Family, children and youth policy and administration

In a move activists fear could endanger thousands of Cambodian children, Thailand plans to reduce the number of children of illegal migrants living in the country to zero by 2020, according to a newspaper report. Thailand is the top destination for Cambodians seeking work abroad, with ...

The Ministry of Social Affairs yesterday confirmed it would construct a new national facility to rehabilitate child offenders. The news follows a meeting last Thursday when spokesman Touch Channy told attendees that the new centre to detain juvenile offenders would be built following the recent adoption ...

To mark 20 years of the work of NGO Pour un Sourie d’Enfant (PSE), a new film about the founders was premiered at the Chaktomouk Hall on Phnom Penh’s riverside on Friday evening when Queen Mother Norodom Monineath was the guest of honor. ...

The government will meet this month to begin addressing concerns that the lack of regulation for the surrogacy trade could lead to a proliferation of brokers working in Cambodia and foreign couples traveling to the country to take advantage of their services. The Ministry of ...

Cambodia’s justice system often fails to support children who are victims of and witnesses to crime, many of whom are so terrified to appear in court that they’re unable to give testimony, children’s rights experts said yesterday. ...

Officials at the Prey Speu Social Affairs Center in Phnom Penh’s Por Senchey district are scrambling to deflect criticism after reports surfaced that a young boy and a man were beaten and injured there, with the director of the center saying the boy injured himself ...

Twenty-nine homeless Cambodians, including 20 children, will be repatriated from Ho Chi Minh City today. Apart from the children, the group consists of nine adults – three men and six women. Of the 20 children, 10 are boys and 10 are girls, according to Ministry of ...

Slow action from courts and police, a dire lack of mental health counselling and sparse government funding were named as ongoing challenges in Cambodia’s quest to eliminate violence against women at a conference yesterday.   ...

A new report has ranked Cambodia 125 out of 163 countries in terms of its protection of children’s rights, even as the government works to finalise a sub-decree and code of conduct to better shield children from abuse, exploitation and neglect. ...

Seven years after Cambodia put a stop to its own international adoption programs, the Catalan regional government in Spain signed a memorandum of understanding with the Ministry of Social Affairs on Tuesday that will allow its residents to adopt Cambodian children.   ...

Children in Cambodia face a range of threats to their safety including violence, sexual abuse and economic exploitation, with the justice system failing to prosecute alleged offenders, according to a 68-page report by a host of children’s welfare NGOs. ...

Backed by the U.N., Cambodia on Wednesday launched a national action plan to completely eliminate hunger in the country by 2025, the first step in an ambitious initiative that the government signed on to last year. ...

The World’s Children’s Prize (WCP) ceremony, to be held on Sunday at the Artscape Theatre, will tell the story of the 2015 award ceremony in Sweden and South Africa’s participation. ...

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. ...

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 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 ...

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 ...