Social development

Despite progress having been made in recent years to improve girls’ access to education, there is still a gender-based inequality, particularly in rural areas, children’s rights experts said on the International Day of the Girl Child on Friday. “At the moment there is still a slight ...

The Prey Lang Community Network of anti-logging activists announced yesterday that late last month it had accepted the Alexander Soros Foundation’s $25,000 Award for Extraordinary Achievement in Environmental and Human Rights Activism on behalf of slain environmental crusader Chut Wutty. ...

Dengue-related deaths have dropped 71 per cent during the first nine months of this year when compared to the same period last year, according to officials at the National Center for Parasitology, Entomology and Malaria Control. While 157 died because of dengue in 2012, only 45 ...

Protesters, including a band of angry monks, clashed with military and riot police on Thursday in Phnom Penh as authorities tried to prevent a local housing rights group from carrying out a rally against forced evictions. Housing Rights Task Force (HRTF), a coalition of five local ...

Opposition leader Sam Rainsy has asked the Asian Development Bank to suspend funding to Cambodia, whose government he says was not formed legally following the July elections. In a letter to ADB President Takehiko Nakao, Sam Rainsy, president of the Cambodia National Rescue Party, said the ...

Phnom Penh City Hall has turned down two requests by non-governmental groups to hold rallies and marches to mark both International Teachers’ Day and the international day for housing rights. Housing Rights Task Force (HRTF), a local NGO, was denied permission to organize a rally at ...

Women’s Affairs Minister Ing Kantha Phavi on Tuesday defended the government’s policies on promoting gender equality and preventing discrimination against women, but conceded that challenges remain in achieving principles set out in the U.N.’s convention to stop discrimination against women. Speaking in Geneva to the U.N. ...

A new set of prakases tacked onto a law that regulates overseas employment recruitment agencies is a “step in the right direction” towards protecting some of Cambodia’s most vulnerable citizens from scams and abuse, local and international NGOs said yesterday. But some remain unconvinced that the ...

Flooding continues to ravage 15 of Cambodia’s 23 provinces, acutely affecting Banteay Meanchey, Battambang, Pailin and Siem Reap, and claiming 83 lives, according to the latest figures released by the National Committee for Disaster Management. Nhim Vanda, first deputy chairman of the NCDM, confirmed that while ...

Four representatives of villagers locked in a land dispute with the well-connected KDC company have filed a complaint with the Kompong Chhnang Provincial Court after they received death threats. “The anonymous letter was a threat against our lives,” said Reach Seima, one of the representatives, adding ...

Minister of Interior Sar Kheng sent a letter to the National Police last week asking it to step up its search for Chhouk Bandith, the former Bavet town governor convicted of shooting three garment workers at a factory protest last year. Interior Ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak ...

Anti-logging activists wrote to the United Nations yesterday to call for the monitoring of a lawsuit in which they accuse hundreds of officials in Kampong Speu province’s Phnom Oral Wildlife Sanctuary of illegal deforestation. The Natural Resource and Wildlife Preservation Organization (NRWPO) listed 241 officials it ...

On the morning of September 23, anti-eviction champion Tep Vanny was grappling with a legion of security guards blocking the entrance of the Daun Penh district offices while fellow protesters dismantled a razor-wire barricade nearby. The next day, she was on a plane to Washington ...

Prisons in Banteay Meanchey and Battambang province have been seriously affected by flooding but have not yet been evacuated, according to local rights groups and prison officials. A clogged sewage system has plagued Battambang’s provincial prison, according to Bun Sorn, but extra pumps have alleviated ...

The United States has pledged 20 million U.S. dollars over the next three years to the United Nations World Food Program (WFP) to carry out school feeding program in Cambodia, said a WFP press release on Tuesday. The statement said the donation, made by the U.S. ...

Rights groups on Monday shared their concerns about the treatment of women in Cambodia with member states of the U.N. Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) in Geneva. Cambodia last updated the committee—which meets three times a year to assess how member states ...

Amidst an opposition boycott of the National Assembly, CNRP leaders on Sunday announced to about 10,000 supporters gathered in Phnom Penh their tentative plans to push the one-party CPP government to investigate irregularities in the July election and enact a broad slate of reforms. As patchy ...

The World Bank said Monday that the impact of Cambodia’s political uncertainty was “unclear” but left its growth forecasts unchanged for this year and next year.  “The Cambodian economy remains robust amidst a challenging global economic environment,” the bank said in its East Asia and Pacific ...

A move by the International Labour Organization to name and shame garment producers in Cambodia that flout workers’ rights and safety standards could damage the industry’s reputation and result in a drastic reduction in orders from buyers abroad, according to a senior manufacturing official. Last week, ...

The death toll from flooding across the country has risen to 39, while the Mekong River remains above emergency levels in Prey Veng and Kandal provinces, a government official said on Friday. Keo Vy, cabinet chief for the government’s National Committee for Disaster Management, said that ...

Laos has notified the Mekong River Commission (MRC) that it will go ahead with the construction of the Don Sahong Dam, which environmentalists say could threaten the ecosystem of the Lower Mainstream Mekong and have a severe impact on the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands ...

Some prayed for their businesses to prosper and for the CPP and CNRP to reconcile, others for peace and development. These and other wishes were made at pagodas across Phnom Penh and the rest of the country on Thursday, as the Pchum Ben festival got ...

Phnom Penh’s National Blood Transfusion Center (NBTC) has dropped to its lowest level of the year, with only 10 units in stock and doctors relying heavily on patients’ family members and friends to donate in emergency situations, health officials said Thursday. NBTC Director Dr. Hok Kim ...

Officials, business professionals and political analysts have mixed opinions on the leadership of the single-party Cambodian government and what the future hold for the next five years. Sok Touch, a professor of political science at Khemarak University, said the political deadlock won’t help the nation become ...