Social development

Seventy-four former Khmer Rouge soldiers fighting for land they claim the government granted them in the 1990s have agreed to meet with the military commanders who allegedly sold the parcels for personal profit. The meeting, scheduled for Tuesday, follows a week after a pair representatives for ...

Trade unions may have failed to get a stay-at-home strike for higher wages off the ground after the Khmer New Year earlier this month. But a strike for bonus pay is picking up steam in Svay Rieng Province, where some 20,000 garment workers protested at ...

More than 100 opposition supporters gathered in Phnom Penh yesterday morning for training in “defending freedom” ahead of a planned attempt to enter Freedom Park on Wednesday. Opposition lawmaker-elect Mu Sochua, who has been forcibly removed from the park a number of times this month, led ...

A former civil servant was sentenced on Friday to five years in prison by Kampong Cham Provincial Court for stealing the pensions of 10 retired teachers – a total of $500 – in March 2012. Mang Yusreng, former chief of the Social Affairs Office in Srei ...

Eighteen sacked drivers for the Phnom Penh Sorya Transportation company protested in front of the company’s offices Friday morning calling for their reinstatement and a raise. The drivers say they were fired in mid- and late-April for leading strikes—in which they walked off with the keys ...

The Garment Manufacturers Associations in Cambodia (GMAC) on Sunday urged the government to curb outlawed garment strikes that have occurred this week at Special Economic Zones in eastern Bavet City, which are expected to continue next week. “GMAC is disappointed that the government and local authorities ...

Ath Thorn, the president of the country’s largest independent labor union, said Friday that he has appealed court orders restricting his unionizing activity and is seeking support from international labor organizations as he faces charges of incitement. The Phnom Penh Municipal Court has ordered Mr. Thorn, ...

A would-be tripartite workshop intended to improve the garment sector’s minimum wage setting process closed Friday, with the industry’s most influential player, the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC), boycotting the talks at Phnom Penh Hotel. The two-day workshop would have been the first meeting between ...

A two-star general in the Royal Cambodian Armed Forces was arrested Friday on charges of defamation, police and prison officials said Friday. On Friday, police officers from the Interior Ministry’s penal department arrested Major General Chea Dara, who works at the Ministry of Defense, following a ...

Cambodia reported 10,000 malaria cases in the first three months of 2014, down 9 percent from about 11,000 cases over the same period last year, a health official said Thursday. ...

Phnom Penh City Hall has refused labor unions and associations to celebrate 128th International Labor Day (May 1) at Freedom Park. The decision was made during a meeting on Thursday between representatives of labor unions, association and Phnom Penh City Hall officials. ...

One the eve of the trial of 23 people arrested during a garment strike in January, their supporters yesterday expressed concern that politics, rather than the facts, may determine the verdict. Nearly four months after their arrests at protests on January 2 and 3 – the ...

Government officials and union representatives met behind closed doors Thursday to start hashing out a better way to set the minimum wage for the country’s all-important but troubled garment sector at a workshop brokered by the International Labor Organization (ILO). But what was supposed to be ...

Medical students who vowed on Sunday to boycott the first government-ordered national exams under claims of discrimination backtracked on their threats yesterday. Da Nhel, 27, a representative of the student doctors, said that just hours after threatening to boycott the exams, which were approved by the ...

Union leaders say they expect upwards of 1,000 people to jam the streets around Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Friday in a show of support for 23 unionists, workers and bystanders who are on trial for their alleged part in violent protests in Pur Senchey ...

The United Nations special rapporteur on freedom of assembly has called the Cambodian authorities’ continuous blockade of Freedom Park, the enforcement of which saw security guards attack journalists and supporters of opposition lawmaker-elect Mu Sochua on Monday, “deeply disturbing”. “The authorities have no legal basis for ...

Recent arrests by Thai authorities of groups of suspected Uighur refugees along the Cambodian border have experts convinced that Cambodia has once again become a transit hub for members of the minority group fleeing religious and political persecution in China. Last week, 14 Uighurs were reportedly ...

The long-awaited trial of the 23 men arrested during strike demonstrations in early January began this morning at 8 am at Phnom Penh Municipal Court and is proceeding into the afternoon. Before the trial began, police had already blocked off the street in front of the ...

Cambodia on Thursday commenced its annual campaign to fight against dengue fever as the rainy season is approaching. Approximately 700 health officials, health-related non- governmental organization representatives, teachers and students gathered here to launch the campaign. Speaking at the event, Health Minister Mam Bunheng appealed to all ...

Residents of property development site, Boeung Kok, on Thursday gathered in front of an office of World Bank in Phnom Penh in order to present petition to the World Bank. They were seeking intervention from the World Bank to help solve years-long land dispute in their ...

Garment factory owners failed to turn up for what was supposed to have been a tripartite meeting with the government and worker unions on Thursday to help break an impasse in negotiations to increase the minimum wage for workers, officials said. The International Labor Organization (ILO) ...

The genocides in Cambodia and Rwanda were both aided by local media and propaganda, and the role of foreign media covering them is often criticized as insufficient. In interviews with VOA Khmer, media experts said more funding of that sector could help prevent such errors ...

The appointment of General Sok Phal to head the Interior Ministry’s newly formed department to monitor migrant workers has raised concerns over his close familial connection to a labor recruitment industry fraught with human rights abuses. Gen. Phal’s sister, Ung Seang Rithy, is the owner of ...

Hand, foot and mouth disease ( HFMD), which is caused by enterovirus 71 (EV-71), has reappeared in Cambodia and recently killed a boy and sickened seven other children, a local Kampuchea Thmey Daily newspaper reported Wednesday.   Dr. Ly Sovann, chief of the Health Ministry’s Communicable Disease ...