Social development
Concern for children as migrants return to Thailand
In the wake of a mass exodus of Cambodian migrant workers from Thailand last month, World Vision says that an alarming number of children have found themselves lost and separated from their parents at the border. In a statement released Tuesday, the organization also said many ...
Lauren Crothers and Phorn Bopha
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/concern-for-children-as-migrants-begin-returning-to-thailand-63592/
Strike divides Cintri workers
While Phnom Penh’s garbage truck drivers returned to work yesterday following a brief strike, piles of refuse continued to mount in parts of the city, as trash collectors who had joined the drivers’ cause were continuing the strike alone as of 7pm. On Monday, drivers of ...
Pech Sotheary and Alice Cuddy
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/strike-divides-cintri-workers
Cambodia school director arrested for trafficking students
A Cambodian school director has been arrested for trafficking teenage students to have sex with foreign donors, police say. Waha Long, the 32-year-old founder of the Underprivileged Children School in the northwestern tourist hub of Siem Reap, could face up to five years in jail if ...
ABC Radio Australia News Staff
http://www.radioaustralia.net.au/international/2014-07-08/cambodia-school-director-arrested-for-trafficking-students/1340070
Ministry looks into Cambodia kidney scandal
The Thai Public Health Ministry is looking into a report published in The Cambodia Daily about a Cambodian woman allegedly running an organ-transplant racket in which she reportedly persuades people to sell their kidney to patients in Thailand. Dr Thares Karasnairaviwong, deputy director general of the ...
Suriyan Panyawai
http://www.nationmultimedia.com/national/Ministry-looks-into-Cambodia-kidney-scandal-30237985.html
Wealthy residents protest lake reclamation
About 30 residents of a planned community on the eastern outskirts of Phnom Penh gathered around the picturesque lake that forms the center of their neighborhood Monday to prevent its developer, a former opposition lawmaker, from reclaiming the land to construct condos. The residents, many of ...
Khuon Narim and Alex Willemyns
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/wealthy-residents-protest-lake-reclamation-63474/
Thais mandate migrant worker health checks
On the road to legal employment in Thailand, Cambodian migrant workers are being made to undergo check-ups that have them cough, strip and give blood and urine samples to prove they are physically and mentally sound enough to work in the country. Obtaining a workers’ permit, ...
Laignee Barron
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/thais-mandate-migrant-worker-health-checks
Cintri drivers strike for second time this year
Phnom Penh’s trash collectors have again gone on strike over salaries and conditions in a move that could see them stop clearing the city’s streets of garbage for an extended period for the second time this year. About 100 employees of the waste disposal firm Cintri ...
Ben Sokhean and Holly Robertson
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/cintri-drivers-strike-for-second-time-this-year-63462/
‘Abused’ maid awaits return
Woman who was taking part in a pilot scheme to place Cambodian maids in Singapore is waiting to be repatriated after being molested at her employers home and allegedly mistreated by a recruitment firm, she said yesterday. Nation’s managing director, Gary Chin, rejected those claims ...
Sen David and Kevin Ponniah
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/%E2%80%98abused%E2%80%99-maid-awaits-return
Tensions flare in minister’s wife’s land dispute
About 100 military and provincial police descended upon the rural village of Lor Peang on Monday morning, acting on what they said was a court order to arrest three villagers standing in the way of an agro-development project. More than 70 local residents involved in a ...
Kuch Naren
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/tensions-flare-in-ministers-wifes-land-dispute-63446/
Companies warned over slow development of ELCs
Provincial government officials in Stung Treng have warned companies granted economic land concessions (ELCs) in the province to fulfil their promised development plans or face losing their rights to the land. Touch Thea, director of the Stung Treng provincial department of agriculture, said the call for ...
Chan Muyhong
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/business/companies-warned-over-slow-development-elcs
Boeng Kak families ask ACU to probe Senator’s land sale
Residents of Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak neighborhood lodged a formal complaint with the Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) on Monday, asking it to investigate 12 current and former government officials and Senator Lao Meng Khin over the senator’s plans to sell land they say was stolen from ...
Mech Dara
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/boeng-kak-families-ask-acu-to-probe-senators-land-sale-63453/
Company ‘destroyed rice field’
Representatives of a Chinese firm embroiled in a land dispute in Preah Vihear province have destroyed a hectare of rice fields to drive a farmer away, villagers alleged yesterday. According to 45-year-old villager Tem Song, on June 28 six Cambodian and Chinese employees of Roy Feng ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/company-%E2%80%98destroyed-rice-field%E2%80%99
Working ‘mother’ kept child chained
A day after Prime Minister Hun Sen pointed out the need for more effective child protection in Cambodia, police in Koh Kong arrested and released a woman who admitted to chaining her 4-year-old “adopted daughter” inside their house eight hours a day for the past ...
Sen David
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/working-%E2%80%98mother%E2%80%99-kept-child-chained
Workers continue strike over change to pay day
About 1,000 workers from the Canteran factory in Phnom Penh’s Dangkao district continued to strike on Saturday over a decision to push back the day they are paid. The workers have been on strike since Thursday after being told they will be paid on the 10th ...
Mech Dara
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/workers-continue-strike-over-change-to-pay-day-63314/
Bus company to reject workers' win
The general manager of Phnom Penh Sorya Transportation bus company says he will likely reject a Friday ruling by the Arbitration Council ordering the reinstatement of 15 employees fired for trying to form a labour union. Sorya Transportation general manager Chan Sophanna yesterday said he had ...
Mom Kunthear
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/bus-company-reject-workers-win
Disability initiatives launched as jobs quota not met
For Cambodians with disabilities, the launch of two major initiatives in the past two days designed to improve their lives has brought some optimism about the future—tempered by a note of caution. At Koh Pich island on Thursday, in front of a crowd of more than ...
Holly Robertson
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/disability-initiatives-launched-as-jobs-quota-not-met-63276/
Land battle leads locals to protest
About 100 villagers in the capital’s Por Sen Chey district who allege two powerful families are trying to push them off their land protested yesterday after workers fenced off more than 3 hectares of the land they claim in Kouk Rokar commune. ...
Khouth Sophak Chakrya
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/land-battle-leads-locals-protest
Cities, provinces ordered to report on illegal logging, fishing
In yet another attempt to stem the looting of Cambodia’s forests, lakes and rivers, the Interior Ministry has given all cities and provinces until July 20 to submit detailed reports on all the illegal logging and fishing taking place in their jurisdictions. The latest initiative comes ...
Illegal Ratanakkiri gem mine raided
District and military police in Ratanakkiri raided an illegal gem mine inside a Chinese company’s land concession on Saturday but failed to make any arrests, according to a rights group representative. Chhay Thy, provincial coordinator for Adhoc, said about 200 illegal gem miners had settled on ...
Phak Seangly
http://www.phnompenhpost.com/national/illegal-ratanakkiri-gem-mine-raided
Chemicals in war-era barrels tested and confirmed as tear gas
The head of the Cambodian Mine Action Authority (CMAC) said Thursday that field testing of a pair of war-era barrels found by villagers in Mondolkiri province earlier this week identified the contents as CS, a tear gas-like powder or aerosol that was used by the ...
Zsombor Peter and Saing Soenthrith
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/chemicals-in-war-era-barrels-tested-and-confirmed-as-tear-gas-63226/
Cambodia sees 83 pct drop in dengue fever cases in first half
Cambodia has reported 1,005 dengue fever cases in the first six months of 2014, down 83 percent from 6,039 cases in the same period last year, a health official said Friday. Char Meng Chuor, director of the National Center for Parasitology, Entomology and Malaria Control, said ...
Xinhuanet News Staff
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/health/2014-07/04/c_133460228.htm
Maids forced into debt bondage in Singapore
In August last year, the government launched a pilot project that sent 220 women to work as maids in Singapore, the first major effort to open up a new market for Cambodia’s domestic workers after the government halted sending maids to Malaysia due to persistent ...
Matt Blomberg and Hul Reaksmey
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/maids-forced-into-debt-bondage-in-singapore-63194/
Man arrested, shots fired at land dispute protest
A villager was arrested and authorities fired shots Thursday in an attempt to quell a protest against the pending eviction in Preah Vihear province of more than 80 families at the hands of timber magnate Try Pheap, villagers said. Lor Chan, provincial coordinator for rights ...
Ben Sokhean
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/man-arrested-shots-fired-at-land-dispute-protest-63224/
ILO says shaming factories leading to improved standards
Naming and shaming factories that fail to ensure a basic standard of conditions for their workers is starting to improve standards in the crucial garment sector, according to the International Labor Organization (ILO), but persistent offenders remain. Nine factories are included in the “lowest compliance” category ...
Holly Robertson and Sun Heng
http://www.cambodiadaily.com/news/ilo-says-shaming-factories-leading-to-improved-standards-63202/