Social development

Since Sunday, Military Police and provincial police officials have been stopping outsiders from entering Sesan district’s Srekor and Kbal Romea villages as 200 people – mostly ethnic minorities from all over Cambodia – continued to gather in defiance of the blockade for a series of events, including ...

Though they live in orphanages, an estimated 13,000 children in facilities across Cambodia have at least one living parent. As part of a sea change in government policy in a country with a checkered history with orphanages, officials in Battambang province on Tuesday kicked off ...

Parents of children born to surrogate mothers in Cambodia will be required to provide the government with yearly updates of their child’s mental and physical development, according to new guidelines officially disseminated to embassies for the first time yesterday. ...

The Ministry of Health yesterday warned people to be aware of the new avian influenza strain H7N9, which has spread to poultry in China and neighbouring countries. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday announced that the government has plans to have a functioning social security system operational in the country by 2025, including universal health care, unemployment insurance and old-aged pensions. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen ordered the government to draw up a plan to fund the country’s popular Kantha Bopha children’s hospitals on Monday, four months after the long-serving director of the foundation that runs them resigned. ...

An $8 million bond set to debut on Singapore’s stock exchange will mobilise private capital to support social enterprises and microfinance institutions (MFIs) in Cambodia, Vietnam and the Philippines, providing nearly half a million women in these countries with more access to credit in order ...

Cambodia has made significant progress in HIV treatment, taking the lead regionally by reaching 80 percent of those living with the virus and becoming one of only seven countries globally to reach target treatment goals, according to a U.N. report released on Thursday. ...

Two key members of the election monitoring group dubbed the Situation Room are seeking a meeting with Interior Minister Sar Kheng to discuss a recent government order that would bar the NGO consortium from continuing its work for next year’s general election. ...

Global Fund will provide $98 million to fight malaria, tuberculosis and AIDs from 2018 to 2020, an official said on Thursday, with the donor seemingly banking on improved oversight to prevent alleged government fraud and nepotism it described as recently as March. ...

France has pledged nearly $400,000 to set up maternal health and early childhood services, including child care centers, at a dozen garment factories across Cambodia, the French Embassy said on Wednesday. ...

Siem Reap is littered with trash and local young people have had enough. Once a month since March, monks and youth volunteers from NGOs, businesses and public schools have joined together to clean up their neighbourhood and promote awareness of how rubbish affects people’s lives. ...

The land concession overlaps the site of the Bunong community’s old village, their spirit forest and their burial grounds—religiously significant areas that, according to Bunong beliefs, are not to be disturbed or logged at the risk of incurring the wrath of local spirits. ...

The Ministry of Interior plans to offer training courses to new commune councillors, Interior Minister Sar Kheng revealed yesterday after a closed-door meeting with National Election Committee officials. ...

The Asian Development Bank needs to be more involved in helping Cambodia implement gender equality policies in order to “tap the economic potential” for women and close “sizable gender equality gaps”, an internal evaluation has found. ...

The Thai government on Wednesday publicly announced that nationals of five countries, including Cambodia, can visit Thailand for up to 90 days without a visa to seek medical treatment, an official at the Thai Embassy in Phnom Penh said yesterday. ...

The Finance Ministry is planning to raise the national education budget to more than $700 million next year in a bid to improve standards in schools. ...

The director of the government body that manages the Angkor Archaeological Park on Wednesday conceded that the hundreds of families they are now struggling to evict were allowed to move into the park illegally in the lead-up to the June 4 commune elections, though he ...

A draft United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report released at a workshop on Monday praises efforts to crack down on sexual abuse of children but calls for measures to curb child pornography.​​ ...

For the second year running, a delegation of Iraqi demining trainees have come to the Kingdom for a training programme at the Cambodian Mine Action Centre’s (CMAC) Technical Institute of Mine Action in Kampong Chhnang province. ...

Child sex tourism is continuing to damage the lives of young Cambodians, while the internet is enabling perpetrators to carry out abuse, the Justice Minister has warned.​ ...

Education Minister Hang Chuon Naron said yesterday that next month’s Grade 12 high school exams will largely follow the same process as the past few years, though a spokesman noted that new subject “experts” will be introduced to help spot grading errors. ...

NGOs huddled yesterday to make sense of a letter from the Interior Ministry asking them to comply with controversial provisions of the Law on Associations and NGOs (LANGO), with some considering requesting further clarification or an extension of a September deadline for compliance. ...

Interior Minister Sar Kheng took aim at civil society on Tuesday night, warning NGOs to comply with the law or face legal action, at the same time the ministry ordered the ad hoc election monitoring group the Situation Room to cease any future monitoring activities. ...