Social development

Cambodia has some 3,000 registered non-profit groups. Some work on highly sensitive issues such as violence against women and human trafficking. But there are few Cambodians formally trained for such work. That is now changing with the country’s first university-level degree program for social workers. When ...

As hundreds of riot police conducted protest suppression drills in Phnom Penh’s Freedom Park on Monday morning, Prime Minister Hun Sen’s mansion in the center of the city was the focal point of a demonstration by some 2,000 garment factory workers. Municipal police, along with 16 ...

Forestry Administration officials on Friday confiscated 1,000 pieces of luxury wood on land belonging to a Vietnamese rubber company that has been repeatedly accused of illegal logging in Ratanakkiri province’s O’Yadaw district, local officials and human rights workers said Sunday. Romash Svat, a representative of some ...

Cambodia recorded 29,631 malaria cases in the first nine months of 2013, down 46 percent from the 54,464 cases over the same period last year, the figures of the National Center for Malaria showed Monday. During the January-September period this year, the disease killed only 7 ...

The Ratanakkiri Provincial Court has dismissed two complaints submitted by two local human rights groups, Adhoc and the Cambodian Center for Human Rights (CCHR), against local officials who they alleged had de­famed and intimidated their staff, court officials said Friday. Adhoc filed a complaint against Pheng ...

Cambodia’s largest-ever immunisation program will launch today with the introduction of a new vaccine against rubella and measles, World Health Organization officials said yesterday. The Ministry of Health aims to inoculate more than four million children between the ages of nine months and 15 years before ...

A Cambodian trade unions leader on Saturday called on garment workers not to participate in the opposition party-planned mass demonstration next week against the results of July’s election that handed victory to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s ruling party. “I would like to appeal to all workers ...

The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) office in Cambodia said Sunday that a new figure showed that about 2,000 Cambodian children die every year of diarrheal diseases due to lack of safe water, sanitation and basic hygiene. “In Cambodia, perhaps 2,000 die of diarrhea each year. ...

More than a dozen journalism and hu­man rights groups have called on Cambodia’s political forces to protect journalists and guarantee citizens’ access to an open and unobstructed press during the current political unrest. In a statement released Wednesday, the Cambodian Center for Independent Media, along with ...

There were ugly scenes on Friday at Phnom Penh’s hill-temple Wat Phnom when district security guards scuffled, shouted abuse and punched a group of mostly women and monks who had gathered to hold a memorial ceremony for Mao Sok Chan—the 29-year-old man shot dead by ...

Kneeling outside a motodop and car battery store on Monivong Boulevard in the capital, a 15-year-old boy spends his days piping acid into batteries with his bare hands. His employer says she has no idea that Cambodia, as well as having an Acid Control Law – ...

Yet another clash between protesters and police resulted in at least three women being knocked unconscious in the capital yesterday. A Post reporter saw police punch and use batons to quell protesters after a group of about 250 people, including many from the Borei Keila community ...

In one corner of the cavernous training centre, a woman patiently strips the baby blue sheets off a queen-size bed, removing the flower-patterned pillowcases and folding them neatly to one side. Under the watchful eye of an instructor, she then remakes the bed, carefully fluffing the ...

At around 6 p.m. in Phnom Penh each evening, about 5,000 large brown bats, having spent the day dangling upside down from a tree at Wat Phnom, spread their huge wings and fly out to begin their nightly search for fruit. And as useful and ...

More than a dozen journalism and hu­man rights groups have called on Cambodia’s political forces to protect journalists and guarantee citizens’ access to an open and unobstructed press during the current political unrest. In a statement released Wednesday, the Cambodian Center for Independent Media, along with ...

Accelerating the mapping and titling of rural farmland should be an “urgent” priority of the government and civil society, particularly when it comes to protecting indigenous peoples’ and women’s rights, Oxfam representatives said yesterday. The remarks followed the release of an EU-funded survey of rural communities’ ...

Cambodia has reached its millennium development goal of re­ducing by half the number of people who suffer from hunger, but more needs to be done to make sure that the population now re­ceives the right nutrients, officials said on World Food Day Wednesday. Making the announcement ...

Two years out from the 2015 Millennium Development Goals’ target of universal access to education, Cambodia remains plagued by school infrastructure shortages, with a scarcity of classrooms and decrepit facilities that threaten students’ safety, NGOs and teachers say. At Slorkram Primary School in Battambang, teachers ...

Cambodia appears unlikely to meet its target of becoming a high middle-income nation by 2030 and years of gains it has made reducing poverty could be erased by even a modest shock to the economy, according to the latest World Bank data. World Bank senior country ...

Riun Pau ran out of food last week. For the 13-year-old and her family, that moment was the culmination of weeks of distress caused by flooding that had already ravaged their Battambang home and farmland. Pau’s neighbours are experiencing similar problems. In Battambang, 67.3 per cent ...

Eight-year-old Sokun* spent almost the first seven years of his life in prison. Unlike other Cambodian children who have the freedom to play and run free, countless hours of his early life were spent in a hot, squalid and teeming cell in the prison where his ...

As flood victims surge to the capital to receive medical treatment, doctors at Phnom Penh’s Kantha Bopha Children’s Hospital say they’ve never seen such overcrowding. Parents holding their sick children and infants line the perimeter of the complex, spending up to seven hours crouched on hot ...

The ruling Cambodian People’s Party has reiterated its commitment to carry out electoral reforms ahead of the 2017 poll in an apparent bid to appease key demands of the opposition, civil society and the international community following July’s disputed election. With rare frankness, the party says ...

More than 300 youth from around Cambodia plan to rally on Friday to demand justice for the man killed during the opposition party’s three-day demonstration last month. Participants from a variety of universities, high schools, youth clubs, civil societies and other groups will march from Wat ...