Social development

The European Parliament adopted a resolution on Thursday calling on the Cambodian government to cancel a draft law that would strictly regulate NGOs and associations in the country, warning that its passage could cost Cambodia up to $700 million in development aid. ...

A coalition of Cambodian nongovernmental organizations will stage a peaceful protest on Monday outside parliament in the capital Phnom Penh to oppose proposed legislation that they say will restrict their activities, an official with a prominent domestic rights groups said. ...

Officials from the Ministry of Health’s national eye health program yesterday released a report announcing that trachoma, an eye infection that can lead to blindness, is no longer a public health problem in Cambodia. ...

The government yesterday confirmed four changes to the controversial NGO law in response to widespread criticism; opponents, however, say the edits are insignificant and the legislation remains a “severe violation” of Cambodia’s constitution. ...

The Ministry of Health has completed a draft law on alcohol regulation, which will set a minimum drinking age, increase taxes on alcohol and place other controls on the sale, consumption and advertising of alcohol. ...

After receiving numerous complaints about violence and robberies outside a nightclub in Battambang City, police Thursday rounded up 25 suspected criminals, claiming to have prevented an imminent gang brawl. ...

Social affairs officials met Thursday with the U.N.’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights to discuss the notorious Prey Speu social affairs center, with the government giving permission for the U.N. to visit the center Friday and identify residents who require psychiatric assistance ...

ASEAN Parliamentarians for Human Rights (APHR) today called on the Cambodian government to abandon its proposed Law on Associations and Non-governmental Organizations (LANGO), arguing that the ruling party has pursued a fundamentally undemocratic course in attempting to secure the passage of a law that threatens ...

A senior government official on Wednesday defended the controversial draft law to regulate NGOs, as members of the government and civil society met in Phnom Penh. ...

After abysmal conditions were exposed at the Por Sen Chey Social Affairs Center, City Hall admitted yesterday that the center was not equipped to detain and care for large numbers of people. ...

CPP lawmakers and officials continued to defend their controversial draft of a proposed law aiming to regulate the country’s non-government groups at a workshop at the National Assembly on Wednesday, despite a boycott from some NGOs and the opposition, which dismissed the event as “rubbish.” ...

About 100 homeless and mentally ill Cambodians who are being detained in a center on the outskirts of Phnom Penh implored an opposition lawmaker on Tuesday to request that the facility serve them better quality food and stop torture and other rights abuses. ...

Hundreds of opponents to a controversial law to regulate NGOs met in a hotel in Phnom Penh Tuesday, as a campaign against the passage of the legislation continues. Zach Lampell, a legal advisor at the International Center for Not-For-Profit Law, told those gathered that he had ...

In the first semester of the year, the number of demonstration and riot up but crime down, said a report of the Phnom Penh Police Commissariat. During that period, there were 236 cases of demonstrations and riots, up 55 cases compared to the same period of ...

NGOs remained united Tuesday in their staunch opposition to a draft law that would force all non-government groups in the country to register with the state, but were split on whether to take up the ruling CPP on its offer for an 11th-hour consultation ahead ...

Beneath a tree in Phnom Penh’s remote Prey Speu Social Affairs Centre – a de facto prison used to indefinitely incarcerate some of the capital’s most vulnerable citizens – a woman yesterday chanted loudly before bursting into tears and then laughter. Like many others at the ...

The recent death from rabies of a French resident of Kampot has caused coastal vets and doctors to call for increased vigilance and improved preventative measures in Cambodia, which is still classed as a “red” zone for the lethal virus. ...

Private donations to orphanages in Cambodia means the government is struggling to cope with their reform, with lack of transparency and lack of safety checks. Most of Cambodia’s orphanages are financed by private donations from abroad, but no one knows exactly how much money flows ...

Cambodia’s opposition party will boycott a national conference held by parliament to discuss a controversial draft law that would regulate nongovernmental organizations operating in the developing country, because of loopholes in the proposed legislation that would hinder the groups, an opposition lawmaker said Tuesday. ...

Lawmakers yesterday passed a rent control law for low-income earners and students, prohibiting landlords from increasing rent for two years once a contract is signed and allowing tenants to scrap a lease agreement without notice. The law, which sailed through the National Assembly with 102 of ...

Phen Bunthoeun, the NGO director who was arrested and detained overnight by Vietnamese authorities for leading about 40 students to visit a disputed border area in Svay Rieng province on Saturday, admitted Monday that he had gone there to inspect alleged border violations. ...

Nearly 150 teachers across five districts in Kampot province have signed a petition demanding the government pay them monthly rural posting bonuses they say are now nine months in arrears. ...

A community-based HIV testing program is the first of its kind in the region. While this peer-provided HIV counselling and testing has increased the number of people tested from key populations, it has not detected a significant number of new HIV cases. In 2014, there ...

Around 100 activists, including Buddhist monks, gathered in front of Cambodia’s parliament Monday to demand that lawmakers and the country’s Forestry Administration take action against illegal logging in endangered Prey Lang forest. ...