Human rights

Seventy-five Cambodian workers and six children marooned for 10 days after being lured to build a resort on Koh Mook in Trang’s Kantang district were rescued on Sunday evening. Meanwhile, Employment Department chief Sumet Mahosot yesterday said 444,097 migrant workers and 48,541 accompanying persons had ...

Cambodia’s embassy in Kuala Lumpur has played a key role in pressuring domestic workers to stay in the country despite fears for their welfare, rights groups have said. While a moratorium was placed on sending domestic workers to Malaysia in 2011 amid mounting concerns over abuses, ...

A small group of evictees from Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak neighborhood protested in front of the Singapore Embassy Monday morning against a Singaporean company’s plan to buy a plot of land inside the neighborhood, from which they say they were pushed out illegally. ...

Deposite not coming close to achieving their goal of a $160 monthly minimum garment wage, unions announced yesterday that they will raise their demands to $177 for 2015. Ken Chhenglang, acting pres­ident of the National Independent Federation Textile Union of Cambodia (NIFTUC), said about 10 union ...

A group of unions in the U.K. is urging its government to make sure British brands sourcing clothes from Cambodian factories respect their workers’ rights, and to ask the European Union to negotiate a deal with the Cambodian government to improve factory conditions. In a July ...

Dozens of workers in Preah Sihanouk province marched on the local labour department yesterday after three days of protests against the sacking of seven employees. ...

Boeung Kak residents delivered a petition to the Singaporean Embassy yesterday, calling on it to pressure Singapore-listed HLH Group to halt dealings with a controversial development project at the site until a land row is settled. HLH Group entered a $14.9 million purchase deal in June ...

Cambodia says it has asked China to restrict the number of visas it issues to single Cambodian women, to prevent the brokering of marriages to Chinese men. The appeal comes as an increasing number of Cambodian women are finding their way into Chinese marriages and becoming ...

Human rights groups on Sunday criticized as inadequate a government proposal, announced on Friday, to require single women to deposit $10,000 into a Chinese bank before they are allowed to visit China as tourists, a move meant to curb the trafficking of Cambodian woman to ...

Farmers from Kompong Speu province handed ANZ Royal Bank a petition on Friday insisting it still had a responsibility to help mend the damage done by a sugar plantation in has helped finance, even though the bank and plantation recently parted ways. They threatened to start ...

About 160 villagers from Kratie province’s Snuol district were blocked Friday from marching on Prime Minister Hun Sen’s house to call for intervention in their ongoing land dispute. More than 20 Meanchey district security guards met the group at the gates of Samakki Raingsey pagoda, where ...

The Foreign Affairs Ministry on Friday defended the Cambodian Embassy and consulates in China, which have been accused of ignoring female citizens in peril there, and said it has made efforts to cut off the flow off women being sold into brothels or forced marriages. In ...

A deal to end the political deadlock may reduce demonstrations in the streets, but the authorities are leaving nothing to chance – Daun Penh’s notorious district security guards are finally receiving proper government training. City Hall spokesman Long Dimanche, who has previously said the baton-wielding district ...

Try Chamroeun, a 19-year-old student, was planting soybeans on Sunday along with fellow villagers on a two-hectare (half-acre) plot in Preah Vihear province, when soldier Poeun Tash demanded that he stop, claiming the land belonged to his military boss, according to London-based environmental advocacy group ...

About 150 ethnic Kuoy villagers gathered outside Preah Vihear Provincial Court yesterday to protest the questioning of eight villagers and an NGO staff member for allegedly inciting villagers in Tbeng Meanchey district to destroy 36 tonnes of sugarcane. ...

Hundreds of Cambodians hoping to migrate to Japan to work in the electronics industry yesterday protested outside an NGO that they claim conned them out of up to $200 each with promises of jobs. About 100 protesters – out of a total of 300 who are ...

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 ...

A company that villagers say owns land that was illegally grabbed from them in Kandal province asked more than 100 residents of Ponhea Leu commune to leave the firm out of their dispute and focus their ire on Phanimex, which is owned by powerful businesswoman ...

When two middle-aged novices emerged with signs protesting the development of disputed land near the tip of the Chroy Changva peninsula on Thursday, one of the country’s foremost anti-eviction activists was there to tell them they were doing it all wrong. Ms. Vanny, who was ...

Environment Minister Say Sam Al on Thursday met with U.N. and NGO representatives to discuss the ongoing dispute between the powerful Chinese-owned Union Development Group (UDG) and villagers in Koh Kong province who say they were kicked off their land and had their shelters torched. In ...

About 160 villagers from Kratie province’s Snuol district embroiled in a land dispute with a plantation owner are the latest evictees to take residence in Phnom Penh’s Samakki Raingsey pagoda. A spokesman for City Hall, which has made repeated efforts in recent months to prevent the ...

After striking for more than a week, employees at Phnom Penh’s Sun Well Shoes yesterday marched to Por Sen Chey district hall, demanding their voices be heard. Some 300 people marched from their Veng Sreng Boulevard factory with a list of seven demands, including the ...

Mu Sochua, the outspoken lawmaker of the opposition who just spent a week in jail, says she is going to continue pushing for democratic reforms in Cambodia. “I’m not intimidated by arrest,” she told “Hello VOA” on Wednesday. “Instead, my will to defend the people and ...

Environment Minister Say Sam Al on Wednesday lauded the country’s controversial sugar industry and the jobs it has created, saying that companies operating in the sector need to be defended against the widespread criticism they have been receiving. Rights groups and the opposition CNRP have undertaken ...