Civil society

Prey Lang is one of Cambodia’s few remaining large forests, covering approximately 3,600 square kilometers across four northern provinces. The forest is home to about 200,000 mostly indigenous people, who depend on it for their livelihoods, according to the Prey Lang Community Network. But, the ...

Cambodia celebrated the International Children’s Day on Sunday with calls for an end to violence against children. The celebration, themed “Together to eliminate violence against children”, brought together some 2,500 participants including officials, diplomats, development partners, teachers and students. Currently, the country has about 5.48 million ...

Twenty-five unionists, garment workers and bystanders were found guilty by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Friday for their involvement in three separate garment protest-related cases, but were handed down suspended sentences. The 22 men who had not been bailed ahead of trial were ordered ...

Mam Somaly, one of the world’s renowned anti-sex slavery activists, has resigned from her name- bearing foundation after a private investigation into allegations concerning her fabrications of sex slavery tales to raise public awareness and millions of U.S. dollars in funds. The Somaly Mam Foundation said ...

Verdicts will be handed down Friday in two garment protest-related cases that rights groups say were built on a weak body of evidence. The two cases occurred months apart but followed a similar narrative: Garment workers fed up with their calls for a higher monthly minimum ...

Representatives for about 250 families involved in a long-running dispute with an agri-business firm in Kompong Speu province have filed a complaint with rights group Adhoc and say they will attempt to retake land that was stolen from them. About 60 of the villagers traveled to ...

A group of about 100 people, including 50 or so monks, attempted to march yesterday to protest outside Phnom Penh’s Buddhist Institute, but were thwarted by droves of military police and district security guards on Sisowath Quay. No violence occurred as Independent Monk Network leader But ...

SIEM PANG DISTRICT, Stung Treng province – For the elite few granted the right to level swathes of woodland in the north of this remote province, the timber trade is worth a fortune. For the Forestry Administration—the government body charged with policing logging—business is also booming. While ...

More than 200 people from the group Land Communities for Peace marched from the Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) to the National Assembly on Thursday in defiance of a ban issued by City Hall. Phnom Penh deputy governor Khuong Sreng said the protest would not be allowed after ...

Sgnoun Vita can’t communicate with most of her kindergarten students. She teaches them colours and numbers, but can’t understand their questions or chatter. Most of Vita’s students at the Kater Primary School in Ratanakkiri’s O’Yadav district speak Jarai, one of Cambodia’s 24 ethnic minority languages. A ...

Representatives of some 250 families who lost their land to a company in Kampong Speu province filed a complaint with Adhoc yesterday, saying they have yet to receive compensation, even after land measurement volunteers allegedly promised a resolution if villagers voted for the ruling party ...

As several hundred garment workers from the SL Garment factory pelted police with rocks during a protest near the Stung Meanchey pagoda in November, Men Sok Sambath, a 14-year-old scrap collector, decided to join the crowd. “I saw other people throwing rocks at the [police] truck, ...

More than 1,500 villagers plan to march to the Anti-Corruption Unit and National Assembly in Phnom Penh on Thursday in defiance of a fresh ban issued by City Hall prohibiting them from doing so. The villagers form a group known as the Land Communities for Peace ...

Cambodians may soon find it easier than ever to report official corruption, and not just to the authorities or their friends and neighbours, but to the whole world, thanks to the impending launch of a Khmer-language version of the graft-reporting smartphone app Bribespot. Already popular in ...

About 1,000 workers protested outside Ocean Garment factory in Phnom Penh’s Pur Senchey district on Wednesday to demand compensation for being out of work while the factory suspends its operations for a month due to flagging demand from buyers, a union leader said. Workers have been ...

The opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party said yesterday that charred human remains retrieved by a local party member in Kampong Speu province on Saturday would be handed over to human rights organisations for examination. Despite a seeming lack of evidence or investigation, opposition activists have speculated ...

A group of 15 local and international rights groups Tuesday sent a slew of letters to the Chinese government and companies involved in the Lower Sesan II hydropower dam in Stung Treng province seeking a halt to dam construction due to serious environmental and social ...

Two years after she was walked out of the city in the middle of the night to a quiet life of retirement on the outskirts of the capital, Sambo, Phnom Penh’s iconic and much-beloved elephant, might soon be back at work entertaining tourists. With funding for ...

Surya Subedi, the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Cambodia, added his voice yesterday to the growing chorus of criticism aimed at three draft laws on Cambodia’s judiciary that sailed through the National Assembly last week. Subedi – who had previously championed the laws as ...

A villager involved in a long-running land dispute in Kompong Chhnang province with the wife of Mines and Energy Minister Suy Sem has accused his commune police chief of discrimination after he was refused a character statement he needed to apply for a garment factory ...

A package containing charred human remains was delivered to the Cambodia National Rescue Party office in Phnom Penh yesterday morning. Despite a seeming complete absence of hard evidence, some are convinced the remains – found on Saturday at a mountain in Kampong Speu – belong to ...

The government has approved a second phase of a pilot project in Battambang and Banteay Meanchey provinces that will this time see professional caregivers rather than volunteers visit the homes of the elderly to assist with domestic work, hygiene needs and general companionship. “Families are the ...

Representatives of more than 400 families who watched as their homes were burned during an eviction this month in Kratie’s Snuol district were blocked by authorities yesterday as they attempted to take their grievance to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s doorstep. Though tensions initially ran high, the ...

When 200 villagers from Kratie province walked into Samakki Raingsey pagoda seeking safety and shelter early this month, they weren’t the first to do so. The villagers, whose homes in Snuol district had been torched by authorities just days earlier, were walking a well-trodden path—a path ...