Social development

Cambodia’s opposition party will boycott a national conference held by parliament to discuss a controversial draft law that would regulate nongovernmental organizations operating in the developing country, because of loopholes in the proposed legislation that would hinder the groups, an opposition lawmaker said Tuesday. ...

Lawmakers yesterday passed a rent control law for low-income earners and students, prohibiting landlords from increasing rent for two years once a contract is signed and allowing tenants to scrap a lease agreement without notice. The law, which sailed through the National Assembly with 102 of ...

Phen Bunthoeun, the NGO director who was arrested and detained overnight by Vietnamese authorities for leading about 40 students to visit a disputed border area in Svay Rieng province on Saturday, admitted Monday that he had gone there to inspect alleged border violations. ...

Nearly 150 teachers across five districts in Kampot province have signed a petition demanding the government pay them monthly rural posting bonuses they say are now nine months in arrears. ...

A community-based HIV testing program is the first of its kind in the region. While this peer-provided HIV counselling and testing has increased the number of people tested from key populations, it has not detected a significant number of new HIV cases. In 2014, there ...

Around 100 activists, including Buddhist monks, gathered in front of Cambodia’s parliament Monday to demand that lawmakers and the country’s Forestry Administration take action against illegal logging in endangered Prey Lang forest. ...

The international watchdog Frontline Defenders has called on Cambodian authorities to drop a defamation lawsuit against a prominent human rights worker. Ny Chakrya, head of legal assistance for the rights group Adhoc, is facing a suit filed by two court officials in Siem Reap province last ...

A Cambodian NGO director who on Saturday took about 40 of his primary- and high-school students on a trip to a disputed border area in Svay Rieng province was beaten by Vietnamese civilians and imprisoned overnight, officials said Sunday. ...

Warnings from civil society groups that they will urge citizens to vote against any politician who supports the draft law on associations and NGOs have drawn a stern rebuke from the ruling Cambodian People’s Party. ...

The Por Sen Chey Social Affairs Centre, better known as Prey Speu, is facing a probe over alleged human rights violations, an opposition party lawmaker said yesterday. ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Health Department has closed more than 200 illegal dental clinics in the capital in the first six months of the year, and has filed complaints against their owners to the Phnom Penh Municipal Court, health officials said yesterday. ...

The human rights non-governmental organizations (NGOs) Licado and Adhoc both say they will not attend Wednesday’s consultation workshop on the controversial draft Law on Associations and Non-Governmental Organizations (LANGO) hosted by the National Assembly. ...

The National Assembly has announced that members of the public hoping to participate in the consultation regarding Cambodia’s contentious draft Law on Associations and Non-Governmental Organisations (LANGO) will have until Tuesday to register. ...

A rights group and journalist organization on Thursday slammed a lawmaker from Cambodia’s ruling party for barring an opposition MP from addressing the media with his concerns over a controversial draft law on nongovernmental organizations currently under review by parliament. ...

Unicef and the Ministry of Health have prepared four spots to raise awareness in the care of newborns and young children with illnesses. The ads, for radio and television, aim at improving the country’s high child mortality rate. ...

A ruling party lawmaker says pro-democracy and rights groups staging protests against a draft law at the National Assembly are trying to “topple the government.” On Wednesday, Chheang Vun, a lawmaker for the Cambodian People’s Party, said three days of protests over the draft are ...

Public and private universities are experiencing an exponential rise in the number of students opting for two-year associate degrees rather than four-year bachelor’s programs following last year’s disastrous high school exit examinations, education officials said yesterday. ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday sentenced a woman and a man to 10 years in prison each on drug-trafficking charges after their arrest in Sen Sok district last year. ...

Despite government assurances that the controversial NGO draft law was still undergoing review, committees of the National Assembly said yesterday that the only revisions will be minor corrections to spelling and wording. ...

Despite the deployment of law enforcement officials across the capital in a bid to halt the demonstration, activists yesterday marched as promised to the National Assembly to protest the looming adoption of highly controversial union and NGO laws. Starting at about 8am, hundreds of land activists, ...

When an anti-human trafficking group recently reported a 73 percent drop in the sale of children for sex, another referenced its list of 15 establishments offering minors to predators as evidence to the contrary. ...

Unicef and the Cambodian government have launched a campaign to promote better health for children and newborns. Cambodia has made some progress improving the health of women and children, but a high rate of death for children remains a major concern. It saw its newborn mortality ...

As concern about the MERS virus’s spread mounts in the region, the Ministry of Health has ordered health workers in Siem Reap International Airport to use manual thermometers to screen passengers entering the Kingdom as the airport’s only ThermoScan unit is beyond repair. ...

With cases in the past six months more than doubled compared to last year, the Ministry of Health is urging Cambodians to exercise caution as the Kingdom builds toward an expected periodic dengue outbreak. ...