Social development

Despite admitting yesterday to firing his pistol during last month’s protest at a Svay Rieng province special economic zone (SEZ), where three women were shot, Bavet City’s former governor Chhuk Bundith was free to return home after making his confession to the court. “[Mr. Bundith] came ...

The construction of a new $17.5 million women’s cancer hospital specializing in gynecological services will break ground this summer, one of the co-founders said yesterday. Janne Ritskes, the director of Tabitha Cambodia, an organization that works to improve the lives of poor Cambodians, said the 220-bed ...

The Free Trade Union (FTU) yesterday filed a complaint with Labor Minister Vong Sauth on behalf of nearly 4,000 garment workers in Kompong Chhnang province against Chinese-owned M&V International Manufacturing Ltd, alleging that they had been forced to work on International Women’s Day, which is ...

The water company that sparked four days of protest in Prey Veng province last week has once again drawn criticism, this time from teachers in Kratie province, who say the firm is building a road across their school’s land. Forty-nine teachers at Preah Kossamak High School ...

Faced with the rapid loss of vast tracts of forest across Cambodia, local communities have begun to fight back, and a growing number of villagers are now organizing their own aggressive forest patrols in order to save the forests on which they have relied for ...

When Reaksmey (not his real name) was in high school two years ago, he and his classmates were urged to attend the supplementary classes taught by their teachers before and after regular school hours. For an hour before school and two to three hours after each ...

The negotiations between Cambodia and Malaysia over a bilateral agreement on improved working conditions for Cambodian migrant maids are slowly progressing as both governments are exchanging draft agreements, according to officials from both countries. Ministry of Labor Secretary of State Othsman Hassan said that Cambodia recently ...

The number of families claiming to have lost contact with relatives working overseas has seen a significant increase in recent months, three human rights groups said Thursday. Local rights groups Adhoc and Licadho and the legal aid association Cambodian Legal Education Center (CLEC), said that the ...

Rights group Adhoc said yesterday that a large-scale march in Ratanakkiri province involving hundreds of ethnic minority villagers caught in land disputes would go on as planned later this month despite the government’s refusal to approve the march. The provincial coordinator for Adhoc, Pen Bonnar, said ...

Five cashew farmers in Ratanakkiri province will file a lawsuit against Hong An Mang Yang K Rubber Development Company today at the provincial court after the company mistakenly burned down 13 hectares of cashew trees last week, a human rights official said on Friday. With cashew ...

The number of families claiming to have lost contact with relatives working overseas has seen a significant increase in recent months, three human rights groups said Thursday. Local rights groups Adhoc and Licadho and the legal aid association Cambodian Legal Education Center (CLEC), said that ...

Last year saw a record increase in economic land concessions and the area controlled by agro-industrial companies jumped to more than 2 million hectares nationwide, according to human rights groups who track such projects. Mining companies are also flocking to Cambodia and those already have ...

Since its first day of operation in early December, the non-profit kitchen “Buckhunger” has provided nearly 22,00 lunchtime meals to hundreds of needy children and adults for free. There is no record of who comes and goes, and no condition to being fed. If you ...

Eight SET international (SI) schools have closed nationwide over the past two months because of financial problems, and the remaining two schools in Phnom Penh and Kompong Chhnang provinces also appear poised to shut their doors soon, a Ministry of Education official said. The abrupt closings ...

More than two dozen fisheries experts from across the world have sent a letter of concern to the prime minister and Council of Ministers warning that if construction of the Lower Sesan 2 dam goes ahead as planned, it would negatively impact hundreds of thousands ...

Cambodia’s tertiary system is not producing enough of the right type of graduates to meet the economy’s demands, says a report launched by the World Bank last week. The 222-page report, titled “Putting Higher Education to Work”, states that “quantity gaps are particularly strong in ...

The Appeal Court on Tuesday upheld its own previous guilty verdict against a farmer from Kompong Chhnang province for defaming KDC, the agri-business firm owned by Chea Kheng, the wife of Industry, Mines and Energy Minister Suy Sem. Pheng Rom is a member of one ...

Leng Sopheap used to wake up before the crack of dawn and walk with crates of vegetables from her farm to the nearby market underneath a blanket so her neighbors wouldn’t know they were buying produce from someone infected with HIV/AIDS. Not long after her ...

One hundred and twenty families evicted from the Borei Keila community filed a criminal lawsuit with the Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday against Phanimex, the company that ordered the demolition of their homes, seeking a total of $360,000 in damages, residents said. Former resident In ...

Borei Keila evictees who have been sleeping in stairwells near where their houses once stood said yesterday the Phnom Penh municipal authority had promised to help them find homes. Ka Rohanny, 35, a representative of the evicted residents, told the Post Kiet Chhe, deputy administrative president ...

When Chhin Theang picked up the long-awaited title to her Boeung Kak home during a low-key ceremony at the Daun Penh district office on Monday, the moment was bittersweet. “We always had hope because we protested. We had to get land titles,” Ms. Theang said ...

Cambodian women have less chance of being promoted to positions of power than women in any other East Asian country, a report by the NGO Social Watch International has found. But government officials have rejected the findings and maintained the number of females in Cambodia’s ...

Academics at the Royal University of Law and Economics defended banning thesis topics for fourth-year students, arguing that subjects such as illegal drug use and land disputes are written about too often at the school. In a Feb. 2 letter posted online and signed by the ...

Two more Set International Schools (SIS) have closed due to financial troubles, leaving hundreds of primary school students looking for a place to study, parents and a teacher’s union official said yesterday. The closing of the two SIS schools – in Kompong Cham and Pursat provinces ...