Social development

A 2-year-old girl from southwestern Kampot province died of H5N1 human avian influenza on Friday, bringing the number of cases to nine so far this year, said a joint statement from the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Cambodian Health Ministry on Monday. ...

A Cambodian human rights group today asked the caretaker government of Thailand to end executions of Cambodia civilians after 15 Cambodians were shot dead this month. In its statement released today, The Cambodian Center for Human Rights (“CCHR”) expresses its deep concern regarding the continued arbitrary ...

Keeping students in school may not be as straightforward as providing them with clean water, but a filtered drinking supply makes them less likely to take sick days, research published on Friday shows. The study, conducted by a UK-based medical school, compared drinking water access in ...

The Belgian demining NGO APOPO, which is pioneering the use of mine-detecting rats in the former battlefields of Cambodia, has received funding from the German government to expand its mine-clearance work in the country. In November, the government gave the green light for APOPO to begin ...

Desperate ethnic minority villagers in Koh Kong province’s Areng Valley have blocked a road that was to be used to transport heavy machinery onto their lands to start construction of the highly controversial Stung Cheay Areng dam, according to villagers and officials. Three Chinese employees of ...

European Union Trade Commissioner Karel de Gucht will visit Cambodia this week, the European Commission announced, with rights groups hoping that land grabbing related to sugar plantations will be high on the agenda. Following bilateral meetings in Brussels last week between Cambodia and the EU during ...

A representative for villagers living in Ratanakkiri’s O’Chum district who say that buyers from a local company failed to uphold a 2007 land deal has been charged and temporarily detained by local authorities for allegedly destroying private property. Haing Noeur, 50, was detained on Saturday after ...

The European Union has called on Cambodia to release 21 jailed activists and protesters and told the government during high level talks held here this week that a failure to reform the judiciary and electoral process could have severe consequences for the ruling party by ...

Members of six ethnic communities in Mondulkiri’s Sen Monorom town yesterday accused local authorities of blocking their efforts to protect community and wildlife sanctuary forests, where they say luxury timbers are logged by Villas Development, a company co-owned by the wife of Mondulkiri Deputy Governor ...

Alleged victims in seven separate land disputes in Kampong Cham province yesterday agreed to file a petition to the provincial governor, following a meeting with rights group Adhoc. ...

The World Bank on Thursday asked Phnom Penh municipal officials to do more to help the thousands of families the city evicted from the Boeng Kak neighborhood to make way for a CPP senator’s private real estate project, and is now waiting for a reply, ...

Twelve Cambodians were shot dead by Thai security forces on March 5 after illegally crossing the border from Choam Ksan district in Preah Vihear province to log timber, Cambodian officials said yesterday. Another three illegal loggers were killed on Wednesday and two others are still missing, ...

Four days of high-level policy meetings between the European Union and Cambodia wrapped up in Brussels yesterday, after seeing “frank and in-depth exchanges” on a number of issues, including human rights, according to an EU press statement released last night. Ahead of the meeting of ...

It took three illegal border crossings, several bribed officials and six months in an overcrowded detention centre before Mohammed Ibrahim* finally arrived in Cambodia. Four years later, the ethnic Rohingya, a victim of violence and oppression in strife-torn Rakhine state in Myanmar’s west, is one of ...

Cambodian garment manufacturers and the association that governs them are failing to meet the standards set by the U.N.’s Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, as evidenced by lethal violence against workers during garment strikes in January, when five people were shot dead and ...

The government on Friday finalized guidelines aimed at reducing the number of children who work in the fisheries sector and do not attend school, the Min­istry of Agriculture and Fisheries and the NGO World Vision said in a statement. World Vision said the guidelines, which it ...

The 8th EU-Cambodia Joint Committee was held in Brussels on Thursday, preceded by the subgroups on development cooperation, on trade and on institution building, administrative reform, legal and judicial reform, governance and human rights, the European bloc said in a press release. The two sides ...

Two unions that called for a stay-at-home strike by garment factory employees Wednesday had little success in mobilizing workers after six other unions, under pressure from the government and factory owners, pulled out of the planned industrial action on Tuesday. Union leaders who pushed ahead with ...

Freedom Park will remain off limits indefinitely for protesters, authorities said yesterday, despite Prime Minister Hun Sen suggesting last month that a ban on public assembly was being lifted. Pich Saroeun, chief of Russey Keo district’s Chroy Changva commune, said Phnom Penh Governor Pa Socheatvong had ...

Nearly a million hectares of land has been granted to ordinary Cambodian citizens through social land concessions (SLC) since May 2012, the government has claimed, though civil society groups have cast doubt on that high figure and questioned how many landless or evicted poor have ...

Officials from the ruling CPP said Wednesday that a series of public forums announced by Prime Minister Hun Sen earlier this year, which he said would help gather input for his promised plans to introduce widespread political reform, are now being held around the country. The ...

Villagers in Pursat province’s Veal Veng district, locked in an ongoing land dispute with local tycoon Try Pheap’s MDS Import Export Co Ltd, claimed yesterday that security forces and environmental officers opened fire and tried to burn down their houses and plantations on Tuesday after ...

Cambodia’s porous borders are creating one of several headaches for health officials working to minimise outbreaks of avian influenza, officials revealed yesterday at a symposium on emerging infectious diseases in Southeast Asia. The border provinces of Takeo and Kampong Cham have been witness to the highest ...

About 100 indigenous villagers from Ratanakkiri’s Veun Sai district took the opportunity at a public forum yesterday to demand a solution from the district governor, Chum Ngel, over a land dispute they are locked in with SK Plantation, after protesting several times without getting a ...