Social development

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 Om Chandara, a spokesman for the council, told VOA Khmer that two articles were withdrawn at the behest of Prime ...

As ASEAN heads toward greater economic integration at the end of the year, a Cambodian advocate says more needs to be done in the region for women’s rights. Asean has a working group for women’s issues, but the region faces challenges in social and economic equality, ...

Some 10 months after leading protests during which Vietnamese flags were burned outside the country’s embassy in Phnom Penh, members of the Khmer Krom community took a more conciliatory approach Thursday as they marked the 66th anniversary of France’s formal splitting of Cochinchine. Thousands of monks ...

In the wake of 35 documented cases – including two deaths – of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) in South Korea, Cambodian Ministry of Health officials are warning Cambodian migrant workers there about the risk. ...

The land of Cambodia is so far removed from our world, that the southeast Asian nation’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community is only now getting its first publication aimed at LGBT readers: Q Cambodia. ...

The Cambodian government has been taken to task in a lengthy report by Amnesty International for two years of “violent repression.” Researchers for the human rights organisation found that between Nov. 2013 and May of this year, people’s basic rights to assemble were stifled, excessive and ...

Iron deficiency affects nearly 3.5 billion people worldwide. It is the most common nutritional deficiency in the world. In Cambodia, after 9 months of using the Lucky Iron Fish every day, researchers saw a 50 percent decrease in the incidence of clinical iron deficiency anemia, ...

The National Human Rights Commission of Thailand has accused the country’s Khon Kaen Sugar of “serious human rights violations” at its two Cambodian plantations in a new report that urges the firm to return the land to the hundreds of families forced off their farms—some ...

US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Scott Busby, who heads the Bureau of Democracy, Human rights and Labor, is on a two-day trip to Cambodia. ...

A senior US diplomat has raised concerns over a proposed law to govern NGOs in Cambodia. Hor Namhong told reporters Tuesday the draft law is not meant to impose undue burdens on NGOs. Civil society will have a chance to comment on the draft when ...

An official at the National Committee for Disaster Management said Monday that abnormal weather conditions this year could lead to food shortages and that El Nino could be to blame. ...

In a few weeks, Cambodian high school seniors will sit down to take the national college entrance exam. Last August, Cambodia’s Minister Hang Chuon Naron pulled off a revolution. He cracked down on cheating. Pass and fail rates neatly flipped, with only 25 percent passing ...

A deadline set by Prime Minister Hun Sen to finalize a controversial draft NGO law by the end of May will be missed, as a government spokesman said discussions were put on hold while the Interior Minister is abroad. ...

The Ministry of Labor issued a statement Friday claiming that the controversial draft Trade Union Law is aimed at protecting the rights of workers, after unions announced they would write to the ministry, the National Assembly and the European Union next week calling for the ...

Three Chinese men and a Cambodian were charged Friday by the Battambang Provincial Court for operating unlicensed medical facilities and supplying spoiled or fake drugs, a court official said. ...

Members of Cambodia’s civil society are rebuking their representation at the ASEAN Civil Society Conference/ASEAN Peoples’ Forum last week, alleging the Kingdom’s civil society representatives were disproportionately government-aligned. ...

Cambodia’s Ministry of Land Management is in the initial phase of a project to build affordable housing for the Kingdom’s low-income population. ...

A group of activists and villagers from southwestern Cambodia’s Koh Kong province petitioned outside the country’s parliament Thursday, calling on lawmakers to intervene against a sand dredging company they say is operating in the area without a license. ...