Human rights

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 ...

Police and court officials on Wednesday searched the home of villager Oum Sophy, who has been outspoken opponent of the well-connected KDC company as it has tried to push her and dozens of her neighbors off their land in Kompong Chhnang province. The raid came after ...

The cabinet of Prime Minister Hun Sen on Wednesday accepted a petition from villagers from Kratie province’s Snuol district who are requesting intervention in a land dispute with a plantation owner. Kong Chamroeun, a secretary in the prime minister’s cabinet, met about 100 villagers at Phnom ...

About 200 garment workers on Wednesday marched from the Sun Well Shoe Factory on Veng Sreng Street to the Pur Senchey district office, demanding intervention in an ongoing dispute over their wages, a union representative said. At 7 a.m., the workers left the factory, marching out ...

Decriminalising sex work could slash the world’s HIV infections by a third or more, according to a new study. Published yesterday in health journal The Lancet, the paper says that punitive treatment of sex workers can “elevate HIV acquisition and transmission risks”. In Cambodia, which has Southeast Asia’s ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen’s cabinet on Tuesday refused to accept a petition from some 200 farmers who traveled from Kratie province to Phnom Penh to ask for help in settling their land dispute with a plantation owner, urging them to try settling the case with ...

Two villagers embroiled in a long-running land dispute with the well-connected KDC company were charged Tuesday with intentional destruction of property and causing injuries during clashes with workers at the disputed development site in Kompong Chhnang province last week. On Monday, provincial police arrested 30-year-old Mang ...

A jubilant crowd of opposition supporters burst into cheers yesterday afternoon as seven Cambodia National Rescue Party lawmakers-elect and one party activist were released on bail just hours after an announced rapprochement between the CNRP and the ruling Cambodian People’s Party. They walked free through exits ...

Workers from the beleaguered Ocean Garment Factory on Monday came to an agreement with management over furlough pay, following more than a month of protests. “All the workers at Ocean Garment Factory have accepted the offer from the factory and the strikes are finished now,” said ...