ប្រជាជន និងជំរឿន

Thousands of Cambodians cross the border via illegal checkpoints into Thailand every year. Some end up working in slave-like conditions on illegal fishing trawlers. Others work in factories while getting paid under the table. It is often a last resort fraught with danger and uncertainty and ...

Their stories have become all too familiar – Cambodian fishermen enslaved on fishing boats after being promised lucrative jobs overseas. They’re also becoming increasingly common. Anti-trafficking NGOs told the Post this week that they have noticed an exponential increase in the number of trafficking complaints from ...

Getting reliable statistical data remains a challenge for Cambodia’s government, as a lack of cooporation among the ministries and corruption still distort what is reality. Industry insiders say this is a problem, especially as reliable data are the base of reference when the Association of Southeast ...

Since 1998, Phnom Penh’s population has doubled to more than 2 million. High-rise buildings have popped up in the city’s center and housing developments have been hastily erected. Yet the city’s antiquated, decades-old drainage system has undergone little improvement in that time and experts say the ...

After the fourth Joint Trade Commission (JTC) recently, Commerce Minister Boonsong Teriyapirom said that Thailand and Cambodia had the potential to drive two-way trade up by 30 per cent, due to strong growth in 2012. Last year, bilateral trade grew by 40.5 per cent year on ...

Going by the World Bank’s method of grouping nation states by their wealth, Cambodia this year could become a lower-middle income country. Not satisfied, however, with this graduation—a feat in itself from Cambodia’s position of extreme poverty just two decades ago when gross domestic product (GDP) ...

Cambodia’s first-ever agricultural census is under way, tasked with addressing the lack of reliable statistical information on one of  the Kingdom’s most crucial economic sectors. The census is being taken by the government with assistance from the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) in two ...

Cambodia is making plans to open passport offices along its border with Thailand in a bid to cut down on illegal migration, Interior Minister Sar Kheng announced yesterday. Speaking at the close of a migration workshop, Kheng said that officials are already preparing to open a ...

llegall migration is on the rise, but human trafficking cases appear to be declining, according to the government’s annual labor migration report, released yesterday. Speaking at the start of a three-day workshop held at the Ministry of Interior that involving embassies, NGOs and government officials, Chou ...

The Mekong Migration Network yesterday ended a three-day symposium by urging countries in the Mekong basin to provide migrant workers with sufficient legal protections and to improve their working and living conditions. The network brought together 72 representatives of governments, academic institutions, INGOs, NGOs and migrant ...

With Myanmar’s telecom industry showing signs of gradually opening, operators in Cambodia’s overcrowded telecom market see opportunities for potential investment. But in stride with the market’s latent potential come challenges, industry experts say, and lessons learned locally need to be applied overseas. “Myanmar remains one of the ...

Cambodia is facing a grave labor shortage due to the large number of workers seeking jobs in Thailand, Prime Minister Hun Sen said yesterday, urging employers to help reduce illegal migration by improving working conditions at home. Mr. Hun Sen also applauded growing Japanese investment in ...

Cambodia’s garment factories face a shortage of workers, because of migration, more job opportunities in different sectors and poor labour conditions, industry experts said. According to Ken Loo, secretary general of the Garment Manufacturer’s Association in Cambodia, there is a definite shortage of labour in Phnom ...

Additional investments in family planning yields economic benefits and would save developing countries more than US$11 billion annually, according to a UN report. Better access to family planning in developing countries would reduce costs for maternal and newborn health care by $11.3 billion per year, according ...

The abuse of Cambodian maids overseas has become one of the most documented human rights violation here. But as the Government, media, NGOs and aid agencies focus their energies on domestic laborer living abroad, advocates have begun to urge that closer attention be paid to ...

Rating agency Standard & Poor’s (S&P) on Friday reaffirmed Cambodia’s long-term sovereign credit rating of “B” due to the country’s positive growth outlook, but again warned of risks related to the country’s narrow economic base. “Economic output growth is vulnerable due to the still large ...

Approximately 150 parliamentarians, government officials, recruitment agency representatives, trade unions leaders, and development partners gathered here on Monday to discuss ways and measures to promote and protect the rights of Cambodian migrant workers. Speaking at the opening of the parliamentary forum on the promotion and protection ...

A new made-service company that claims to be the only one of its kind in Cambodia is offering an alternative employment option for the country’s many domestic workers who face insecure, and often abusive, workplace conditions overseas. Ming Hour Home Service, which opened in July, employs ...

Jobs are a cornerstone of development in developing countries, reducing poverty, making cities work and providing youth with alternatives to violence, according to a new World Bank report. Jobs are crucial for achieving economic and social development, the World Development Report 2013 said. According to ...

When 29-year-old store manager Srey Mom sent her mother in Takeo province some money to pay young people to help with the rice planting, her mother told her it was no use – the young people had abandoned the village to seek their fortunes in ...

Many groups, including the ruling party, would benefit from a proposed access to information law – which would provide transparency when it comes to the government’s development plans and spending – a Council of Ministers official said yesterday. Tuot Lux, a legal expert who has been ...

The number of Internet users in Cambodia more than doubled last year, but the country still has the third-lowest Internet penetration rate in the region, according to recent statistics released by the World Bank. Internet users jumped from 178,142 in 2010 to 443,461 in 2011-reaching about ...

Nearly 450 Cambodians who were illegally working in Thailand were repatriated across the Battambang province border on Saturday in one of the largest one-day operations along that border, officials said yesterday. Thai authorities had rounded up the 447 workers, who were busted without the required paperwork, ...

One of the biggest challenges to protecting Cambodian migrant workers is the sheer distance between their homeland and the countries they are working in, Ministry of Labour officials said yesterday. A pattern has emerged in which brokers lure more and more Cambodians away from traditional border-country ...