News

More than 60 percent of mothers and young children in Cambodia are suffering from dangerously low levels of iodine in what a new study describes as a “serious public health problem.”   ...

The Ministry of Rural Development, UNICEF and NGO Plan International Cambodia on Monday launched a new project to improve access to sanitation for 2,000 families in Ratanakkiri province. ...

Violence against children cost Cambodia approximately $168 million in 2013, or just over 1 per cent of GDP, according to a new report from the government and UNICEF that explores the economic impacts of physical abuse.Titled The economic burden of health consequences of violence against ...

Almost 75 percent of kids in the country’s orphanages are there because their families can’t afford to keep them at home. In 2011, UNICEF released a study saying that the number of orphanages in Cambodia had increased by 75 percent in the previous six years, ...

The open defecation rate in Cambodia has dropped by 42 percent since 1990, according to a new U.N. report, but the country’s urban poor still have limited access to improved sanitation. ...

Every day, 35 Cambodian children die before their fifth birthday. Their premature deaths are caused mainly by such preventable and treatable diseases as diarrhea or pneumonia. ...

Working with Unicef, Cambodia will develop a 10-year national strategy to boost birth-registration rates and build an integrated database encompassing identity records for the entire population, recently released tender documents reveal. Among the challenges to improving the birth-registration system, according to Kosalvathanak, is a lack ...

Minister for Social Affairs Vong Soth yesterday vowed to cut the amount of children in orphanages by 30 per cent within two years through a joint campaign with NGOs. Dubbed “Keep Families Together”, the initiative, backed by USAID, UNICEF and Friends International, will urge parents to ...

Minister for Social Affairs Vong Soth yesterday vowed to cut the amount of children in orphanages by 30 per cent within two years through a joint campaign with NGOs. Dubbed “Keep Families Together”, the initiative, backed by USAID, UNICEF and Friends International, will urge parents to ...

The Ministry of Education will ask government schools to provide information on toilet numbers, fresh water supply and vegetable gardens as part of efforts to tackle poor sanitation and nutrition discouraging students from attending class. ...

A report based on interviews with 54 children has exposed critical failings in Cambodia’s judicial system, recounting stories of unpleasant experiences in the presence of police, doctors and court rooms. UNICEF and Hagar, a child rights NGO based in Cambodia, released Wednesday “A System Just for ...

Following the detention this week of homeless children as young as 1 year old at Phnom Penh’s notorious Prey Speu vocational training centre, UNICEF yesterday called for an end to street sweeps and arbitrary detentions. Three people rounded up on Sunday said in separate accounts this ...

The UN Children’s Fund in Australia has warned volunteers and tourists to avoid visiting Cambodian orphanages following critical reports from the press in recent weeks. In a post on its website, UNICEF Australia said “these types of tours exploit children and their families for the financial ...

Just before the sun sets over the enchanting Angkor temples in northern Cambodia, a group of children gets ready for their big show. Every day, according to fliers at restaurants and hotels around town, the children perform an hour-long “charity show” for tourists visiting the ...

At nearly half of the Kingdom’s primary schools, students have to make a daily choice between drinking contaminated water or going thirsty, a dilemma the government hopes to soon banish with new minimum sanitation and safe water standards. The guidelines, which have yet to be finalised ...

The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) announced Thursday its Integrated Nutrition, Hygiene, and Sanitation Program that will improve the lives of mothers and young children by teaching better nutrition and hygiene practices and increasing the use of latrines.The five-year, $16 million project will benefit ...

Dara Raksmey, the owner of a pharmacy of the same name on Phnom Penh’s Street 294, keeps a record of every can of Dumex baby formula she sells. “If you buy six large cans you get a scooter and if you buy 12 large cans you ...

Baby formula manufacturers are flouting a sub-decree that bans promotions of formula in stores and health-care facilities, the World Health Organization, Unicef and three NGOs said in a statement Wednesday. According to the statement, 41 percent of stores selling breast milk substitutes in Phnom Penh had ...

Many maternal fatalities in Cambodia are not being officially recorded, experts have warned. According to Unicef Cambodia, government figures indicate that the country’s maternal death rate is falling, the Phnom Penh Post reports. ...

It is almost four years since the UN General Assembly declared that water was a human right, meaning every person should have access to safe water and basic sanitation, yet 6.3 million Cambodians do not have this basic necessity, UNICEF said to mark World Water ...

The last of three draft laws written with the aim of cleaning up the courts establishes four new judicial chambers, but legal and political experts worry that it does little to loosen the grip of Prime Minister Hun Sen’s Justice Ministry over the courts. The draft ...

Villagers emerge from the shade of their homes and gingerly roll up their sleeves, turning their palms upwards to reveal skin braided with dark lesions, ulcers and decaying tissue. They point to houses up and down the street where people have died of symptoms like ...

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 number of Cambodian rural households with access to latrines increased from 23 to 33 per cent in 2013, a Ministry of Rural Development report released yesterday says. Chreay Pom, director of the ministry’s rural health care department, said that last year, the ministry constructed about ...