Social development

Art can represent a nation’s identity, and younger generations have a responsibility to conserve it. But that means education, to help youth appreciate art and culture, says Donna Strahan, head of conservation and research at the Freer-Sackler Gallery. ...

Close to 2,000 people, including monks, NGO workers and citizens, marched peacefully to the Ministry of Justice yesterday morning, defying City Hall’s ban on the Human Rights Day protest.Demonstrators from 16 different provinces marched from three separate locations – the Senate, Chenla Cinema and Wat ...

The rights of LGBT people took centrestage at an event to celebrate Human Rights Day at the FCC mansion in Phnom Penh yesterday.Organised by NGO CamAsean, which advocates on behalf of marginalised people, the morning conference included a rap performance by lesbian and transgender teenagers, ...

Police in Siem Reap province yesterday shuttered an unlicensed medical clinic they say was using more than 100 unregistered medicines, though the clinic’s owner insisted the raid was in response to rival clinics complaining about their prices being undercut by his charitable operation. ...

Violence against children cost Cambodia approximately $168 million in 2013, or just over 1 per cent of GDP, according to a new report from the government and UNICEF that explores the economic impacts of physical abuse.Titled The economic burden of health consequences of violence against ...

Alcohol experts and victims of excessive drinking came together yesterday to urge the government to speedily adopt a law controlling the consumption and sale of booze that was first drafted in 2008. ...

Forty young environmental envoys began training on December 5 to become Young Eco Ambassadors, tasked with raising awareness of the need to protect the environment. ...

Authorities in Siem Reap yesterday blocked a march celebrating International Human Rights Day (IHRD), as officials in Phnom Penh reiterated their threat to shut down a planned mass rally in the capital on Thursday.As IHRD, officially on December 10, approaches, associated demonstrations across the Kingdom ...

The Education Ministry will include an internationally agreed disaster risk reduction component in school curriculums from next year as part of a growing global move to teach students and communities how to deal with events such as flooding and major storms. ...

At least three Cambodian villagers have died and 31 others have been hospitalised in eastern Kratie province after consuming the cooked flesh of a big dog that was toxic, a local police chief confirmed on Monday. ...

With at least four Cambodians killed in recent years trying to uncover environmental crimes, the country ranks as the “deadliest” place in the world to conduct such reporting, according to a new report.  ...

Rights and development groups say a draft law on access to information will be more useful to the public if it has input from outside the government.A number of civil society organizations met in Phnom Penh this week to discuss the law, in hopes of ...

When the Battambang Provincial Court last week handed down a 25-year prison sentence to Yem Chrin, an unlicensed medic blamed for spreading HIV to more than 280 residents of rural Roka commune, it likely failed to consider relevant medical evidence, according to interviews with doctors ...

A recently published study of a 2012 enterovirus outbreak that killed at least 54 Cambodian children has found that flare-ups of the virus tend to occur in a cyclical pattern, and that another one could be in store soon.Widespread in the Asia-Pacific region, the virus ...

Marking the Cambodian Day of Persons with Disabilities on Monday, Deputy Prime Minister Men Sam An encouraged all government ministries to make an effort to employ more people with disabilities, though experts say the government should be more proactive. ...

A leading rights group in Cambodia, LICADHO, said it was forced to cancel its annual International Human Rights Day events in the country’s prisons for the first time in 20 years because of prohibitive conditions imposed by the government. ...

Rights group Licadho says it is canceling its annual prison visits on international Human Rights Day, which this year falls on Thursday, for the first time in two decades in protest over what it says are new government restrictions. ...

Following the 25-year sentence for an unlicensed doctor who caused an outbreak of HIV, rights, development and legal experts consider whether justice was served.The questions revolve around how many years imprisonment should be meted out by the court in a case that may have been ...

Thai police believe that an Australian murder suspect is in Cambodia after fleeing arrest in Thailand, according to Australian and Thai media reports, although Cambodian authorities contacted on Thursday said they had no knowledge of the fugitive. ...

The former Battambang High School student who a local news website claimed earlier this week bribed education officials to secure a passing exam grade said yesterday that the certificate the website published is not his. ...

An unlicensed doctor was sentenced to 25 years in prison yesterday after being found guilty by Battambang Provincial Court of “torture with aggravating circumstances” for infecting hundreds of people with HIV.Yem Chroeum, 56, stared at the ground as presiding judge Yich Chheanavy read out the ...

Cambodian women face many obstacles to success in education, including domestic violence and sexual violence, but an increasing number of them are seeking higher education and more work skills.More than 50 percent of Cambodia’s population is female, and many see the new generation as a ...

In July, an estimated 2.9 million Cambodians were on Facebook, up from 1.7 million a year earlier.The social networking website Facebook has grown increasingly popular with government officials, who use it to communicate with their constituents and to push their political positions to a younger ...

A Japanese nonprofit organization committed to helping disadvantaged Cambodian children receive an education celebrated the completion of its 19th school there in February.AMATAK, which means “eternity” in Khmer, has been building schools for children in rural Cambodia since 1995. ...