Gender

As protests against land grabbing have increased in Phnom Penh in the past five years, so too have violent crackdowns by the authorities. Police have been criticised for their treatment of protesters – which has included beatings with electric batons and kicks to the stomach of ...

Evictees and anti-eviction activists on Wednesday briefly scuffled with police and security guards after cutting off traffic in front of Phnom Penh City Hall to demand that businesswoman Suy Sophan compensate them for homes that were bulldozed early last year. Human rights group Adhoc said at ...

Teenage pregnancies are hindering Cambodia’s development as young mothers are unlikely to finish school and therefore lack job opportunities, government and U.N. officials said at the launch of a global report on adolescent pregnancies on Wednesday. “The Ministry of Women’s Affairs acknowledges that adolescent pregnancies have ...

Malaysia has not yet received a draft agreement aimed at protecting Cambodian migrant domestic workers from abuse, but the government is pressing Cambodia to lift its two-year moratorium on sending maids, a Malaysian official said Wednesday. In October 2011, Prime Minister Hun Sen imposed a ban ...

More women should be part of any future high-level negotiations between the ruling CPP and opposition CNRP to resolve the current political deadlock, a coalition of women’s rights NGOs said Tuesday in a statement. In a joint statement by more than 20 organizations, the groups criticized ...

A group of NGOs condemned rampant abuses of sexual and reproductive health rights in Cambodia last week, just days before the government submitted a human rights progress report to the United Nations. The Cambodian Center for Human Rights, in cooperation with the Asia Pacific Network of ...

Cambodia has made little progress on gender equality and is the lowest-ranked country in the region, according to the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) 2013 Gender Gap Index released Friday, slipping a place from last year to rank 104 out of 136 countries. The index examines the ...

The government needs to do more to protect migrant workers, ensure that women have access to legal aid, bring cases of violence against women to court and draft an anti-discrimination law, the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (Cedaw) said in a ...

Cambodia has some 3,000 registered non-profit groups. Some work on highly sensitive issues such as violence against women and human trafficking. But there are few Cambodians formally trained for such work. That is now changing with the country’s first university-level degree program for social workers. When ...

Yet another clash between protesters and police resulted in at least three women being knocked unconscious in the capital yesterday. A Post reporter saw police punch and use batons to quell protesters after a group of about 250 people, including many from the Borei Keila community ...

In one corner of the cavernous training centre, a woman patiently strips the baby blue sheets off a queen-size bed, removing the flower-patterned pillowcases and folding them neatly to one side. Under the watchful eye of an instructor, she then remakes the bed, carefully fluffing the ...

Accelerating the mapping and titling of rural farmland should be an “urgent” priority of the government and civil society, particularly when it comes to protecting indigenous peoples’ and women’s rights, Oxfam representatives said yesterday. The remarks followed the release of an EU-funded survey of rural communities’ ...

Despite progress having been made in recent years to improve girls’ access to education, there is still a gender-based inequality, particularly in rural areas, children’s rights experts said on the International Day of the Girl Child on Friday. “At the moment there is still a slight ...

Women’s Affairs Minister Ing Kantha Phavi on Tuesday defended the government’s policies on promoting gender equality and preventing discrimination against women, but conceded that challenges remain in achieving principles set out in the U.N.’s convention to stop discrimination against women. Speaking in Geneva to the U.N. ...

Rights groups on Monday shared their concerns about the treatment of women in Cambodia with member states of the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in Geneva. Cambodia last updated the committee—which meets three times a year to assess how member states ...

A mob of 500 villagers beat a man to death in Kampong Cham province yesterday after he allegedly slaughtered his wife and stepdaughter with a pair of scythes and reportedly taunted the assembled crowd with his wife’s severed hand. Police said Laing Pises, 48, used the ...

Supporters of the opposition CNRP and relatives of the 16 men, women and children killed in a grenade attack during a protest rally in 1997, will hold a Buddhist ceremony today at the scene of the blasts in front of the old National Assembly in ...

Frustrated Boeung Kak and Borei Keila community members flooded past a Daun Penh road barrier yesterday after attempting to lodge complaints with district authorities in connection with Sunday’s violence at Wat Phnom. On Sunday night, a brutal raid on a peaceful vigil of about 20 protesters ...

Anger over the violent attack on peaceful protesters at Wat Phnom on Sunday night simmered at the site Monday morning, with the same demonstrators returning to confront their alleged attackers and detaining a police official they accused of spying. Shortly before 11 p.m. on Sunday night, ...

At 5am, without any alarm clock going off, a dozen Cambodian maids wake up with near-military precision. Over the next hour, the women sweep, wash and scrub spotless their two-storey training centre in the Cambodian capital Phnom Penh. They all want to be maids in Singapore, eager ...

Over the past three days, the CNRP conducted one of the most significant campaigns of mass demonstrations against Prime Minister Hun Sen’s government in years. For three days, more than 20,000 people packed into Phnom Penh’s Freedom Park for daily appearances from opposition leaders Sam Rainsy ...

A wealthy tycoon who stands accused of savagely abusing two teenage maids for nearly a decade has been anointed with the sought-after honourific of oknha. In a royal decree dated July 26 and obtained yesterday, Veng Lyphytech – who, along with his wife, Ly Pov, faces ...

More than 50 supporters of jailed anti-eviction activist Yorm Bopha marched through central Phnom Penh on Tuesday to demand her speedy retrial, acquittal and release, visiting the Supreme Court, the Royal Palace and the European Union and World Bank offices. Ms. Bopha has consistently professed ...

The number of women serving as lawmakers in the next mandate has dropped from last term, even after parties made final adjustments that saw more women moved up into key positions. According to official results released by the National Election Committee on Sunday, women will hold ...