Social development

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. ...

Hoping to increase university students’ knowledge of Cambodia’s credit reporting system, the Credit Bureau of Cambodia (CBC) on Tuesday launched a series of workshops in Phnom Penh aimed at boosting financial literacy. ...

Rhona Smith, the U.N.’s new special rapporteur on human rights in Cambodia, on Tuesday addressed the U.N. Human Rights Council (HRC) in Geneva for the first time, telling the body that she planned to focus on marginalized people in the country. ...

The government has announced plans to upgrade a sub-decree on torture prevention to the status of royal decree in order to comply with its international obligations, but observers said yesterday that the proposed changes will do little to bolster the body’s impartiality.The decision was confirmed ...

Prime Minister Hun Sen at the “Global Leader’ Meeting on Gender Equality and Women’s Empowerment held at New York, said that Cambodia has actively joined UN member states to implement policies, strategies and action plans aimed to promote gender equality and women’s empowerment.   ...

A Cambodian University student, who was arrested by provincial police in Siem Reap after he threatened to kill Deputy Prime Minister Sar Kheng on social media, has confessed to the plot to throw a grenade at the government official during the school’s graduation ceremony, the ...

A medical doctor accused of fraud by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court admitted at trial yesterday to swindling $10,000 and a car from his business partners as they were setting up a pharmacy earlier this year.​ ...

Government officials and public health workers met with about 100 students at the Ministry of Health’s school of nursing in Phnom Penh on Monday to mark World Rabies Day, calling for a united effort to eradicate a virus that kills hundreds of Cambodians each year. ...

The Disability Action Council (DAC) said yesterday it would conduct an investigation of Bassaka Airlines and the Cambodian Airport Management Service Ltd (CAMS) to determine whether a $240 surcharge for a wheelchair-bound passenger qualifies as discrimination under the country’s disability law. ...

A newspaper journalist was among 13 suspects arrested for methamphetamine possession in Phnom Penh yesterday morning, police said. ...