Human rights

With a number of homeless, beggars and street sellers who were rounded up in caged vans last week still unaccounted for, several of those targeted by the street sweep claimed yesterday that they had been held in Phnom Penh’s notorious Prey Speu social affairs centre. Homeless ...

Thai officials said Tuesday they will take back Cambodian workers who re-enter the country legally. The statement follows a mass exodus in recent weeks of tens of thousands of Cambodians amid rumors of a crackdown on undocumented workers. Koy Kuong, a spokesman for Cambodia’s Foreign Ministry, told ...

The International Organisation for Migration says thousands of Cambodian migrant workers are continuing to pour across the Thai border into Poipet. ...

Fearing a military crackdown on illegal workers, Wiang left his construction site in Bangkok without even receiving a single baht for many weeks of work. “My employer said he could pay on June 28. But we can’t wait till then,” the 32-year-old Cambodian lamented yesterday as ...

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs has confirmed to the Cambodian Ambassador to Thailand that no harsh measures are being taken against Cambodian workers while the latter has promised to help Thailand clear up the rumor. ...

A second deadly car accident in as many days has claimed the lives of more Cambodian migrant workers fleeing Thailand in the wake of last month’s military takeover. At least two undocumented Cambodian workers were killed while driving through Thailand’s Chonburi province to get to the ...

An opposition lawmaker-elect pledged yesterday to visit an undemarcated section of the border in Svay Rieng province to investigate allegations that Cambodian farmers have been blocked by Vietnamese soldiers from using land they previously farmed for years without problem. Svay Rieng lawmaker-elect Real Camerin said that ...

The group in charge of determining the national minimum wage for the garment sector yesterday agreed to increase salaries annually on January 1, determined by discussions that are to take place in the final quarter of each preceding year, officials said. The agreement was signed during ...

The Foreign Ministry will summon Cambodian ambassador to Thailand Eat Sophea on Tuesday to assure her the junta has no order to deport Khmer workers, and to clarify the country’s policy on migrant labour. ...

Workers at the Beautiful Spring Footwear factory in Takeo province refused to end a two-day protest on Saturday after management ceded to most of their demands but refused to raise their good-attendance bonus. The factory’s roughly 1,000 workers started protesting outside the building on Friday, two ...

Representatives of the 301 families granted a social land concession in Kratie province to resolve a long-running land dispute said Sunday that they filed a report with authorities on Saturday detailing the new families that have since gathered with them in the hope of also ...

Opposition leader Sam Rainsy sent a letter to Thailand’s ruling junta on Friday calling for the “tens of thousands” of Cambodian migrant workers forcibly repatriated since early June to be treated humanely. In the letter addressed to General Prayuth Chan-ocha, who assumed power in a May ...

After rocks from a worksite detonation killed one of his employees, a manager at a Kratie province granite company was questioned yesterday for allegedly trying to cover up the circumstances surrounding the fatality, police said. Chinese national Chov Chinlean, 39, died after a crew from Moeung ...

An estimated 135,000 Cambodian migrant workers have been deported from or fled Thailand since early this month after the Thailand’s new military government rounded up illegal migrant laborers, a senior official said Sunday. ...

New research on the cultural causes of and solutions to violence against women was presented in Phnom Penh on Friday in a bid to help those interested in ending violence understand what fuels it, specifically in a Cambodian context. The research is 25 years in the ...

Villagers in Koh Kong’s Botum Sakor district said Friday that Union Development Group (UDG) used military forces to prevent villagers from planting paddy rice on land that is locked in a longstanding dispute, a claim the military denied. Khun Thala, a 40-year-old villager, said Friday that ...

A Khmer Krom association threatened this week to protest against the Vietnamese government after an official said that the former Kampuchea Krom provinces belonged to Vietnam long before France’s official transfer of the land in 1949. The threats from the Khmer Kampuchea Krom Association for Human ...

The government must make more of an effort to not only eradicate child labor, but also its underlying causes, and ensure that children attend school, local rights group Licadho said Thursday. In a statement released ahead of World Day Against Child Labor, the group said the ...

A 100-page set of guidelines for the legal protection of the rights of women and children was launched by the Ministry of Women’s Affairs in Phnom Penh on Thursday in a bid to address shortfalls in how the judicial system handles cases such as rape, ...

Human rights workers say the US and other countries should censure Thailand over fisheries practices that mean near-slavery for many Cambodians and others. An investigative report by the UK-based Guardian newspaper exposed serious abuses in the Thai fishing trade, where workers are cheated of pay, kept ...

Preah Vihear officials abruptly barred environmental activists from holding a planned public forum Wednesday, with the activists claiming it was for political reasons and officials saying the group had failed to go through the proper channels. Seng Sokheng, secretariat coordinator of Community Peace Building Network, said ...

The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Cambodia, Surya Subedi, will visit the country next week to assess the government’s progress in improving human rights and democratic and land reforms, his office said Wednesday. During the 10-day fact-finding mission, beginning June ...

Thai authorities have sent 7, 507 illegal Cambodian migrant workers back to Cambodia since the start of this month, a Cambodian spokesman said Wednesday. ...

Protesting workers at Ocean Garment factory say they are worried the manufacturer, which has suspended operations for one month, will close altogether. About 20 per cent of Ocean’s 1,300 workers demanding full payment during the break have found work elsewhere, while longtime employees are literally praying ...