Social development

The UK Government pledged to increase the number of scholarships to Cambodian students. They also promised to give more assistance to the Khmer Rouge Court trials and help solve the mine problem. ...

A new study by the International Justice Mission (IJM) has asserted that Cambodia’s child sex trade – long a hot-button issue that has for years drawn international attention – has been reduced to a tiny fraction of its previous size. A statement from IJM that accompanied ...

Nearly 600 guns – most of them crude homemade rifles – were burned in Battambang province on Monday after a campaign to encourage locals to hand their weapons over to the proper officials. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen on Tuesday received Vietnamese Communist Party Politburo official Le Hong Anh at his office in Phnom Penh and asked that Vietnam remain “calm” over recent fact-finding trips to the border led by opposition lawmakers. ...

In perhaps the most comprehensive review to date of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s 2012 land titling project, the NGO Forum on Tuesday said the campaign has yielded major benefits, but not without some serious costs—particularly for the country’s beleaguered indigenous communities. ...

Members of a community in Battambang where an unlicensed doctor allegedly infected more than 200 people with HIV earlier this year have demanded free general healthcare, a provision usually reserved only for the country’s most poor. ...

The outbreak of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in South Korea has sparked international alarm, and about 25,000 people have cancelled trips to the country between June 5 and 7, the Korean Tourism Organisation said.  ...

In a small courtyard in downtown Phnom Penh sits the city’s oldest public school. Founded more than 100 years ago, Tuan Hoa features a Chinese temple and Mandarin language instruction for its 2,000 students. ...

With the approval last week of a draft NGO law by Cambodia’s Council of Ministers, many pro-democracy and rights advocates say they should now have a chance to add their comments on the bill, before it goes to the National Assembly for debate. ...

The Interior Ministry is developing the curriculum for a “School of Good Governance,” which from 2016 will bring officials from the provinces to Phnom Penh for a crash course in acting with integrity, a ministry official and an NGO partner said Monday. ...

More Montagnard asylum seekers from Vietnam arrived in Phnom Penh over the weekend, bringing the number waiting to apply for refugee status to 109, according to the United Nations. Vivian Tan, regional spokeswoman for the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), said the Montagnards – an indigenous group ...

An NGO umbrella group says it has seen a new, leaked copy of a controversial draft law that aims to regulate the country’s hundreds of non-government organizations—and that the latest version marks a significant step backward. ...

Armed Vietnamese soldiers on Monday tried to prevent more than 300 people led by CNRP lawmakers from visiting a disputed border area in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadaw district, a lawmaker and a rights worker said. ...

A blood-testing lab in Siem Riep was closed down yesterday morning after it was discovered to be operating without a licence. ...

Every day, 35 Cambodian children die before their fifth birthday. Their premature deaths are caused mainly by such preventable and treatable diseases as diarrhea or pneumonia. ...

The Ministry of Education, Youth and Sports denied that they allowed stakeholders and companies to charge fees for students to apply for scholarships. ...

More than a month after he was brutally attacked on suspicion of being a sorcerer, a Ratanakkiri province cucumber farmer says he has been left disabled and in search of crucial medical funds. ...

Nearly 200 midwives and nursing students at the International University in Phnom Penh’s Sen Sok district protested yesterday after reportedly being denied the necessary documents required to sit the Ministry of Health’s state civil servant exam this summer. ...

A new study is advocating a bottom-up approach to the Kingdom’s NGO scene, calling on international donors to alter their support strategies and foster the independence of grassroots initiatives taking off at the local level. The draft report, which was published last week by the Stanford ...

A handcart-puller who was knocked unconscious by military police during a May 26 protest in Poipet City—sparking an attack on the local customs office—on Friday filed a court complaint requesting $10,000 in compensation from his attackers, a rights monitor said Sunday. ...

In a recently released report, Licadho says that children who live in prisons should receive proper care so that they can develop physically and psychologically. The UN Convention on the Rights of Children states that countries have a duty to provide children with the right ...

Far from urban comforts and civilization, Belgian photographer Cédric Delannoy spent three years in remote Ratanakiri indigenous villages. After hunting for forest crickets with local children, washing his clothes in a stream and attending village meetings, Mr. Delannoy became part of a community that would ...

Rights groups want Cambodia’s parliament to hold a consultation with civil society about a controversial draft law on nongovernmental organizations approved Friday by the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen, which has long demonstrated animosity toward organizations outside of state control. ...

A controversial draft law to regulate Cambodia’s NGOs has passed a major hurdle and will be moved on to the National Assembly for legislative debate. Om Chandara, a spokesman for the council, told VOA Khmer that two articles were withdrawn at the behest of Prime ...