Women in development

Nearly 2 billion of the world’s women are struggling or suffering in their daily lives, while 620 million describe themselves as thriving, according to a Gallup poll released on Wednesday. Bulgaria and Afghanistan topped that list, followed by Armenia, Greece, Ukraine, Cambodia, Hungary, Turkey, Egypt ...

Nearly 2 billion of the world’s women are struggling or suffering in their daily lives, while 620 million describe themselves as thriving, according to a Gallup poll released on Wednesday. Bulgaria and Afghanistan topped that list, followed by Armenia, Greece, Ukraine, Cambodia, Hungary, Turkey, Egypt ...

Saying every girl “has value,” President Barack Obama announced a more focused government effort Tuesday to help tens of millions of girls around the world attend and stay in school. Michelle Obama said she’s heading to Japan and Cambodia later this month to promote it. ...

First Lady Michelle Obama will visit Cambodia as part of a tour later this month to promote a Peace Corps initiative for the education of girls. ...

Nobel Peace laureate and education activist Malala Yousafzai was barely of school age in 2001 when Kamal Ahmad came up with the idea of establishing a tertiary institution for women in Asia. The university hosts about 600 students from 15 countries, compared with 120 in ...

A mother whose daughter was trafficked into the Malaysian sex industry has pleaded with lawmakers to help rescue her child, as new figures from Cambodia’s Interior Ministry reveal an upswing in human trafficking victims rescued last year. According to the ministry, although sex trafficking cases ...

Ahead of hosting the SEA Games the country’s Olympic Committee leader is trying to develop more elite female athletes. This means vaulting a culture barrier that currently keeps many parents from allowing their daughters to play sports. ...

While it is true that Cambodia has some women in politics and positions of leadership, a new report says they often lack true power. According to the study, issued by USAID in December, women’s positions in leadership are more symbolic than substantive, and their political influence ...

As violence against women remains pervasive throughout the country, the government on Tuesday launched a second action plan that it hopes will help give women greater protection. The National Action Plan to Prevent Violence Against Women 2014-2018 focuses on preventing gender-based violence and aims to provide ...

Phat Sreytouch, a former beer promoter, recalls being the constant subject of harassment from the men she served in beer gardens, many who felt they were within their rights to touch her and her colleagues. In a new initiative aimed at ending such attitudes and ...

Municipal anti-human trafficking police arrested three suspects in the past two days for allegedly sending at least four Cambodian women to marry men in China over the past year. Municipal anti-human trafficking police chief Keo Thea said one of the four Cambodian women sent to China ...

Yet another Cambodian woman returned home from China yesterday after allegedly escaping her trafficker and the man she was forced to wed. ...

In its latest plan to tackle gender disparities, the government applauded its own progress, while still acknowledging persistent challenges, such as a lack of women in leadership roles, and new ones, such as women’s vulnerability to climate change. “The situation of women has improved remarkably over ...

Approximately 1,500 young Cambodian people on Saturday performed the “Madison,” a popular dance during Khmer wedding receptions and New Year celebrations, here in order to call for an end of violence against women and girls, an organizer said. Inala Fathimath, a gender program specialist at the ...

Street vendor-turned-rights activist Nget Khun, known locally as “Mommy”, is a leading figure in Cambodians’ fight against forced evictions. And at 75, she’s just been jailed for a year. Other activists say the sentencing of Mommy and other women from her Boeung Kak Lake community ...

Police arrested a woman on suspicion of human trafficking in Tbong Khmum province’s Suong City on Monday, after the woman was found with a teenage girl whose parents had raised the alarm with local authorities once she went missing in Ratanakkiri province, officials said Tuesday. ...

Abuse of women and children should be considered a public health concern, National Assembly Legislation and Justice Commission chairman Pen Pannha said Sunday. “Discrimination is a serious violation of human rights since it affects the welfare of women, hindering their full participation in social activities. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday sang the praises of Cambodia’s first gold medallist in 44 years – suggesting Sorn Seavmey’s achievement was the “only thing Cambodia can brag about” – as the Kingdom’s Olympic Committee warned of bogus Facebook accounts in her name soliciting money. After ...

Cambodia’s Ministries of Labour and Tourism on Wednesday jointly launched a new regulation for protecting the occupational safety, health and labour rights of entertainment workers. “The regulation aims to improve working conditions, occupational safety and health rules of entertainment service enterprises, establishments and companies,”said a ...

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) announced last week a $30 million loan aimed at overhauling Cambodia’s technical and vocational education system (TVET). According to a September 26 statement issued by the ADB, the new funding will go towards launching a “competency-based” assessment and certification process, and ...

The Committee to Promote Women in Politics (CPWP), and civil society groups in Cambodia have asked the National Assembly and ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) to keep Mrs. Khuon Sodary as second vice president of the National Assembly. In a statement issued on Monday, the groups ...

As a child growing up in a poor family in Banteay Meanchey, Yang Leaphea struggled to imagine a world outside her province. She turned to her desperately under-resourced local library, but found few books there to expand her horizons. All that changed when the intelligent daughter ...

The Justice and Soul Foundation has opened its first cosmetology school in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The Kate Korpi Salon has been built to teach sustainable cosmetology skills to survivors of the sex trafficking industry. What started as an idea discussed over a cup of coffee five ...

Svay Pak is an internationally known district for child sex in Cambodia’s capital of Phnom Penh, where foreign men come to seek sex with young girls. According to a 2011 study by ECPAT Cambodia, around 75 percent of the victims of sex trafficking within Cambodia were children. The study also ...