Sen Simon, 36, gazed at her flooded rice field and home from high ground in Kampong Thom province’s Baray commune. Her daily food and other necessities were taken care of by the government, but she saw little hope for her future, after severe flooding inundated the area last month.
An activist organization in Malaysia said Wednesday that the governments of Phnom Penh and Kuala Lumpur need to work actively to strengthen protections for domestic workers traveling from Cambodia.
Cambodian-Americans in Long Beach, Calif., held a fundraiser late last month to help Cambodians still struggling with monsoon flooding. About 400 residents gathered at the New Paradise Restaurant on Oct. 28, in the Cambodia Town neighborhood of the city, raising nearly $16,000 in donations
With the Khmer Rouge tribunal facing its second case and continued criticism over its handling of two more, a leading court monitor says the UN needs to consider itself a partner and “set an example.” “Since its inception, there has been no one on the UN side to take full responsibility for the success or failure of the court,” Long Panhavuth, a monitor for the Cambodia Justice Initiative, told “Hello VOA” Monday.
The Cambodian Embassy in Washington is helping to raise funds for floods victims in Cambodia, following weeks of inundation that has left thousands of families stranded. At a gathering in Washington Sunday, the embassy collected around $6,500 from some 200 Cambodian-Americans, the ambassador, Hem Heng, told VOA Khmer. At least 250 people have died in the floods, which began in August and continued through September
The National Assembly passed a law to reform prisons on Monday, but critics say its wording remains unclear and that one section that allows prisoners to work for private companies should not have been included. Cambodia has around 15,000 prisoners in 28 prisons across the country, creating severe overcrowding and unrest. Other problems within the system include corruption within the judiciary and the prison system, and arbitrary detention and releases
Cambodia’s history shows that a lack of freedoms and equal rights have led to unrest in the past, a pattern that could repeat itself, a leading political analyst said Thursday, adding that Cambodia today is lacking in morals, making it harder for the country to develop.
[Editor’s note: On Oct.
More jobs at home and better skills training could keep Cambodia’s poor from being exploited as migrant workers, a leading opposition lawmaker says. An increasing number of workers are seeking jobs abroad, but the work can be rife with danger, including slave labor on fishing vessels, sex trafficking and others. Women are especially at risk, with the problem of migrant labor underscored last month when Cambodia banned workers from traveling to work as maids in Malaysia, pending an investigation into abuses there and the practice of the hiring of underage girls by recruitment firms
“Enemies of the People,” an award-winning documentary that follows one journalist’s search for answers about the Khmer Rouge, screened at a pagoda in Maryland this weekend, prompting many questions from the audience, some of them yet unanswered. The film follows journalist Thet Sambath as he interviews former low-level cadre and the regime’s chief ideologue, Nuon Chea, who is now facing atrocity crimes charges at the UN-backed tribunal in Phnom Penh. The film screened at the Buddhikarama pagoda in Silver Spring, Md., on Sunday.