Social development

Cambodia has been cited as one of 10 countries in which torture and extrajudicial killings are common, in a submission made this week by the Hong Kong-based Asia Legal Resource Center to the Human Rights Council in Geneva. ...

Twenty-three labor activists are free from jail, but Freedom Park remains closed to the public. The park is a government-sanctioned place of protest, but it was closed after opposition demonstrations there in April. Phnom Penh spokesman Long Dimanche said there is “no threat” of protests ...

Cambodia on Friday reported 71 landmine casualties in the first four months of 2014, an increase of 61 percent from 44 casualties for the same period last year. The report by the Cambodian Mine Action and Victim Assistance Authority showed that during the January-April period, 10 ...

Deputy opposition leader Kem Sokha has drawn the ire of the government and civil society groups after on Wednesday accusing Vietnam of orchestrating the Koh Pich bridge stampede that killed more than 350 people in 2010 as part of a plot to “eliminate the Khmer ...

Twelve families locked in a land dispute in Kampot province blocked a construction company on Wednesday from dumping earth onto fields they maintain are theirs, villagers and a rights worker said Thursday. The villagers say the company began encroaching on their land in 2011, when they ...

Hundreds of families from Kratie province’s Snuol district who were promised new plots of land after a Vietnamese rubber firm evicted them last month have complained that provincial officials are allowing hundreds of interlopers to stake a claim instead. The 405 families were evicted from the ...

A new payment system for retired soldiers in Oddar Meanchey province has resulted in late payments for nearly 50 retirees. Government officials recently opened Acleda Bank accounts for retired soldiers, who used to pick up pension payments at the provincial social affairs department, said Mok Vanvuthy, ...

Cambodian human rights organizations say they have major concerns over a deal with Australia that could send unwanted refugees to Cambodia. The Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee says Cambodia’s track record of human rights abuse and corruption make people “living on the margins” vulnerable to abuse. Australia ...

Some 400 students, monks and activists were stopped from a peaceful march for Environmental Day on Thursday, as they sought to deliver petitions to the Ministry of Environment and other institutions calling for an end to deforestation. Cambodia’s forests provide many services to the rural poor, ...

Opposition leaders brought politics to the forefront of a ceremony to mark yesterday’s anniversary of France’s official transfer of the former Kampuchea Krom provinces to Vietnam in 1949. Speaking to a crowd of hundreds of monks, Khmer Krom and Khmer attendees at Samaki Rainsey pagoda in ...

A youth group plans to march in support of World Environment Day today, despite being told not to by municipal authorities. ...

Despite sustained levels of high economic growth, most people in Cambodia are still eating rice at every meal, with little meat, fish or vegetables, meaning undernutrition will remain high and stunting common among children if the government does not scale up targeted health programs, a ...

At the beginning of the school year, Mony Vutha was handed a new, mandatory addition to the grade four curriculum that neither he nor any of his colleagues were trained to teach: English. Vutha’s two years of English lessons more than a decade ago made him ...

Authorities in Mondulkiri decided to switch a swearing-in ceremony for two newly elected Keo Seima district councillors to a commune hall after the opposition objected to it being held at the home of the district’s pro-ruling party governor, officials said. Khum Kan said he and a ...

The NGO Results International has been studying nutrition in Cambodia, and found that despite Cambodia’s good economic growth, 40 per cent of children under five there, have stunted growth. Cambodia may produce plenty of food, but its people are not eating a balanced diet. ...

Laos will push ahead with its ambition to become the “battery of Southeast Asia,” planning a Mekong River dam that has drawn opposition from neighbors and threatens to involve China and the U.S. Four Mekong River nations are scheduled to meet June 26-27 in Thailand to ...

Before he was arrested in January, Vorn Pov and the union he created were not widely known outside of activist circles. But when he emerged from Phnom Penh’s CC1 prison on Friday, he walked away as one of the highest-profile unionists in the country, and a ...

Being placed on consecutive short-term contracts in Cambodia’s predominantly female-staffed garment sector is forcing many women to choose between a family and a factory job, unionists and rights groups said yesterday. Ken Chenglang, acting president of the National Independent Federation Textile Union of Cambodia, said many ...

The literacy NGO Sipar is set to expand its fleet of mobile libraries and place a new focus on teaching the country’s youth about road safety as part of its partnership with global gas giant Total. A “Safety” library—the 10th in Sipar’s fleet—will join nine other ...

A journalist has filed a complaint with the Pursat provincial court alleging that a soldier threatened to kill him on Sunday after he wrote a series of damning articles linking the soldier to illegal rosewood trafficking, court officials confirmed Tuesday. Both the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces ...

With authorities in Kratie province beginning to hand out plots of land on a social concession to 301 families involved in a high-profile dispute resolved last week, villagers at the center of the dispute said Tuesday that opportunists are joining the queue. Since Sunday, authorities have ...

When Pang Vunny walks around his rented room just off of Veng Sreng Boulevard, he waves his hand from side to side in front of him, like a man feeling his way in the dark. Ever since he was arrested and badly beaten on January 2 ...

A private utilities company owned by wealthy businessman and ruling Cambodian People’s Party Senator Kok An is fulfilling only about half of Poipet’s demand for clean water, despite being contracted to supply the whole town, according to the city governor. With priority for the distribution of ...

More than 600 workers have fainted on factory floors so far this year, compared with about 800 such incidents over the whole of 2013, a Labour Ministry official said yesterday. Pok Vanthat, deputy director of the ministry’s labour health department and head of a committee that ...