Social development

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 Om Chandara, a spokesman for the council, told VOA Khmer that two articles were withdrawn at the behest of Prime ...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

Two more people have tested positive for HIV in Battambang province’s Roka commune this month, bringing the total number infected to 272 since an outbreak of the virus was first detected in December, a health official said Wednesday. ...

A recently released study on hygiene in Cambodia has found that a lack of understanding of the dangers of handling child faeces is causing serious health problems. ...

Police in Svay Rieng province said Wednesday that they had yet to identify any suspects in the armed robbery of a mobile-payment kiosk and currency exchange business in Romeas Hek district that left one man dead. ...

A new report suggests counterfeit anti-malarial drugs are far less prevalent in Cambodia than previously thought, but almost a third of the legitimate medicines are of substandard quality. According to the study, published on Monday by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, none of ...