News

Rights groups say families being forced off their land by development projects recently revealed to have World Bank Group backing could probably file successful complaints against the institution, effectively forcing it to help the families save their homes or at least win better compensation. ...

NGOs have filed a new complaint against Australia’s ANZ Bank claiming it owes compensation to 681 Cambodian families who say their farms were illegally grabbed by a sugarcane plantation the bank helped to finance. ...

More than 15 months after a Global Witness report revealed that Vietnam’s state-owned rubber giant had illegally cleared land and displaced communities in Cambodia, the company has announced that it will accept and respond to complaints from those whose lives it has damaged. Vietnam Rubber Group, ...

Early this month, in what looks like a failed attempt to save its reputation, Australia‘s ANZ Bank severed its ties with Phnom Penh Sugar, a company accused of a range of human rights abuses linked to its plantations in Kampong Speu province, Cambodia. The move ...

Families forced to leave their homes to make way for a railway rehabilitation project funded by the Asian Development Bank and the Australian government have told the bank that a draft compensation plan it has drawn up to remedy their situation is inadequate. On Monday, Inclusive ...

Rights groups are calling out the Australian government for being “curiously absent” from discussions about further compensation for thousands of families affected by a railway rehabilitation project that it co-funded with the Asian Development Bank. The bank has borne the brunt of criticism over botched resettlement ...

The government has agreed to review its resettlement agreement with families relocated from railways as part of an Asian Development Bank (ADB)-funded rehabilitation project, but has refused a recommendation to set up a debt-relief scheme for the evictees, according to an action plan released by ...

In 2011, Oeun Phirun took out a $450 loan from the Asian Development Bank, using half to buy a used motorbike and spending the rest on a small flock of ducks and chickens he hoped to raise. His family and about 1,000 others have been evicted ...

The International Finance Corporation’s compliance ombudsman has officially accepted a complaint filed by ethnic minority families in Ratanakkiri province against the IFC for investing in rubber plantations accused of stealing land and clearing forests. In a letter sent to the families on Monday, the ombudsman deems ...

The World Bank says it will investigate reports from indigenous groups in Cambodia that a company funded by the bank’s International Finance Corporation is involved in deforestation and land grabs. The bank’s Office of the Compliance Adviser Ombudsman, or CAO, will first examine the credibility of ...

Newly approved plans by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to fix mistakes it made on a $143 million railway project appear to water down recommendations proposed by the Bank’s own review panel, and could impose the costs of the plan on the very families who ...

In May of 2010, just four days after their family was resettled in Battambang province, two children, accompanied by their sister-in-law, walked to a pond. Stories differ as to why they were there. Rights groups say they went to bathe and collect water. Police claim ...

Rights groups yesterday called on ANZ bank to help address alleged labour and environmental violations at Phnom Penh Sugar Company instead of walking away from the problem. A joint statement released yesterday by Equitable Cambodia and Inclusive Development International said it would be wrong for the ...

The European Parliament has passed a resolution calling on the bloc’s executive body to urgently act on an EU preferential trade scheme found to have carried high risks of human rights violations in Cambodia through land evictions for industrial sugar development. In a January 16 resolution, ...

A draft US law that would require the World Bank to regularly report to congress about the condition of families displaced or still living in the Boeung Kak lake area was approved Wednesday by the House of Representatives. The bill includes language that specifically requires the ...

After repeatedly equivocating about whether it has lifted a 2011 freeze on new lending to Cambodia in response to the government’s forced evictions of families in Phnom Penh, the World Bank has said that the suspension is still firmly in place. “The World Bank has not ...

KAMPONG SPEU PROVINCE— Three years ago, Pao had a farm and a charcoal stove near a stream in a community called Omlaing in western Cambodia. The farm gave her rice, charcoal sales gave her extra income and the nearby forest provided edible and medicinal plants. Pao ...

The World Bank is under pressure to review some of its policies around the world to ensure that in countries like Cambodia it is not funding the wrong projects. In a discussion at George Washington University this week, panelists said the World Bank is needed for ...

More than four years after the violent forced eviction of about 800 families from Dey Krahorm in the capital’s high-rent Tonle Bassac commune, small-scale construction is finally beginning on the site. In the past month, the skeletons of a future barbecue restaurant and a beer garden ...

The Asian Development Bank has refused to release a critical study on the impacts its $141.6 million railway project is having on thousands of Cambodian families because disclosure of the report could hurt its relationship with the government, an ADB spokeswoman said. Raising concerns about the ...

The World Bank has declined to say whether it will resume providing financial assistance to Cambodia, despite a bank official allegedly telling anti-eviction protesters last week that the organization planned to do so next year. In August 2011, World Bank country director for Southeast Asia Annette ...

Following our investigation which highlighted allegations of human rights abuses in Cambodia’s sugar industry, activists are stepping up their campaign against sugar companies buying from the region. The call to boycott sugar company Tate and Lyle over allegations of illegal land seizures and human rights ...

Thirty families uprooted by Cambodia’s railway rehabilitation project have filed a complaint with Australia’s highest human rights body, alleging rights abuses as a result of the partially AusAid-funded rail project. The complaint to the Australian Human Rights Commission was made on behalf of the families by NGOs Equitable Cambodia and Inclusive ...

Families have fallen into poverty and children have dropped out of school due to deficiencies in the Asian Development Bank’s rehabilitation of Cambodia’s railway system, according to a complaint filed to the bank’s compliance review department. According to David Pred, managing associate for NGO Inclusive Development International, ...