Human rights

About 80 workers protesting against a Japanese factory in Phnom Penh that produces cardboard boxes blocked the gates Friday after managers refused to hold a meeting with employees. Workers burned tires in front of the Harta Packaging factory, which they have been protesting against since February, ...

Cambodian Minister of Labor Ith Samheng said Friday that nearly all illegal Cambodian migrant laborers working in Thailand have returned home in fears of a junta’s crackdown on illegal foreign workers. Major Gen. Pich Vanna, chief of Cambodian-Thai Border Relation Affairs Office, said the Thai ...

Following an exodus of more than 200,000 Cambodian workers from Thailand in the past two weeks, the junta has urged Cambodia to expedite planned border offices that will facilitate legal labour migration. Responding to that request, Cambodia announced yesterday that the first “one-stop service office” would ...

A villager representative in Ratanakkiri province was charged Thursday with unlawful interference in the discharge of public function after he led a group of neighbors to block a Chinese company’s bulldozer from clearing disputed land in Bakeo district on Sunday, a court official said. Morm Vanda, provincial deputy ...

The families of four people from Pailin province’s Krinh village who have been incarcerated since March for allegedly living on state land are calling for their release. Fifty-year-old Nheb Nharn said that he and his wife, Om Som Ath, had lived on the land in Stung ...

About 200 garment workers marched from Phnom Penh’s Wincam garment factory to the Ministry of Labor on Thursday to press their demands for short-term contracts and better benefits. The Korean-owned factory’s 800-plus workers have been protesting since June 11 to demand that the factory change their ...

U.N. human rights envoy Surya Subedi met with representatives of the country’s businesses and employers Thursday for talks that focused on the protection of workers’ rights and measures that can be taken to ensure that strained industrial relations do not once again erupt into violence. In ...

Police in Kampong Thom province shut down a forest-protection training session yesterday, citing fears that it was encouraging residents to protest against logging in Prey Lang, activists and residents have said. Sar Mory, a deputy of the Cambodian Youth Network (CYN), said that his group organised ...

The Thai military junta sent other 5,000 Cambodian migrant workers back to Cambodia on Thursday, bringing the total number of Cambodian laborers deported from or fled Thailand over fears of a junta’s crackdown on illegal foreign workers to 225,000, a senior official said. “As of Thursday ...

Cambodia improved its performance in this year’s Global Peace Index, climbing seven places from last year to reach 106 out of the 162 countries ranked in the study. The improvement is relative, though, with the impact of violence having cost an estimated $1.5 billion. The Institute ...

Following last week’s street sweep, children as young as 7 years old were kept in Phnom Penh’s notorious Prey Speu social affairs centre, eyewitnesses, staff and those targeted by the initiative have told the Post, directly contradicting government denials offered earlier this week. Standing at the centre’s ...

A request by the Cambodian government for a delay in its universal periodic review (UPR) hearing at the Human Rights Council in Geneva, which was supposed to be Thursday, has been accepted, according to a rights group that was to deliver a statement on the ...

Six families that were evicted from the Boeng Kak lake community, including long-time activist Heng Mom, confirmed Wednesday that they had accepted a deal from Phnom Penh City Hall for plots of land and titles in the same neighborhood. The families have agreed to plots of ...

Workers in an industry where obnoxious, drunk customers and 12-hour shifts are common could gain legal safeguards if a subdecree brought before a Ministry of Labour committee yesterday passes into law. The set of prakases for entertainment workers – which appeared before the Labour Advisory Committee ...

With a number of homeless, beggars and street sellers who were rounded up in caged vans last week still unaccounted for, several of those targeted by the street sweep claimed yesterday that they had been held in Phnom Penh’s notorious Prey Speu social affairs centre. Homeless ...

Thai officials said Tuesday they will take back Cambodian workers who re-enter the country legally. The statement follows a mass exodus in recent weeks of tens of thousands of Cambodians amid rumors of a crackdown on undocumented workers. Koy Kuong, a spokesman for Cambodia’s Foreign Ministry, told ...

The International Organisation for Migration says thousands of Cambodian migrant workers are continuing to pour across the Thai border into Poipet. ...

Fearing a military crackdown on illegal workers, Wiang left his construction site in Bangkok without even receiving a single baht for many weeks of work. “My employer said he could pay on June 28. But we can’t wait till then,” the 32-year-old Cambodian lamented yesterday as ...

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has confirmed to the Cambodian Ambassador to Thailand that no harsh measures are being taken against Cambodian workers while the latter has promised to help Thailand clear up the rumor. ...

A second deadly car accident in as many days has claimed the lives of more Cambodian migrant workers fleeing Thailand in the wake of last month’s military takeover. At least two undocumented Cambodian workers were killed while driving through Thailand’s Chonburi province to get to the ...

An opposition lawmaker-elect pledged yesterday to visit an undemarcated section of the border in Svay Rieng province to investigate allegations that Cambodian farmers have been blocked by Vietnamese soldiers from using land they previously farmed for years without problem. Svay Rieng lawmaker-elect Real Camerin said that ...

The group in charge of determining the national minimum wage for the garment sector yesterday agreed to increase salaries annually on January 1, determined by discussions that are to take place in the final quarter of each preceding year, officials said. The agreement was signed during ...

The Foreign Ministry will summon Cambodian ambassador to Thailand Eat Sophea on Tuesday to assure her the junta has no order to deport Khmer workers, and to clarify the country’s policy on migrant labour. ...

Workers at the Beautiful Spring Footwear factory in Takeo province refused to end a two-day protest on Saturday after management ceded to most of their demands but refused to raise their good-attendance bonus. The factory’s roughly 1,000 workers started protesting outside the building on Friday, two ...