Family, children and youth

A 60-year-old Mexican national working at a school in Sihanoukville was convicted of sexually abusing two young girls yesterday and sentenced to two years in prison, with one year of the sentence suspended, according to APLE Cambodia, a child rights NGO. ...

A Social Affairs Ministry report published yesterday showed that provincial departments of social affairs, veterans and rehabilitation assisted 2,437 homeless children in 2015, 715 of whom were girls. ...

The sexual abuse case involving a 57-year-old German national and at least five underage boys continued in Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday. Udo Sabiniewicz, owner of FX Animation Studio in Phnom Penh’s Chbar Ampov district, could be sentenced to one to three years in prison ...

A report released today by glo­bal advocacy group Child Rights In­­­­ternational Network (CRIN) ranked Cambodia 166 out of 197 coun­tries for the effectiveness of its courts in protecting children. ...

The Child Rights International Network (CRIN) has released its worldwide rankings of countries’ protection of children’s legal rights, with Cambodia coming in at a lowly 166th place out of 197, just ahead of Libya and just behind Tongo. ...

Patrick Heuveline sat among villagers in Cambodia, showing them photos of his daughter to establish common ground with a group of people whose culture he had yet to fully understand.Heuveline, a UCLA sociology professor since 2007, has now spent about 15 years studying the effects ...

The Cambodian government on Monday launched its first nationwide policy for child development, aiming to enhance education, promote social welfare and strengthen protection for children in the Kingdom. ...

The Child Protection Unit (CPU), a police unit supported by the Cambodian Children’s Fund, investigated 292 cases involving serious crimes against children in 2015, its director of operations said on Tuesday. ...

A lack of knowledge about sex is posing a risk to the health and education of adolescents, according to the Ministry of Education, which has created an online program to help better inform and equip the young people who make up 60 per cent of ...

A new set of standards for orphanages that the Ministry of Social Affairs plans to enforce over the coming months, combined with a global move toward community-based care, has at least one organization worried it will be forced to close down. ...

The Ministry of Social Affairs yesterday issued a new sub-decree ordering all orphanages to get a permit, submit to inspections and limit the conditions under which children can be admitted.According to many experts, including Social Affairs Minister Vong Soth, orphanage care does more harm than ...

Violence against children cost Cambodia approximately $168 million in 2013, or just over 1 per cent of GDP, according to a new report from the government and UNICEF that explores the economic impacts of physical abuse.Titled The economic burden of health consequences of violence against ...

The Ministry of Education is working with NGOs to draft a policy document to protect schoolchildren from abuse at the hands of educators and fellow students, an NGO specialist told the Post yesterday.More than 40 government and non-government representatives gathered in the capital on Friday ...

While unemployment rates are low among Cambodian youths, their jobs are largely poorly paid and informal, providing them with just enough money to survive on, according to a recent report.The report, released on Sunday by youth NGO the Youth Resource Development Program (YRDP) and the ...

The children rehearse twice a day, for about two hours each time – once at 4am, and again at 7pm – so they can perform for tourists on board cruise ships that dock at Phnom Penh year-round.But these children are not professional buskers nor part ...

The Ministry of Social Affairs yesterday announced that it would form a committee to address the lack of services available to the homeless and mentally ill. Yesterday’s meeting was precipitated by the revelation this week by rights organization Licadho that two more residents at Prey ...

Almost 75 percent of kids in the country’s orphanages are there because their families can’t afford to keep them at home. In 2011, UNICEF released a study saying that the number of orphanages in Cambodia had increased by 75 percent in the previous six years, ...

A coalition of government ministries, the United Nations and international non-governmental organizations launched a new campaign yesterday to combat violence against women.​ ...

The arrest on Saturday of a registered British sex offender, employed at a Phnom Penh school for the past year, has cast doubt on the screening of foreign nationals working with children in Cambodia.With wanted sex offender Paul Prestige’s extradition pending, the British Embassy yesterday ...

In an effort to address speech and communication disorders, which affect about one in 25 people countrywide, Unicef Cam­bo­dia awarded the organization OIC: The Cambodia Project a $42,000 grant on Wednesday to provide informal speech therapy training to Cambodians. ...

Unlicensed orphanages have six months to register with the government under new legislation that also strictly defines the circumstances under which children can live at such facilities.The sub-decree “management on children care centres” signed by Prime Minister Hun Sen on September 11 sets out nine ...

More than 20 child laborers were rescued in Phnom Penh on Tuesday after anti-human trafficking authorities arrested a couple who had forced the children to work as fruit sellers in exchange for payments made to their families, according to police.Officers from the Interior Ministry’s anti-human ...

Noun Phymean is an executive director at the People Improvement Organization (PIO). Born in Kampong Cham province, she spent over 12 years with the United Nations and other international organizations. Now, the hardworking humanitarian is focusing on helping some of the country’s most impoverished children. ...

Drug abuse is a widespread issue with few universal solutions. But one NGO’s methods of dealing with the problem are putting it at odds with the local community. ...