Social development

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 ...

The Svay Rieng Provincial Court yesterday summoned Bavet city governor Chhuk Bundith for questioning over his alleged role in the shooting of three female garment workers at a special economic zone (SEZ) in the province two weeks ago, court officials said. Human rights groups continued ...

Fourth-year students at Phnom Penh’s Royal University of Law and Economics (RULE) have been barred from writing their theses on 14 topics, including Cambodia’s new bourse, according to a letter posted online yesterday. The letter, signed by the university’s research department director Kong Saphon ...

Confusion continued to swirl around the fate of Bavet city Governor Chhuk Bundith yesterday after the Interior Ministry last week identified him as the sole suspect in the Feb. 20 triple shooting of protesters at a special economic zone (SEZ). While human rights groups claimed yesterday ...

Education experts and professors from around the world gathered over the weekend in Phnom Penh to discuss ways to strengthen mathematics in Cambodia and other developing countries. the problem is not a lack of student capability, said Lin Mongkolsery, a mathematics teacher at the Institute ...

Local human rights group Adhoc has requested provincial approval to stage a large-scale march later this month involving hundreds of indigenous minorities embroiled in a land dispute in Ratanakiri province. The demonstration is being organized to bring attention to what minority villagers claim is judicial ...

The Royal Government of Cambodia and private land developers were exploiting indigenous communities in Mondulkiri and Ratanakiri provinces by signing concession deals for the communities’ land without prior consultation, advocates said yesterday. “We urge the government as well as the private sector to respect [indigenous peoples’] ...

More than 200 villagers from Kandal’s Kien Svay district gathered in protest yesterday to urge the National Authority for Land Dispute Resolution to resolve their long-standing dispute with a CPP official. The protesters assembled in the Samrong Thom commune brandishing photos of the prime minister and ...

Eleven village representatives from Stung Treng and Ratanakiri provinces traveled to Phnom Penh yesterday to meet with National Assembly lawmakers and appeal for an end to the planned construction of the Lower Sesan 2 Dam. The hydropower project, funded by Vietnam Electricity, will flood tens ...

Ten representatives from the Borei Keila community met with Phnom Penh police chief Touch Naruth yesterday to discuss whether their housing documents could qualify them for an apartment, a representative said yesterday. Chhum Ngan said Mr. Naruth asked representatives to furnish housing documents from 106 ...

If the government continues to grant economic land and mining concessions at the current rate, there will be no more arable land left in the country to give away within one year, a researcher from the Cambodian Centre for Human Rights said yesterday. Pointing to the ...