Human rights

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 ...

Representatives of the 301 families granted a social land concession in Kratie province to resolve a long-running land dispute said Sunday that they filed a report with authorities on Saturday detailing the new families that have since gathered with them in the hope of also ...

Opposition leader Sam Rainsy sent a letter to Thailand’s ruling junta on Friday calling for the “tens of thousands” of Cambodian migrant workers forcibly repatriated since early June to be treated humanely. In the letter addressed to General Prayuth Chan-ocha, who assumed power in a May ...

After rocks from a worksite detonation killed one of his employees, a manager at a Kratie province granite company was questioned yesterday for allegedly trying to cover up the circumstances surrounding the fatality, police said. Chinese national Chov Chinlean, 39, died after a crew from Moeung ...

An estimated 135,000 Cambodian migrant workers have been deported from or fled Thailand since early this month after the Thailand’s new military government rounded up illegal migrant laborers, a senior official said Sunday. ...

New research on the cultural causes of and solutions to violence against women was presented in Phnom Penh on Friday in a bid to help those interested in ending violence understand what fuels it, specifically in a Cambodian context. The research is 25 years in the ...

Villagers in Koh Kong’s Botum Sakor district said Friday that Union Development Group (UDG) used military forces to prevent villagers from planting paddy rice on land that is locked in a longstanding dispute, a claim the military denied. Khun Thala, a 40-year-old villager, said Friday that ...

A Khmer Krom association threatened this week to protest against the Vietnamese government after an official said that the former Kampuchea Krom provinces belonged to Vietnam long before France’s official transfer of the land in 1949. The threats from the Khmer Kampuchea Krom Association for Human ...

The government must make more of an effort to not only eradicate child labor, but also its underlying causes, and ensure that children attend school, local rights group Licadho said Thursday. In a statement released ahead of World Day Against Child Labor, the group said the ...

A 100-page set of guidelines for the legal protection of the rights of women and children was launched by the Ministry of Women’s Affairs in Phnom Penh on Thursday in a bid to address shortfalls in how the judicial system handles cases such as rape, ...

Human rights workers say the US and other countries should censure Thailand over fisheries practices that mean near-slavery for many Cambodians and others. An investigative report by the UK-based Guardian newspaper exposed serious abuses in the Thai fishing trade, where workers are cheated of pay, kept ...

Preah Vihear officials abruptly barred environmental activists from holding a planned public forum Wednesday, with the activists claiming it was for political reasons and officials saying the group had failed to go through the proper channels. Seng Sokheng, secretariat coordinator of Community Peace Building Network, said ...

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Cambodia, Surya Subedi, will visit the country next week to assess the government’s progress in improving human rights and democratic and land reforms, his office said Wednesday. During the 10-day fact-finding mission, beginning June ...

Thai authorities have sent 7, 507 illegal Cambodian migrant workers back to Cambodia since the start of this month, a Cambodian spokesman said Wednesday. ...

Protesting workers at Ocean Garment factory say they are worried the manufacturer, which has suspended operations for one month, will close altogether. About 20 per cent of Ocean’s 1,300 workers demanding full payment during the break have found work elsewhere, while longtime employees are literally praying ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen may regularly deliver hours of bombastic public oratory and rarely, if ever, allow anyone to ask questions of him. But his youngest son, Hun Many, a rising star in the ruling CPP, has begun doing just the opposite as he builds on ...

A journalist who filed a complaint with the Pursat Provincial Court alleging that a soldier threatened to kill him over an illegal logging report withdrew his complaint after the soldier was internally disciplined, court officials and military police said Monday. Sak Rom, a reporter with Kapit ...

Union representatives stormed out of negotiations and continued a strike yesterday when managers at T&K Garment factory said workers would never receive the 2,000 riel ($0.50) daily lunch allowance allegedly promised to them. A week after they walked off the job, T&K workers at Por Sen ...

The opposition yesterday accused a senior army general of having ordered plainclothes soldiers to block the party from entering the former Khmer Rouge stronghold of Anlong Veng on Sunday, where they were set to hold a public forum. But Defence Minister Tea Banh strongly rejected the ...

About 30 residents from Phnom Penh’s Srah Chak commune protested in front of their Russian Boulevard houses Monday, demanding that City Hall issue them land titles. Some of the protesters wore CPP T-shirts while others held banners with pictures of Prime Minister Hun Sen and his ...

Phnom Penh municipality on Monday ordered a curb on vagrants entering the city and a roundup of beggars, homeless people and children selling items at traffic lights. In the directive, signed by deputy city governor Seng Ratanak, City Hall orders the 12 district governors, its social ...