement. An extradition agreement between Cambodia and Vietnam was also passed. Approved earlier this month by the Council of Ministers, it is ...

Cambodia on Thursday rejected four recommendations for improving its human rights situation that it initially accepted earlier this year during its second universal periodic review at the U.N. Human Rights Council in Geneva. It also “noted” 38 recommendations—meaning it has not committed to implementing them—some relating ...

On the side of a well-trafficked street in Phnom Penh’s Daun Penh district, a man with a razor blade bends over a small rectangle of sheet metal overlaid with a vinyl stencil. As letters and numbers are lifted away, the plate begins to take on a ...

More than 250,000 Cambodian migrant workers, mostly undocumented, have fled Thailand since early this month in fears of a military junta’s clampdown on illegal foreign workers, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Thursday. “Up to now, over 250,000 Cambodians have crossed the border from Thailand back ...

A Singapore-based firm whose subsidiary plans to buy land in Phnom Penh from which thousands of families have been forcibly evicted said Wednesday that the firm had no knowledge of the long-running land dispute. The firm, HLH Group, also denied any official or financial ties to ...

Detainees and prisoners continue to be administered electric shocks, beaten unconscious and even smothered by plastic bags, with 49 new allegations of torture or abuse at the hands of authorities this year, according to rights group Licadho, which says in a report released Wednesday that ...