Social development

A set of new global standards for adolescent health care released by the World Health Organization (WHO) and UNAIDS this week indicate that a worldwide gap in health care provision for youths is magnified by Cambodia’s comparatively young population, officials and experts said yesterday. ...

Phnom Penh’s public housing policy, aimed to provide affordable housing for the middle income class and low income class, is expected to boost the construction sector in Cambodia as an increased population and rapid urbanisation is expected to create a demand of more than a ...

Education Minister Hang Chuon Naron yesterday slammed opposition leader Sam Rainsy for dismissing university degrees in the country as value-less and labeling the education system one of the poorest in the world. ...

More than 800 indigenous people in Mondulkiri province are seeking to oust the provincial governor, who is accused of violating the rights of the ethnic minority. ...

Civil society organizations yesterday expressed concern about the new Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by the United Nations last month, which they said would be hard to achieve under the new Law on Associations and NGOs (LANGO).   ​ ...

The child sex abuse trial of orphanage director and former head of child protection NGO APLE, Hang Vibol, began at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday, with the defendant reportedly testifying that the accusations against him were an attempt at revenge by aggrieved former colleagues. ...

With less than three months left before the end of a campaign to boost adult literacy in Cambodia, enrollment in classes run jointly by the government and Unesco has dropped below 75 percent of the year-end goal, officials said Tuesday. ...

Fires set by plantation owners in Indonesia may be to blame for the smog hanging over Phnom Penh, the Ministry of the Environment said yesterday. “I know there is a serious problem with haze,” Ministry spokesman Sao Sopheap told Khmer Times. “We have noticed haze ...

Hing Phon thought she was losing her mind when night after night terrifying nightmares jolted her awake as she dreamt of her husband, eldest son and 18 other relatives being killed by the Khmer Rouge during their brutal reign in Cambodia. ...

Several hundred demonstrators yesterday marked World Habitat Day by gathering at the National Assembly to submit a petition calling on the government to halt forced evictions and guarantee housing rights. ...

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 ...

A group of 900 Bunong villagers are seeking the removal of the governor of Mondolkiri, complaining in a petition that was submitted to the government Monday that he does not respect the rights of ethnic minorities in the province. ...

As Cambodia contends with one of the strongest El Niño cycles in recent memory, a new study of millions of dengue cases over the past two-decades-plus has shown that spikes in the deadly disease across Southeast Asia may be linked to the weather phenomenon.Upswings in ...

Teachers are demanding that their salaries be raised to 1.5 million riel (about $270) per month next year, and are warning the government that if this does not happen, they will continue protesting “like a headache that will not go away.”  ...

Tuberculosis (TB) is still a major health problem in Cambodia. Natalie Lorent, PhD student at the Institute of Tropical Medicine (ITM) and the University of Antwerp (UA), conducted her research in the slums of Phnom Penh, where tuberculosis (TB) wreaks havoc. Lorent and her team ...

On a leafy campus near Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh, a group of 50 schoolchildren are benefiting from a bold educational experiment with a dual aim: to turn out youngsters who can improve the country, and to develop a model program that can be replicated internationally. ...

Around 1,500 protesters marked World Habitat Day on Monday by marching through Cambodia’s capital Phnom Penh and calling on the government to put a stop to forced evictions in the Southeast Asian nation. ...

Thai Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn, a daughter of King Bhumibol Adulyadej of Thailand, has granted funds to build two institutes of technology in Kampong Thom and Kampong Speu provinces in order to provide technical education and training to poor Cambodian students. ...

Drug cases in Cambodia nearly tripled in the first nine months of 2015 compared to the same period last year, police announced on Friday, though authorities and civil society groups differed on the cause behind the spike.The deputy chief of National Police, Mok Chito, said ...

The Ministry of Education has given a local education NGO $370,000 and one year to implement a pilot project aimed at replacing a long list of informal payments required of students at a Phnom Penh high school with a merit-based payment system that rewards high-performing ...

An unlicensed pharmacy in Siem Reap City that sold a traditional Chinese nutritional supplement the manufacturer claims can treat “100 diseases” was shut down on Wednesday after a 72-year-old man died after taking a dose, officials said Thursday. ...

The Interior Ministry will send a delegation to Nauru Island this month to interview another four asylum seekers who are considering resettling in Cambodia, a spokesman for the ministry said yesterday.   ...

Some 14,000 school drop-outs have returned to class under a $19 million scheme launched last year by a coalition of education groups, the organisations said yesterday.Out-of-school kids include children from poor and remote communities, ethnic minorities, kids over-age for their grade level, street children and ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen addressed world leaders at the UN on Sunday, giving his formula for closing the gender gap. On Friday, world leaders adopted a new set of development goals, to be achieved over the next 15 years, including gender promotion. ...