Social development

Kompong Thom provincial officials denied a media report yesterday that authorities had filed a legal complaint against two villagers and two human rights workers who campaigned in the province last week to demand protection for Prey Long forest ...

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) met yesterday with the representatives of families evicted or facing eviction to make way for an ADB-funded railway project, and defended itself against complaints that the project was pushing some of them deeper into poverty. The ADB has billed the $142 ...

A Ratanakkiri Provincial Court prosecutor yesterday summoned an ethnic minority Jarai man in O’Yadav district to explain to the court his allegations that local authorities had threatened to kill him for exposing a land-sale corruption racket. Romas Chhvang, 45, filed a complaint to the court at ...

After walking and camping in the jungle for more than a week, Tha Sros and hundreds of other villagers finally reached the winding red dirt road that lead to the rubber plantation of Vietnamese-owned CRCK company, which has cleared a vast 6,000-hectare swathe out of ...

Eight Cambodian suspected of illegally logging along the Thai-Cambodian border have been shot dead by Thai soldiers, and three others have been wounded in the month of October alone, human rights workers and officials said Friday. The latest figure brings the death toll so far this ...

Angered by the clearing of parts of Prey Long forest, several hundred indigenous minority villagers marched on a rubber plantation here in northern Kompong Thom province yesterday night and breached its gate in order to demand that the company stop cutting down trees in the ...

Military police in Ratanakiri province arrested an RCAF officer Monday evening for shooting a 20-year-old villager who was riding his motorcycle across land at the center of a long-running land dispute between ethnic minority villagers and rubber company DM Group, officials said yesterday. RCAF second lieutenant ...

For the several hundred villagers who have been camping and patrolling in a remote part of the jungle in northern Kompong Thom for several days as part of their campaign to save Prey Long forest, the strain is starting to show. Human rights workers say that ...

Labour legislation in Cambodia is so weak and so often ignored that half the Kingdom’s children between the ages of seven and 14 participate in the workforce, the world’s largest federation of unions has told the World Trade Organisation General Council in Geneva. Children, women and ...

The government had set aside 3,000 tonnes of rice seeds to distribute to farmers whose crops were destroyed by flooding and had so far distributed 1,900 tonnes of rice to those affected by the floods in 18 provinces, the National Committee for Disaster Management said ...

The US is scheduled today to sign off on another $20 million in funding for aid projects in Cambodia, according to a US Embassy statement issued yesterday. One project will “strengthen the ability of civil society, the private sector, and the government to address food security ...

The Cambodian Embassy in Malaysia returned abused Cambodian maids, including women who were raped by their employers, to work at maid recruitment agencies in that country, a new report by Human Rights Watch claims. The New York-based rights group also said Cambodian police colluded with labor ...

Ratings agency Standard & Poor’s yesterday lowered Cambodia’s long-term sovereign credit rating by one notch to B due to the country’s continued inability to diversify its economy and increase government spending. The decision by Standard & Poor’s comes after the agency said in September that constraints ...

The government’s proposed NGO draft law is a barrier to effective aid and development, civil society organizations said yesterday during a workshop in Phnom Penh focused on compiling a report on Cambodia’s climate for NGOs ahead of a global forum on aid effectiveness to be ...

Thirteen construction workers have filed a complaint against the Banteay Meanchey provincial branch of T&P Co Ltd – the recruitment agency at the center of allegations involving illegal detainment of trainees – officials said yesterday. The workers, who had previously worked illegally as construction workers in ...

The Delegation of the European Union to Cambodia in collaboration with the Council for Agricultural and rural Development, Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and three of the EU-funded projects (CEDAC, HKI, WHH) on October 6 organized a Food Security Project Workshop “Improving Food Security—Lessons ...

Cambodia’s education sector needs a complete overhaul in order to reduce unemployment and successfully diversify the economy beyond garment manufacturing, according to a World Bank report released today. The report’s release came after investors and economists said at a trade and investment conference in Phnom Penh ...

Officials said yesterday that the government had suspended a recruitment agency in Kompong Chhnang province suspected of forcibly confining 45 women and that plans were underway to shut it down permanently. Police rescued the women, including 26 girls under the age of 18, who were training ...

Land evictions, poor prison conditions and the lack of an independent judiciary were among the concerns listed in the European Union’s 2010 review of human rights in Cambodia. According to the EU Annual Report on Human Rights and Democracy in the World in 2010, which charts ...

Following a raid on a Phnom Penh recruitment agency, military police yesterday detained two people and rescued 22 girls and women aged 13 to 25 who claimed they were being held against their will ahead of being sent to Malaysia to work as maids. Municipal military ...

A group from the Japanese Fish Rearing Association led by Kazuki Nishimura met with Chan Sarun, Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. During the meeting Kazuki Nishimura told the minister that the Japanese Fish Rearing Association wished to introduce Japanese fresh water fish (Nishiki Koi) ...

The United Nations Special Rapporteur for Cambodia was due last night to present his 2011 report to the Human Rights Council in New York, where Foreign Minister Hor Namhong is attending the UN General Assembly’s annual debate. The report, first published on August 2, looks at ...

Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Friday sentenced the manager of job recruitment agency VC Manpower to 13 months in prison for ilegally detaining underage recruits at a Phnom Penh training center, while the firm’s foreign director was convicted in absentia to eight years’ imprisonment General Manager ...

Environmental groups that gathered at the Himawari Hotel in Phnom Penh on Friday said that tens of thousands of rural Cambodians could benefit from the development of the country’s resin industry. At a conference held by the Non-Timber Forest Products Exchange Program for South and Southeast ...