Social development

The government on Friday finalized guidelines aimed at reducing the number of children who work in the fisheries sector and do not attend school, the Min­istry of Agriculture and Fisheries and the NGO World Vision said in a statement. World Vision said the guidelines, which it ...

The 8th EU-Cambodia Joint Committee was held in Brussels on Thursday, preceded by the subgroups on development cooperation, on trade and on institution building, administrative reform, legal and judicial reform, governance and human rights, the European bloc said in a press release. The two sides ...

Two unions that called for a stay-at-home strike by garment factory employees Wednesday had little success in mobilizing workers after six other unions, under pressure from the government and factory owners, pulled out of the planned industrial action on Tuesday. Union leaders who pushed ahead with ...

Freedom Park will remain off limits indefinitely for protesters, authorities said yesterday, despite Prime Minister Hun Sen suggesting last month that a ban on public assembly was being lifted. Pich Saroeun, chief of Russey Keo district’s Chroy Changva commune, said Phnom Penh Governor Pa Socheatvong had ...

Nearly a million hectares of land has been granted to ordinary Cambodian citizens through social land concessions (SLC) since May 2012, the government has claimed, though civil society groups have cast doubt on that high figure and questioned how many landless or evicted poor have ...

Officials from the ruling CPP said Wednesday that a series of public forums announced by Prime Minister Hun Sen earlier this year, which he said would help gather input for his promised plans to introduce widespread political reform, are now being held around the country. The ...

Villagers in Pursat province’s Veal Veng district, locked in an ongoing land dispute with local tycoon Try Pheap’s MDS Import Export Co Ltd, claimed yesterday that security forces and environmental officers opened fire and tried to burn down their houses and plantations on Tuesday after ...

Cambodia’s porous borders are creating one of several headaches for health officials working to minimise outbreaks of avian influenza, officials revealed yesterday at a symposium on emerging infectious diseases in Southeast Asia. The border provinces of Takeo and Kampong Cham have been witness to the highest ...

About 100 indigenous villagers from Ratanakkiri’s Veun Sai district took the opportunity at a public forum yesterday to demand a solution from the district governor, Chum Ngel, over a land dispute they are locked in with SK Plantation, after protesting several times without getting a ...

A draft trade union law that the government has pledged to introduce by the end of the year includes provisions that will allow for unions to be suspended if their activities are deemed illegal, the head of Cambodia’s largest employers association said Wednesday. Van Sou Ieng, ...

About 50 Borei Keila and Boeung Kok residents held a protest on Wednesday in front of Phnom Penh City Hall, asking it to speed up land solution. The protesters held banners showing picture of developer Shukaku Inc pumping sand to fill up the Boeung Kok, ...

Labor unions and associations have suspended their strike plan scheduled for March 12 following the request by garment workers, according to a union leader. The suspension came after the meeting between the union leaders from a coalition of 18 labor unions and associations today. The unionists ...

Corruption remains the most significant challenge facing Cambodia’s economy, according to a survey of more than 300 employers conducted last year by the International Labor Organization (ILO), the results of which were released Tuesday. Despite legislation meant to stamp out graft, corruption continues to be perceived ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen advised the country’s newest crop of teachers not to feel down about their poor salaries, recalling that were they embarking on their careers in the aftermath of the Khmer Rouge regime their pay would be a few bags of rice each ...

Phnom Penh Municipal Court has reopened an investigation into the high-profile slaying of union leader Chea Vichea in 2004, a court official said yesterday. Prosecutor Sok Roeun said the court’s head prosecutor began reinvestigating the case early last month in response to an order from the ...

More than 100 representatives of Mekong River Commission (MRC) member countries, development partners, international NGOs, and Lao and foreign media yesterday visited the site of the planned Don Sahong hydropower project. The two-day site visit provided an opportunity for participants to learn from experts how fish ...

Cambodia’s garment sector has the highest rate of unionization of any industry in Asia, Cambodia Federation of Employers and Business Associations Van Sou Leng said Tuesday. “Major efforts are needed to improve the quality of workplace relations,” Van said in a statement posted on the Camfeba ...

Some 200 ethnic Kuoy minority villagers in Preah Vihear’s Chheb district blocked tractors belonging to a Chinese company from bulldozing their rice crops yesterday, the same day that district authorities received a letter from the Interior Ministry instructing them to broker an agreement between villagers ...

Cambodia may soon have new standardised exams to hold its students, teachers and education system accountable. “Everyone agrees that the improved enrolment rates in primary school is an accomplishment; at the same time, everyone also calls for quality-control improvement [which] means better testing,” said Jan ...

France’s Institut Pasteur du Cambodge on Tuesday inaugurated a new facility here for a regional research platform in Asia, focusing its research on infectious diseases in the region. Cambodian Health Minister Mam Bunheng, Vincent Deubel, director of the Institut Pasteur du Cambodge, and French Nobel Prize ...

Two civil society organisations are calling on Prime Minister Hun Sen to publish three long-gestating draft laws on judicial reform to allow ample time for “genuine, inclusive and meaningful participation in the drafting process”. Hun Sen said in a speech last Wednesday that the three laws ...

Thirteen families in Phnom Penh’s O’andoung village, who have been locked in a long-running dispute with tycoon Sok Kong’s Sokimex company, say their land is being flooded with sand as they wait for a response to a complaint filed with Prime Minister Hun Sen earlier ...

Journalists need to be more professional in their reporting, which is the best way to protect themselves, a media educator says. “Like any other profession, journalism can be risky, but if journalists follow their professional codes of conduct and ethics and work with responsibility, there should ...

Hundreds of trucks hauling sugarcane queue up along the dusty roads that cut a path through a plantation in Kampong Speu province. Their destination: Cambodia’s most advanced sugar refinery. Its owners say the landmark project, run by the Phnom Penh Sugar Company and its president, ruling ...