Human rights

Officials involved in negotiating compensation offers between the developers of the Lower Sesan II dam and affected villagers have kept a portion of the money paid out to 12 families for themselves, according to an official. Duong Pov, Stung Treng provincial administration director, claimed that a ...

Six months ago today, security forces opened fire on garment workers protesting for a doubling of their minimum wage on Phnom Penh’s factory-lined Veng Sreng Boulevard. At least five people were killed in what rights groups called the worst state violence against citizens in 15 ...

Villagers caught in a land dispute with an agribusiness firm in Kompong Speu province Wednesday attempted to reclaim farmland they say is theirs, but were thwarted by provincial authorities, who appeased them by promising to measure the land again. About 250 families in Phnom Sruoch district ...

About 200 workers from the Chinese-owned Pollysa (Cambodia) Home Textile factory in Sihanoukville protested Wednesday against the overtime they were being forced to work and the firing of 20 employees earlier this week who refused the extra hours, workers and a union representative said. Starting at ...

Foreign donors should push Cambodia’s government to end its human rights abuses as part of its bid to maintain political control of the nation, a rights group said Wednesday, after Phnom Penh allegedly snubbed recommendations by foreign governments to improve the country’s rights record. Representatives of ...

A public forum will be held next month to find a solution to the Borei Keila housing crisis, city officials said yesterday. During a meeting with about 50 representatives of the community, Nhem Chanthary, deputy director of City Hall’s poor community development office, said Governor Pa ...

More than 100 ethnic minority activists trying to protect community forests have been arrested, jailed, threatened and subjected to violence so far this year, a major local rights group has said. In a statement released yesterday, Adhoc condemned the “discriminatory” treatment of indigenous people who have ...

District security guards were deployed to Chroy Changva peninsula Tuesday to intercept villagers who were ready to smash a pipe that has been pumping sand onto their land for the past year. The roughly 40 families occupy the northeastern corner of a 387-hectare swathe of wetlands ...

Villagers who will be displaced if the controversial Lower Sesan II dam is built called on the developers yesterday to postpone construction for five years, allowing time for a comprehensive resettlement scheme to be devised. But a government official dismissed their request as “beyond the pale”, ...

Security guards working for a firm building a resort in Koh Kong province beat a woman who was trying to farm the land from which she had been evicted, she has told police. Khun Phall, 40, said that on Monday evening, she and family members returned ...

The Somaly Mam Foundation (SMF) has said its decision to cut off funding to Agir Pour Les Femmes en Situation Precaire (Afesip) came partly because of the continued involvement of embattled anti-human-trafficking activist Somaly Mam in the local NGO. In a statement on Monday, the SMF ...

Cambodia and China are drafting a memorandum of understanding (MoU) to stamp out the exploitative trade of Cambodian women to China, where there have been increasing reports of women being abused by their Chinese husbands and sold into the sex trade. The diplomatic push comes in ...

Mondolkiri provincial villagers on Tuesday accused authorities there of colluding with a development company involved in serious deforestation. The Phnong minority villagers say the wife of the deputy provincial governor owns the company, Villas Development, which is allegedly involved in illegal logging. The activists spoke Tuesday ...

Despite a number of agencies dispatched to solve land dispute, rights workers say people continue to face forced evictions and rights abuses by land developments. These problems are not being handled at the local level, fueling mistrust in local government, rights workers say. Rights workers from myriad ...

Barely able to make enough money to survive in her hometown, Sok Chenda* picked up her passport and a few belongings last year and headed to the provincial capital of Kampong Cham. It was a journey she would regret. The eldest daughter among five siblings, Chenda, 28, ...

A six-month standoff that eventually halted a box factory’s production ended on Friday, when managers of the factory in the capital’s Por Sen Chey district paid seniority bonuses to almost 150 former employees. Harta Packaging Industries paid bonuses of between $500 and $4,000 to a total ...

About 100 plainclothes men, some wielding sticks, tried to block a group of opposition activists and youth supporters in Svay Rieng province yesterday from reaching a disputed section of the Cambodia-Vietnam border. Clashes broke out at about 10am between the group of Cambodia National Rescue Party ...

In a bid to highlight abuses in the workplace, an NGO today will officially launch a website and hotline, allowing people to post stories as citizen journalists. The Community Legal Education Center (CLEC) will hold a ceremony this morning promoting their new project, Voice of the ...

The once unified fight of the Boeng Kak lake community against their forced eviction visibly fractured over the weekend, as factions within the community accused each other of literally casting the first stone in a brawl that broke out Saturday over a new military police ...

Looking out from his house, held up by three-meter stilts on a peninsula that juts into Boeng Tompun lake, Chan Sokhom can see the sand inching closer to him every day. Within a few years, the sand will likely reach his doorstep. By then, Mr. Sokhom ...

The Union Media of Asean, an association of Thai and Cambodian journalists based in Sa Kaew, has agreed to set the record straight about the policy of Thailand’s ruling junta towards migrant workers, particularly those from Cambodia. Reporters affiliated with UMA would pass on the truth ...

National Assembly spokesman Chheang Vun on Friday defended Cambodia’s decision to reject four human rights proposals and merely take note of another 38 during the adoption of its second universal periodic review report in Geneva on Thursday. In all, Cambodia accepted 163 of the 205 recommendations ...

Residents of three displaced communities in Phnom Penh on Friday submitted a petition to the office of the European Union delegation, urging it to monitor funds it gives to the government. More than 50 protesters from the Boeng Kak, Borei Keila and Thmor Kol neighborhoods were met ...

A packaging factory is back in business, opening its doors after about 200 former employees stopped blocking shipments, which they had been doing since Saturday. Factory management at Harta Packaging Industries acquiesced to a negotiation session with the group, which has been protesting against the company ...