Population

Recruiters say it could be 2017 by the time Cambodia starts sending maids to Malaysia through legal channels again, despite Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak’s public endorsement of a tentative deal last week. ...

Malaysia is primed to accept an influx of Cambodian workers after Prime Minister Hun Sen entreated his Malay counterpart to receive more Cambodians during an official visit to Malaysia late last week. ...

In an attempt to protect the interests and safety of Cambodian maids who travel to Malaysia, the Association of Cambodian Recruitment Agencies (ACRA) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Malaysia National Association of Employment Agencies (PIKAP) last week, according to officials. ...

More than a dozen Montagnard refugees are set to depart from Cambodia for the Philippines today, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).   ...

The Interior Ministry has made tentative plans to send a delegation of three people to the South Pacific island of Nauru next month to meet and vet two more refugees who have volunteered to resettle in Cambodia.   ...

Cambodian refugee officials are expected to arrive on the shores of chaotic Nauru this month to interview two Iranian refugees about resettling in the Kingdom under a controversial deal with Australia.   ...

Two more refugees being held by Australia in an offshore detention facility have volunteered to relocate to Cambodia, an immigration official said on Wednesday, a sign that the teetering resettlement deal between the two countries has yet to run its course. ...

The Cambodian government has agreed to a request from the Thai Labor Ministry to temporarily block migrant workers from traveling to Thailand for the next four months as it conducts a census into migrants in the country, according to a statement released on Thursday.   ...

Foreigners living in certain areas of Phnom Penh have 10 days to show their documents to police so the government can complete registering foreign nationals by the end of the year. Those found to have overstayed their visas or entered the country illegally will be ...

A Montagnard asylum seeker was found dead on Wednesday morning in a Phnom Penh residence provided by the U.N.’s refugee agency, having committed suicide in his room, according to police. ...

Immigration Minister Peter Dutton has rejected claims the Federal Government’s Cambodian refugee settlement program has spent all of the $55 million allocated to it. ...

After fleeing religious persecution in Myanmar, Mohammed Rashid found himself on a circuitous route to Phnom Penh. ...

The Immigration Department warned Interior Ministry officials on Wednesday not to issue Cambodian citizenship documents, such as birth certificates and ID cards, to foreigners living in the Kingdom. ...

Cambodian and Australian officials on Sunday denied claims made by a Rohingya refugee from Burma over the weekend that he was being poorly treated in Phnom Penh, with the Interior Ministry’s refugee director calling the man “a liar.” ...

The Interior Ministry has asked Cambodians to continue applying for new electronic identity cards that will be crucial to the upcoming commune and general elections after noticing that the number of people signing up for the cards has slumped. ...

LG Electronics has identified Cambodia as the emerging market in ASEAN with the greatest potential for increasing sales and is expanding its business here, a senior executive of the South Korean company told Khmer Times last week at the LG InnoFest 2016 Asia in Seoul. ...

Immigration officials yesterday sought to dial back public remarks by Interior Ministry spokesman Khieu Sopheak, who on Wednesday appeared to tell reporters that the more than 100 Montagnard asylum seekers currently waiting to have their claims assessed would be summarily deported. ...

Less than a month after the government announced that more than 170 Montagnard asylum seek­ers would have their refugee applications processed, an Interior Min­istry spokesman said on Wednesday that the group had not met the criteria for refugee status and would be returned to Vietnam. ...

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 UN refugee agency (UNHCR) yesterday said that it would divide between itself and the Cambodian government the duties of processing and potentially relocating the scores of Montagnard asylum seekers whose claims the government finally agreed to hear on Wednesday. ...

In a seeming about-face, the government has backed away from its looming deadline to deport more than 100 Montagnards currently seeking asylum in Cambodia, instead pledging to “expedite” the process of assessing their refugee status. ...

The U.N. refugee agency warns the number of people forcibly displaced from their homes is likely to exceed 60 million in 2015.The UNHCR has released its Mid-Year Trends 2015 report covering global forced displacement during the first six months of this year. ...

Economists say Cambodia is not facing the risk of an aging population, as is happening in richer countries around the region, but it must still plan for a future when its younger generations grow old. ...

Surveys are rare in Cambodia and opinion polls indicating which way the electorate intends to vote are even rarer. That partially explains why so many other commentators failed to predict the hefty swing against Prime Minister Hun Sen at the last national poll. ...