Social development

Three imprisoned land activists intentionally injured themselves on Friday in an alleged suicide attempt after being confined in their cell for two days, according to their families and a fellow inmate. Tep Vanny, Kong Chantha, and Bor Chorvy – all from Phnom Penh’s Boeung Kak community ...

Child protection NGO Friends International said this week it will contest being officially cited as the originator of allegations of sexual misconduct at Our Home orphanage that led to the center’s closure last month and to the imprisonment of its director, Hang Vibol, on suspicion ...

The Koh Kong Provincial Court on Friday questioned an Areng Valley villager opposed to a government-backed hydropower dam over allegations of illegal logging but has yet to lay charges. ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen on Sunday said that draft Law on Non-Government Organizations will be discussed and adopted at Cabinet in May 2015, and the law will be adopted by 50 percent plus one majority vote at the National Assembly. According to the figures of ...

In an internal report released this week, the Ministry of Education gave itself high marks for the access to education it offers disabled children, offering a rundown of successes in the field dotted with green checkmarks, not unlike a school report card. However, though the ministry ...

The government will provide scholarships to poor public school students in grades 1 through 12 in an effort to curb drop-out rates.​ ...

A UN rights panel that grilled government delegates in Geneva last month yesterday handed down its concluding observations on how Cambodia has implemented the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which it acceded to more than two decades ago. The only positive aspects outlined by ...

A spike in violent crime over the past year has seen Cambodia receive a “critical” rating in a report outlining the potential dangers for U.S. Embassy staff operating in the country. The Cambodia 2015 Crime and Safety Report, which was compiled by the U.S. Bureau of ...

A two-day drug crackdown in Kampong Thom province on Tuesday and Wednesday led to the arrests of 30 alleged drug users and dealers – including two police officers who were later released. ...

Oxfam said it will expand its savings-led community-lending model in Cambodia as an alternative to traditional credit-based microfinance services, which it says are ineffective in reaching the Kingdom’s poorest. Oxfam’s Saving for Change project, which trains rural communities to form savings groups, now has $5 million ...

The Geneva-based Human Rights Committee (HRC) called on Cambodia Thursday to step up efforts to curb impunity and fully investigate incidents where excessive force was used against civilians. ...

Asean integration at the end of 2015 will give Cambodia opportunities, but it will also mean economic competition that the country must be ready for, an analyst says. ...

Despite the fact that Cambodia is slated to reach the six internationally agreed-upon education goals set by Unesco for 2015, the Kingdom’s education system continues to face systemic problems, according to the Ministry of Education’s annual report. The report’s final draft, which was released to the ...

Only one child remained hospitalized Wednesday after a group of about 800 people fell ill from food poisoning caused by tainted sandwiches served at a World Vision event in Siem Reap province on Saturday, a spokesman for the NGO said.​ ...

Interior Minister Sar Kheng on Wednesday ordered police across the country to focus on investigating and arresting the leaders of illegal-drug syndicates rather than low-level traffickers and users. ...

Hang Puthea, the presumptive “neutral” candidate on the new National Election Committee (NEC), said Wednesday that he would accept the nomination in order to pursue electoral reforms that the CPP and CNRP have failed to achieve. ...

The World Bank’s private sector arm may be doing more harm than good when it invests in private equity firms, banks and other financial intermediaries, global development group Oxfam said in a report on Wednesday. In one project indirectly sponsored by the bank’s International Finance Corporation ...

Cambodia has made some progress in improving its education system in line with its 2015 UN Millennium Goals, but dropout rates remain high, due to endemic poverty and corruption. Universal literacy and 9th-grade education were the second-highest goal in the development plan, whose progress Cambodia will ...

The Education Ministry will conduct random and unannounced inspections of schools across the country, targeting “low-hanging fruit” in its ongoing bid to clean up the education system, the minister said Tuesday. ...

Despite a 72 percent increase in the number of drug-related arrests last year compared to 2013, 50 percent less drugs were seized during the same period, an official from the National Authority for Combating Drugs’ (NACD) said Tuesday. ...

Female members of the National Assembly sat down with a representative of the UK Parliament yesterday to discuss female participation in politics, on the final day of a consultative meeting hosted by the British Embassy. ...

The Cambodian Independent Teachers Association (CITA) demanded in a letter sent on Monday to the Ministry of Education that all Cambodian secondary schools be paid their full yearly program budget after complaints were lodged by some teachers that the funds had not yet been received. ...

Police in Mondolkiri province on Tuesday burned down more than 130 shelters belonging to a community of ethnic Bunong families in Keo Seima district that authorities accuse of squatting on a Vietnam­ese rubber plantation, a local official said. ...

Marking the sixth annual International Transgender Day of Visibility yesterday, the Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR) called on the government to protect transgender people and end discrimination. ...