Human rights

The Kampong Cham Provincial Court yesterday ordered that five workers who were arrested during a violent protest at Juhui Footwear on Saturday be held in prison while charges against them are investigated. Two of them, Khun Sokhom and Mon Sarem, officials from the Coalition of Cambodian ...

Three Cambodian men arrested in Thailand last week were returned to Preah Vihear province on Monday and claim they were tortured by the Thai military before being released, according to a military colonel in the area who provided a video of the men’s accounts. According ...

Media experts are asking the government to consider granting citizen journalists the same safeguards as professional journalists under Cambodia’s Press Law. ...

The Kompong Cham Provincial Court on Monday released five of the 10 people who were arrested Saturday after clashes between police and about 1,000 sacked workers from the Taiwanese-owned Juhui Footwear factory. The protest on Saturday turned violent when Juhui Footwear administrative director Teng Sambath ...

Social worker Nong Socheat is well-acquainted with the ugly scope of child abuse. As a counsellor for First Step Cambodia (FSC), a local NGO that focuses on supporting male survivors of sexual assault, she regularly provides support for boys dealing with the aftermath of molestation. ...

The seven-inch scar runs diagonally across the left flank of his skinny torso, a glaring reminder of an operation he hoped would save his family from debt but instead plunged him into shame. But on discovering the broker earned US$10,000 for each kidney they sacrificed, ...

Three people in Cambodia were charged with the murder last week of a woman they believed to be a witch behind a spate of unexplained deaths in their community, according to a newspaper report on Monday. ...

Dissatisfied by wages at home, thousands of Cambodians have been lured to Malaysia by the promise of bigger pay cheques, but while many have found themselves subjected to long hours, unpaid wages, unsafe working conditions and even physical abuse, they have – until now – ...

Cambodian migrant worker hopefuls have heard murmurs about the poor work conditions in South Korea. However, they remain unfazed – even the recent reports of long hours and abusive employers are doing little to deter their quest to secure better wages abroad. ...

Six inmates busted out of Ratanakkiri Provincial Prison in the wee hours of yesterday morning, police said, adding another incident to a string of embarrassing escapes at the facility over the past two years. According to a post on the National Police’s website, authorities in Ratanakkiri’s ...

The Cambodian government on Wednesday released the findings of a survey [text] showing the magnitude of violence against children throughout the country. According to its findings, over half of Cambodian children have been victim to at least one form of violence before age 18 and ...

The third day of negotiations between members of a working group trying to reach a consensus on the minimum monthly garment wage remained stagnant yesterday, as manufacturers refused to budge from their $110 offer. ...

Long considered the friendlier and less exploitative option for overseas Cambodian migrants, South Korea is now being slammed by Amnesty International for a number of abuses afflicting its migrant-dominated agriculture sector. The 20,000 foreign workers fuelling South Korea’s farming industry regularly encounter intimidation, violence, excessive working ...

While the smoke has long cleared on January’s violent garment strikes, for many of the 23 workers and unionists arrested and tried on charges widely considered to be baseless, the ordeal is far from over. Nine months after security forces used deadly violence to end strikes ...

Director-General of UNESCO Irina Bokova has denounced the killing of journalist Taing Try in Cambodia on Oct. 12 and urged the authorities to ensure that those responsible are punished for their crime. Taing Try, 49, a freelance journalist for several local newspapers and a member ...

Hundreds of demonstrators marched through central Phnom Penh yesterday morning calling for a controversial refugee resettlement deal between Australia and Cambodia to be scrapped. While the protesters echoed human rights concerns that have been repeatedly made about the scheme, an undercurrent of xenophobia was also present. After ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Friday concluded the trial of six Vietnamese nationals accused of selling 20 girls and women for sex out of two establishments in the city center. ...

A man who volunteered at a Christian NGO that seeks to combat sex trafficking was found guilty yesterday by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court and jailed for three years for raping four former street children younger than 10 years old who were meant to be ...

Cambodian authorities have held two rounds of talks with garment factory owners and unions under a new mechanism to help break a deadlock over increasing the workers’ monthly minimum wage but to no avail. But Labor Minister Ith Sam Heng said that he expected the Garment ...

A French non-governmental organization (NGO) director had been arrested on suspicion of sexually abusing seven boys, police and anti-pedophilia agent said on Thursday. Action Pour Les Enfants (APLE), a child protection NGO, assisted the police in an investigation that led to the arrest, the police ...

Students, activist monks and land rights demonstrators will hold a march in Phnom Penh on Friday in protest of a controversial refugee resettlement agreement between Australia and Cambodia. ...

The Supreme Court yesterday refused to hear an appeal filed by three garment workers shot by disgraced Bavet town governor Chhouk Bandith during a 2012 demonstration, since Bandith’s lawyer did not turn up to court. Bandith was sentenced to 18 months in prison in June last ...

Activists from two local rights groups yesterday accused soldiers in Ratanakkiri province’s Lumphat district of seizing their cameras and stopping them from investigating a land dispute. ...

Following a meeting with parliamentarians at the National Assembly yesterday, Minister of Labour Ith Sam Heng announced the ministry would form a 27-member committee to study technical aspects of raising the minimum wage in Cambodia’s garment sector. The new committee will comprise nine representatives each from ...