Human rights

City Hall has banned street marches for World Teachers’ Day and World Housing Rights Day, ordering participants to confine their activities to Freedom Park instead. World Teachers’ Day and World Housing Rights Day occur on October 5 and 6, respectively. Planners for both expressed disappointment ...

Shortly after a speech in New York by US President Barack Obama, in which he applauded the efforts of human rights defenders, Cambodian Foreign Minister Hor Namhong says his country is making progress. Obama acknowledged the work of two Cambodian rights activist during a speech at ...

Over 85 per cent of child domestic workers in Phnom Penh are injured in the course of their employment, research into child labour released yesterday revealed. The Cambodian Development Research Institute and World Vision International are jointly examining child labour practices in the Kingdom, and the ...

With the spectre of potential garment-sector unrest on the horizon and emboldened communities protesting land disputes, the National Police is buying what appear to be the authorities’ first water-cannon trucks designed specifically to control demonstrations. In advertisements in yesterday’s Post and Post Khmer newspapers, the ...

Foreign minister Julie Bishop announced that an additional $40 million in development assistance was given to Cambodia. The amount shall boost Cambodia’s effort to provide humanitarian aid to those who are in need of protection as part of the Refugees Convention and a member of ...

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said on Monday that the country will take in refugees from Australia on a voluntary basis, stressing that accepting asylum seekers is part of an international obligation for Cambodia. Hun Sen said a Cambodian working group will interview those refugees ...

About 2,000 workers from the Chinese-owned Juhui Footwear factory in Kompong Cham province began a fresh round of protests on Friday and Saturday over claims that the factory is refusing to rehire unionists who were fired during a strike earlier this month, a provincial official ...

Australia’s Immigration Minister Scott Morrison has defended the government’s plan to transfer refugees to Cambodia, saying the programme would start small but be a long-term arrangement. Under Canberra’s hardline immigration policy, asylum-seekers who arrive on boats are denied resettlement in Australia and sent to Papua New ...

The deal signed with Cambodia by immigration minister Scott Morrison will see refugees held on Nauru resettled “outside” Phnom Penh. As foreign minister Julie Bishop defended the deal on Sunday, a copy of the memorandum of understanding with Cambodia, which has been posted on Morrison’s official ...

Australia’s pact to allow some refugees to be transferred to Cambodia sets a troubling precedent for international practices on handling asylum seekers, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. The deal, signed yesterday in Phnom Penh, applies to an initial 200 refugees detained by Australia ...

Negotiations held on Friday between garment factory owners, union leaders and government officials failed to set a new industry minimum wage for next year, but a final decision will be reached by October 10, according to Labor Minister Ith Sam Heng. The tripartite Labor Advisory Council ...

Cambodia may be on the verge of a new era in human rights protection, an independent United Nations human rights expert declared today, adding that while the political momentum in the country was headed in a “positive direction,” a strong human rights infrastructure was still ...

Fashion brands, including Europe’s biggest clothing retailer Inditex SA (ITX) and Hennes & Mauritz AB (HMB), said they are willing to pay more for clothes made in Cambodia, backing a trade union campaign for higher wages. The chains are among eight clothing retailers that include Next Plc (NXT) and Primark that have ...

About 300 workers, including taxi drivers and market vendors, protested in front of the Poipet International Border Checkpoint on Thursday to voice their anger at authorities on both sides of the Thai-Cambodian border. ...

Child rights groups Action Pour Les Enfants and International Justice Mission have said they carried out a “detailed and impartial” investigation into claims of sexual abuse before removing six young boys from their families against their parents’ wishes last week.  In a statement defending their work ...

The head of the National Assembly’s top human rights commission has warned Banteay Meanchey’s provincial governor to settle a land dispute involving 230 disabled soldiers’ families from the province’s Malai district, saying he will be sacked if the matter is not settled within three months. After ...

The last of 16 shacks that once clung to the edge of a mammoth development project in Phnom Penh’s Chroy Changva district were demolished by the Overseas Cambodia Investment Corporation (OCIC) on Monday. Seven families in Doeum Kor 2 village—where marshlands are quickly being pumped full ...

Some 3,000 workers protested in front of a garment factory in Prey Veng province Monday, calling for larger bonuses and better working conditions, according to unionists and factory representatives. Employees of the Chinese-owned Komchay Mear Trading factory, which produces clothing for U.S. brand Gap, have been ...

Six Cambodian women trafficked to China to become brides and seven Cambodian victims of labor exploitation in Saudi Arabia will be repatriated by the end of the month, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced Monday. ...

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has distanced itself from Australia’s still unsigned deal to transfer refugees from the Nauru refugee detention center for resettlement in Cambodia, one of Southeast Asia’s poorest nations. First raised in February, the cash-for-refugees deal is believed to be imminent. ...

Authorities in western Cambodia have detained 11 activists after they tried to stop further studies for a planned Chinese-built dam. About 30 local villagers and environmental activists in the Areng Valley went to the area Monday to protect barricades they had erected earlier this year to ...

The National Assembly’s Human Rights Committee has laid out its plan to mediate negations to settle a more than decade-long land dispute between villagers and a powerful development company in Kompong Chhnang province’s Lor Peang village. The bipartisan committee announced early this month that it would ...

More than 100 workers who were fired by a Taiwanese-owned garment factory this week for striking over demands for further benefits will meet with union leaders “as soon as possible” to discuss potentially launching protests, a union representative said Tuesday. The workers were fired by the ...

A plan floated in Thailand to cut state educational support to migrant workers’ children has drawn the ire of rights groups, which say thousands of Cambodian youths could be denied their basic right to education. According to Thai media, Kamol Rodklai, secretary-general of the Office of ...