Social development

Two Cambodian women escaped Thailand on Friday a week after being trafficked across the border and sold into sex slavery in a Thai karaoke parlour, according to the rights group Adhoc and Anti-Human Trafficking and Juvenile Protection officials. Tan Kimrany, an officer for Adhoc’s Women’s Rights ...

A lawyer representing the three victims of the Feb. 20 shooting of workers at a special economic zone (SEZ) in Svay Rieng province has written to investigators asking to be allowed to participate in the case. Chin Lyda, a lawyer for human rights group Licadho who is representing the three ...

Sixteen ethnic minority families in Ratanakkiri province have claimed that they are being forced from their land after a commune chief signed it away, and that commune borders have been redrawn to dispossess them. On Friday, the families, who have been living on 30 hectares of ...

The Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria is withholding nearly $20 million originally granted to fight malaria in Cambodia because of the government’s poor use of past Fund dollars. The government blames its poor showing on the Fund’s time-consuming procurement procedures. The Fund awarded the ...

Four Boeung Kak women convicted to two-and-a-half years in Prey Sar prison went on a hunger strike yesterday as their husbands and children led a 200-strong rally outside, the husband of imprisoned village representative Tep Vanny told the Post. ...

Boeng Kak protesters continued their fight for the release of 14 women and one man imprisoned since May 24, delivering a petition to the Senate and the Japanese Embassy on Friday that they hope will spur new intervention in the long-running land dispute. More than 100 ...

The Kratie Provincial Court has released on bail five of the eight people charged after a military-style operation by security forces on a small village alleged to be the home of a secessionist movement, a court official said yesterday. On May 16, a 14-year-old girl was ...

Thirteen Boeung Kak women locked in Prey Sar prison after a three-hour trial on May 24 are threatening to go on a hunger strike in protest, an opposition Sam Rainsy lawmaker said yesterday. A team of SRP MPs, including Mu Sochua, was granted access to the ...

The Phnom Penh municipality defended itself for the first time this weekend against sustained criticism from rights groups over the jailing of 13 female protesters from Boeng Kak, blaming the backlash on the “insanity” of unnamed foreign provocateurs. SRP lawmakers, meanwhile, met with the women in ...

Members of the opposition SRP on Saturday sent a petition to King Norodom Sihamoni asking him to pardon the 13 Boeng Kak residents who were sentenced to two-and-a-half years in jail on May 24 after holding a peaceful protest against CPP senator Lao Meng Khin’s ...

Samdech Prime Minister Hun Sen appealed to the world to harmonize energy prices to food prices as food production shouldn’t outstrip the consumption of volatile fuels while food price remains stable, at the 4th workshop on food security and nutrition. Calling it “The Phnom Penh Initiative,” Prime Minister Hun Sen requested that the issue be ...

Relatives and neighbors sang, cried and pleaded outside the Ministry of Justice yesterday for the release of the 14 women and one man arrested last week for protesting against CPP Senator Lao Meng Khin’s controversial Boeng Kak real estate project. Worried by reports that the World ...

Freedom House and several other international human rights groups condemned the conviction of 13 Phnom Penh women last week who are locked in a land dispute with CPP Senator Lao Meng Khin and called for their release in a joint statement issued Tuesday. The women were arrested ...

Borei Keila evictees will have a chance to revisit the area they were forcibly evicted from this Sunday when authorities truck them back from the makeshift tents of their relocation site for a special purpose – to vote. Touch Khorn, a representative of the Borei Keila ...

With Sunday’s commune elections quickly approaching, the five main political parties are all predicting substantial gains over how they faired in the last election in 2007, though none deny that the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP) will continue to dominate the polls. And with the entrance ...

Ninety-one NGOs put their names to a statement yesterday condemning the government’s escalating use of armed force against peaceful protesters and urged the authorities to engage with them to “break the current cycle of violence and impunity.” Joined by local human rights groups such as Adhoc ...

Violent land evictions, unlawful prison sentences, shooting deaths and crackdowns on peaceful protests are all on a list of allegations a human rights group is voicing concerns about this week. The Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee condemned the incidents in a statement released on Tuesday, calling ...

Imprisoned Boeung Kak lake villagers, some crying, motioned to human rights representatives and Post reporters through a chain-link fence at Prey Sar prison on Tuesday. Their efforts to talk to the visitors were futile, however, as two guards stopped anyone from approaching the 13 women sentenced ...

About 200 people, including activist monk Loun Savath, rallied outside the National Assembly in Phnom Penh yesterday in support of the 13 Boeung Kak women sentenced to prison in a three-hour trial last Thursday. Supporters of the women, including villagers, unions and human rights groups, called ...

About 100 residents from Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak community rallied in front of the National Assembly yesterday to demand the release of 13 women sentenced to jail last week and two others now in pretrial detention for opposing evictions resulting from a real estate project ...

Cambodia on May 21 officially started to trade life insurance for first time in history with hope of supplementing social security and growth of insurance development in the kingdom. At the inauguration ceremony at 21st floor of Canadia Tower in Phnom Penh, His Excellency, Aun Porn Moniroth, secretary of state of finance ministry said: “it ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court has accused the well-known monk and human rights advocate Loun Sovath of incitement for unspecified actions committed in Cambodia and abroad, according to court documents obtained Friday. The court documents, signed by Investigating Judge Duch Kim on Feb. 14, were sent ...

Senor members of the monastic community yesterday detained Buddhist monk Loun Savath, an award-winning human rights activist, after he took photos of protesting Boeung Kak lake villagers outside Phnom Penh municipal court. Monks, police and unidentified men in plain clothes violently forced Loun Savath into a ...

Thirteen women protesters from Boeung Kak lake were yesterday sentenced to two and a half years in prison after a three-hour trial that was widely condemned as illegal – and which prompted SRP lawmaker Mu Sochua to urge the international community to suspend aid to ...