Women

 A Millennium Development Goal Acceleration Framework action plan presented yesterday by the Ministry of Women’s Affairs and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) seeks to address Panha’s and other women’s lagging economic opportunities in Cambodia. The plan will help Cambodia achieve targeted Millenium Development Goals by 2015. Though no date of ...

Sao Sareoun and Ly Chanary, the two land-rights activists arrested outside the three-hour trial of 13 women from Boeung Kak lake in May, hope an easing of bail conditions is a sign authorities are planning to drop charges against them. The Court of Appeal yesterday ruled ...

A coalition of women’s groups have lashed out at Malaysia for continuing to endorse a “public morality” clause in the draft ASEAN Declaration on Human Rights. They claim the clause is subjective and discriminates against women and sexual minorities and should be ditched. Currently being drafted by ...

International human rights groups added their voices to the chorus of criticism over the detention of two female anti-eviction activists from the Boeng Kak and Borei Keila communities, accusing the court of failing to honor fair trial standards. In a statement issued late Thursday, Amnesty International, ...

Imprisoned Yorm Bopha has either been unjustly targeted for her role in Boeung Kak lake eviction protests or is responsible for the vicious beating of two motodops, depending on which protesters’ chants were true yesterday. It was land evictees versus motodops in the capital as two ...

Police in Phnom Penh blocked all attempts by anti-eviction protesters to march out of the city’s Boeng Kak community yesterday, but made no attempt to stop a counter-demonstration against the marchers by a little-known association of tuk-tuk and motorcycle-taxi drivers. About 150 residents of the Boeng ...

The U.N.’s Special Rapporteur on Adequate Housing, Raquel Rolnik, has waded in to the furor surrounding the imprisonment this week of two anti-eviction activists from Boeng Kak and Borei Keila communities, posing with a poster calling for the release of the two women. Yorm Bopha, 32, ...

The ban on sending Cambodian women for employment as maids in Malaysia will be lifted once certain safety and training precautions for workers are established, a senior government official said yesterday. Seng Sakada, the director general of the Ministry of Labour, said that his office is ...

Police and court officials yesterday questioned, charged and imprisoned elderly woman involved in the long-running land dispute at the Borei Keila community in Phnom Penh, a day after an anti-eviction protester from Boeng Kak community met a similar fate. In both cases, police and court officials ...

A 65-year-old woman who has spent months sleeping under a staircase at Borei Keila yesterday became the second land-rights activist sent to Prey Sar prison in little more than 24 hours. Phnom Penh Municipal Court investigating judge Ly Leabmeng questioned villager representative Tim Sakmony for almost ...

Prominent Boeung Kak villager and protester Yorm Bopha was yesterday jailed in Phnom Penh’s Prey Sar prison, after she and her husband – en route to check for their names on a voting register – were pounced on by police in plain clothes in what ...

An investigation by garment factory monitor Better Factories Cambodia into the alleged sexual harassment of four female employees at Ocean Garment uncovered extensive verbal abuse, according to BFC technical adviser Jill Tucker. A BFC team visited the Dangkor district site on August 24 after a group ...

Ten months after the government suspended sending Cambodian women to work as maids in Malaysia, following numerous reports of abuse by employers and recruitment companies, families say they have completely lost contact with their loved ones who continue to work in Malaysian households. Local rights group Adhoc has recorded ...

Malaysia needs to start “paying attention” to a worker protection agreement with Cambodia that has languished for almost two years, a Ministry of Interior official said at a meeting yesterday. The meeting, which included officials from the ministries of Interior, Women’s Affairs, Tourism, Foreign Affairs and ...

The Ocean Garment manager facing a slew of sexual harassment charges has lashed out at the union representing the 2,500 workers on strike over the past two weeks, claiming its delegates provoked the strike after management cracked down on absent workers and overtime requests. In a ...

Two months after their release from Prey Sar prison, members of the so-called Boeung Kak 13 were yesterday at the forefront of more calls for authorities to mark out land promised to their community. About 50 Boeung Kak women and children gathered outside to urge authorities to ...

(UN ESCAP Strategic Communications and Advocacy Section)- “Investing in women’s entrepreneurial leadership, and the empowerment of women, is smart economics- which is why women’s empowerment is one of the most important development priorities for the countries of Asia and the Pacifc,” said Dr. Noeleen Heyzer, ...

Women sales promoters working in bars in Cambodia are occasionally exposed to harassment by customers varying from being coerced into drinking and in some cases, being subjected to sexual abuse. Cambodia Carlsberg Group and The Danish Confederation of Trade Unions (LO) have joined forces in a ...

More than 2,500 Ocean Garment factory workers jostled with about 100 military police in the capital’s Dangkor district yesterday in their second protest march over the alleged sexual harassment of four female employees. In an inter-governmental ministerial committee meeting on Tuesday, Ocean – which supplies ...

Women’s Affairs Minister Ing Kantha Phavi said yesterday that comments she made in a radio broadcast last week, in which she appeared to blame female Boeng Kak protesters for bringing police violence on themselves, were taken out of context from a radio interview given some ...

More than 2,00 female workers from a factory in Phnom Penh that makes clothes for the U.S. brand Gap protested yesterday for a third straight day demanding that the firm sack a manager at the factory for allegedly abusing workers. Lining Russian Boulevard near the Ocean ...

The second mass fainting in a month at Kampong Chhnang’s M&V garment factory, a supplier for global retailer H&M, saw 23 women taken to hospital yesterday, bringing the total number of affected workers in August to 67. Noun Sam Ol, president of the Free Trade Union ...

Cambodia needed to invest in women to aid its development and integration into the ASEAN economic community, United Nations Under Secretary-General Noeleen Heyzer said yesterday. Heyzer, executive secretary of the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific(ESCAP), met with Minister of Women’s Affairs Ing Kantha ...

Ocean Garment yesterday refused to meet the sole demand of thousands of striking workers to have their manager, accused of sexual harassment, sacked. An inter-governmental ministerial committee met with union and employer representatives, but Bangladeshi-owned Ocean Garment – which supplies retail titan Gap – refused to ...