Social development

Australia’s pact to allow some refugees to be transferred to Cambodia sets a troubling precedent for international practices on handling asylum seekers, according to the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. The deal, signed yesterday in Phnom Penh, applies to an initial 200 refugees detained by Australia ...

Negotiations held on Friday between garment factory owners, union leaders and government officials failed to set a new industry minimum wage for next year, but a final decision will be reached by October 10, according to Labor Minister Ith Sam Heng. The tripartite Labor Advisory Council ...

Cambodia may be on the verge of a new era in human rights protection, an independent United Nations human rights expert declared today, adding that while the political momentum in the country was headed in a “positive direction,” a strong human rights infrastructure was still ...

The Cambodian Interior ministry is carrying out a census to identify how many foreigners – legal and illegal – are living in the country. ...

Fashion brands, including Europe’s biggest clothing retailer Inditex SA (ITX) and Hennes & Mauritz AB (HMB), said they are willing to pay more for clothes made in Cambodia, backing a trade union campaign for higher wages. The chains are among eight clothing retailers that include Next Plc (NXT) and Primark that have ...

Transparency International Cambodia yesterday presented findings of a recent scathing report on corruption to the newly formed parliamentary anti-corruption commission. ...

About 300 workers, including taxi drivers and market vendors, protested in front of the Poipet International Border Checkpoint on Thursday to voice their anger at authorities on both sides of the Thai-Cambodian border. ...

National Assembly President Heng Samrin has given himself the power to deny access to the assembly compound, including the offices of all lawmakers, to anyone not employed by the government and has barred all private citizens from testifying before—or sitting in on—assembly commission meetings. In ...

Child rights groups Action Pour Les Enfants and International Justice Mission have said they carried out a “detailed and impartial” investigation into claims of sexual abuse before removing six young boys from their families against their parents’ wishes last week.  In a statement defending their work ...

Municipal officials on Tuesday announced a new initiative to help rehabilitate Phnom Penh’s drug addicts by offering discreet treatment services at local health centers. The initiative will encourage commune-level officials to visit known drug addicts in their community and tell them about the treatment options available at ...

About 200 ethnic Phnong villagers gathered in Mondulkiri province’s Bousraa commune yesterday to protest against several companies that hold economic land concessions in the area, which they say are destroying their traditional livelihoods. The villagers from Pech Chreada district accused the Kau Su Dak Lak Company ...

The head of the National Assembly’s top human rights commission has warned Banteay Meanchey’s provincial governor to settle a land dispute involving 230 disabled soldiers’ families from the province’s Malai district, saying he will be sacked if the matter is not settled within three months. After ...

The last of 16 shacks that once clung to the edge of a mammoth development project in Phnom Penh’s Chroy Changva district were demolished by the Overseas Cambodia Investment Corporation (OCIC) on Monday. Seven families in Doeum Kor 2 village—where marshlands are quickly being pumped full ...

Some 3,000 workers protested in front of a garment factory in Prey Veng province Monday, calling for larger bonuses and better working conditions, according to unionists and factory representatives. Employees of the Chinese-owned Komchay Mear Trading factory, which produces clothing for U.S. brand Gap, have been ...

Six Cambodian women trafficked to China to become brides and seven Cambodian victims of labor exploitation in Saudi Arabia will be repatriated by the end of the month, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced Monday. ...

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees has distanced itself from Australia’s still unsigned deal to transfer refugees from the Nauru refugee detention center for resettlement in Cambodia, one of Southeast Asia’s poorest nations. First raised in February, the cash-for-refugees deal is believed to be imminent. ...

Authorities in western Cambodia have detained 11 activists after they tried to stop further studies for a planned Chinese-built dam. About 30 local villagers and environmental activists in the Areng Valley went to the area Monday to protect barricades they had erected earlier this year to ...

The National Assembly’s Human Rights Committee has laid out its plan to mediate negations to settle a more than decade-long land dispute between villagers and a powerful development company in Kompong Chhnang province’s Lor Peang village. The bipartisan committee announced early this month that it would ...

The Chinese government provided 200 sets of ambulances to​ the Cambodian Ministry of Health on Friday to contribute to the development of health sector. Chinese Ambassador to Cambodia Bu Jianguo signed to deliver the ambulances to​ Cambodian Minister of Health Mam Bunheng. ...

Minority villagers from Ratanakkiri’s O’Chum district climbed up a mountain to a community forest yesterday morning to challenge a company they claim is illegally felling their trees. ...

Following the detention this week of homeless children as young as 1 year old at Phnom Penh’s notorious Prey Speu vocational training centre, UNICEF yesterday called for an end to street sweeps and arbitrary detentions. Three people rounded up on Sunday said in separate accounts this ...

Cambodians staged a protest Thursday to share the concerns of more than a quarter of a million people who are calling on Laos to suspend construction of the Don Sahong hydropower project on the Mekong River. At the protest Chhith Sam Ath, country director of the ...

Vietnam foreign ministry spokesperson on Thursday requests the Cambodian administration to “take effective measures to stop those wrongful actions of protesters, which are not in line with the traditional friendship and sound relationship between Vietnam and Cambodia.”​ ...

Teachers will receive their base salaries and additional benefits in a single package starting later this month, in an effort to simplify the payment process and avoid confusion, Education Minister Hang Chuon Naron said Wednesday. Health, risk and rural bonuses will all be folded into teachers’ ...