Searching Result
Found: 15,658
-
Anti-trafficking fight expands
Cambodia, a common source, transit and destination country for human trafficking, yesterday launched a far-reaching plan to combat the exploitative practice. The 2014 to 2018 National Plan of Action (NPA), which was launched yesterday afternoon at the Interior Ministry, was devised by the National Committee for Counter Trafficking (NCCT), with assistance from USAID and national and international NGOs. Interior Minister Sar Kheng, who chairs the committee, said the new plan is proof of the government’s deep commitment to eradicating trafficking.
Read More -
Four Montagnards Arrive in Capital After Evading Arrest
Four Montagnard asylum seekers, who narrowly escaped capture by police in Ratanakkiri province earlier this month, arrived in Phnom Penh on Monday, the U.N. said. Wan-Hea Lee, country director for the U.N.’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), said in an email that the four refugees met Monday with officials from the U.N.’s High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Phnom Penh.
Read More -
Singaporean Bragged of Sex With Girl In Cambodia
A Singaporean man facing 140 counts of distributing child pornography, and who last week pled guilty to planning a trip to Cambodia to have sex with underage girls, in 2012 also boasted of intercourse with a 15-year-old in Phnom Penh, according to Singaporean media and court documents obtained Monday.
Read More -
Land feud in P Vihear heats up
A Vietnamese-owned company in Preah Vihear province has cleared land claimed by hundreds of villagers to plant crops in violation of the law, a complaint filed with rights groups alleges. The community in Rovieng district’s Ruosroan commune, comprising 127 families, claims that since January last year, workers from the PNT company had cleared the land and refused to allow the villagers to continue to live in enclaves within the concession as previously agreed.
Read More -
Man Arrested for Raping Girl Under House
A teenager was arrested Sunday for raping an 11-year-old girl who was sleeping alone under her grandparent’s house in Kandal province on Friday night following a Buddhist ceremony, according to police. Nou Sopheat, 18, attended a birthday ceremony for the girl’s grandfather at the couple’s home in Sa’ang district’s Sa’ang Phnom commune until about midnight and returned about three hours later after the family had gone to sleep, according to Sa’ang district police chief Seng Socheat.
Read More -
Minister Rejects NGO Report on Illegal Logging Conspiracy
Agriculture Minister Ouk Rabun on Monday rejected the findings of a new Global Witness report that implicates the government in a vast illegal logging operation run by timber tycoon Try Pheap, claiming that the U.K. environmental rights group was ill-informed of the country’s export rules
Read More -
Man pleads guilty to charges of targeting Cambodia’s kids
A Singaporean man who court documents show advised other men on how to arrange sexual encounters with children in Cambodia pleaded guilty to several charges in a Singapore court on Friday. After receiving a tip from the US Federal Bureau of Investigation, Singaporean authorities arrested 31-year-old Chan Chun Hong on March 1, 2014, according to a Consolidated Statement of Facts from the State Courts of the Republic of Singapore, obtained by the Post yesterday. Charges include more than 100 pedophilic crimes. Hong pled guilty to seven charges, including three counts of distributing information to promote commercial sex, according to Singapore’s the Straits Times.
Read More -
City Hall Partitions Land Claimed by Villagers and OCIC
Phnom Penh City Hall on Monday decided to partition a small plot of disputed land in the Overseas Cambodia Investment Corporation’s 387-hectare lease on the Chroy Changva peninsula, giving 10 percent to villagers who claim the land. The Overseas Cambodia Investment Corporation (OCIC) was granted a 99-year lease to the land for an undisclosed sum in 2011 to begin developing its “Chroy Changva City, City of the Future” on the peninsula.
Read More -
Garment-Sector Raises Hit by Falling Overtim
Garment workers around the country have started picking up paychecks this month that for the first time include the $28 increase the government added to the sector’s previous minimum wage of $100. But with available overtime hours on the wane, enthusiasm for the raise is muted.
Read More -
Montagnards enter capital
Four Montagnard asylum seekers who have been hiding in Ratanakkiri province for more than two weeks arrived in Phnom Penh yesterday, where they met with United Nations officials and were referred to the government’s Refugee Department. The quartet, who crossed the border from Vietnam on January 17 to flee alleged religious persecution, has joined 16 other ethnic Jarai Montagnards who are currently processing asylum claims in the capital with the Interior Ministry’s Refugee Department. A 2009 subdecree granted the government sole responsibility for determining refugee status.
Read More -
NGOs Condemn Chinese Firm’s Alleged Abuses
In a joint statement Friday, a group of local NGOs denounced the “serious human rights abuses” of a Chinese company accused of illegally evicting families in Koh Kong province and called on the government to ensure that the firm honor its obligations to the state. Since 2010, the Union Development Group (UDG) has forced more than 1,000 families off a 45,000-hectare tract in Botum Sakor National Park to make way for a $3.8-billion tourist complex. It has continued to pressure a few dozen holdouts—some claim to have been living on the land for decades—to leave as well.
Read More -
Court Charges Four Women With Human Trafficking
The Phnom Penh Municipal Court charged four women with human trafficking on Saturday after they allegedly tricked four other women into being sold to Chinese men as brides, an official said Sunday. The suspects were charged after being arrested in Meanchey and Daun Penh districts on Friday, according to Kim Chenda, director of the anti-human trafficking office in the Interior Ministry’s department of anti-human trafficking and juvenile protection.
Read More -
Four Charged in Mob Killing of Mentally Ill Man
The Kompong Speu Provincial Court has charged four men over the brutal mob killing on Wednesday of a mentally ill man who was suspected of being a thief. Tuon Puttrea, 28, was set upon by a group of about 50 people for allegedly trying to steal a cow and a motorbike. The group tied the man to a tree and burned him alive. Four men—Eam Sahon, 30; Kan San, 28; Oeun Sat, 26; and Pheun Pheas, 28—were arrested the day after the killing. Provincial penal police chief Sam Sak said they were all charged Sunday with murder with aggravated circumstances.
Read More -
Three Charged Over Rape, Trafficking of Two Teenagers
The Svay Rieng Provincial Court on Saturday charged three men with rape and human trafficking following their arrest last week for allegedly kidnapping two teenage garment workers and forcing them to work as prostitutes at a beer garden, officials said Sunday. Provincial court prosecutor Hing Bunchea said deputy prosecutor Keang Suntaror charged the men on Saturday. “We are still investigating the case,” Mr. Bunchea said, declining to comment further. Neat Saroeun, chief of the provincial anti-human trafficking police, said he received missing persons complaints on Tuesday from the families of a 17-year-old girl and an 18-year-old woman—both of whom worked at a garment factory in Bavet City’s Manhattan Special Economic Zone. He said the victims’ families said the two went missing on January 31.
Read More -
NGOs slam proposed law on election speech
Cambodia's leading human rights groups have condemned the ruling and opposition parties’ reported efforts to stymie their voices during election campaigns, arguing such restrictions would violate freedom of expression. The ruling Cambodian People’s Party and opposition Cambodia National Rescue Party have been negotiating changes to the Election Law in line with a July agreement to overhaul the electoral system. One provision they have discussed would seek to ban NGOs from making statements deemed “insulting” to political parties or even giving media interviews in a bid to preserve their political neutrality.
Read More -
NGOs ‘Concerned’ by Proposed Ban on Insults
Nine civil society organizations Wednesday expressed concern that a proposed rule banning NGOs from giving interviews or releasing statements during election campaigns that are deemed to be “insulting” would be used to stifle their voices. The ruling CPP and opposition CNRP are currently drafting a modified national election law, and say the provision is necessary to ensure NGOs remain neutral during official campaign periods.
Read More -
GMAC calls for law enforcement to ensure garment sector stability
PHNOM PENH (The Cambodia Herald) -- The Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC) has called on all trade unionists to respect the law and halt violence if they want stability in Cambodia's garment sector. The appeal was made after one of the union leader led strike outside Apsara Garment Co., Ltd, prompting the factory to halt its process. Seang Rithy, President of Cambodia Labour Solidarity Union Federation, was arrested Wednesday and sent to a police station after he led protests for four days from 30-31 Jan. and from 3-4 Feb. at Apsara garment factory in Phnom Penh's Por Sen Chey district.
Read More -
Municipal Court Questions Arrested Union Head
The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Wednesday began questioning union leader Seang Rithy, who was arrested outside a garment factory in Pur Senchey district on Tuesday while leading what police said was an illegal strike. Mr. Rithy, who heads the Cambodian Labor Solidarity Union Federation, was brought before deputy municipal court prosecutor Meas Chanpiseth in the morning and afternoon for questioning but ultimately was not charged.
Read More -
NGOs ‘Concerned’ by Proposed Ban on Insults
Nine civil society organizations Wednesday expressed concern that a proposed rule banning NGOs from giving interviews or releasing statements during election campaigns that are deemed to be “insulting” would be used to stifle their voices. The ruling CPP and opposition CNRP are currently drafting a modified national election law, and say the provision is necessary to ensure NGOs remain neutral during official campaign periods. A statement released Wednesday—signed by local rights groups including the Cambodian Center for Human Rights, Licadho and Adhoc—says the ban would prove dangerous if introduced.
Read More -
Rights Groups Ask World Bank to Hold Meeting With Evictees
Rights groups have asked the World Bank to schedule a “special meeting” with evictees before deciding whether to lift a freeze on new loans to Cambodia, and to hold it in Thailand so that participants can speak their minds without fear of reprisal from the Cambodian government. In mid-2011, the World Bank announced that it had suspended all new lending to the country in protest over mass evictions in Phnom Penh’s Boeng Kak neighborhood, where the government had refused to hand out land titles under a now-defunct project the bank was funding. Some 3,000 families—most of the neighborhood—had been evicted by then and the bank said it would start lending again only after the government and Boeng Kak residents reached an unspecified “agreement.”
Read More
Generously Supported by
