Tens of thousands of garment workers, who are facing slashed work hours and wages amid the global pandemic and economic downturn, will struggle to repay mounting microfinance debt, a new civil society report says.
![A woman holds a sign saying “The pain of the people is the pain of Samdech [Prime Minister Hun Sen]” as nightlife workers filed a petition to the premier’s cabinet asking for aid on June 25, 2020. (Hy Chhay/VOD)](https://126372.smushcdn.com/1482014/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/2020-06-25-nightlife-worker-petition-462x290.jpg?lossy=1&strip=1&webp=1)
Many nightlife industry workers — from bartenders to waitresses — have gone months without a stable salary, and some say they are discouraged by the lack of social welfare funding for their sector’s workers.
At his Phnom Penh laundry shop, owner Thy Leanghour exclusively employs people living with disabilities, offering his staff an opportunity to independently earn an income and challenge the biases often associated with disability in the workplace.
About 100 fired garment workers have been guarding their closed factory in shifts since mid-January. They aim to ensure the owner does not sell equipment left inside and disappear with the money before paying workers what they are owed by the end of May.
Forestry watchdogs say they have seen increased logging activity in the Prey Lang sanctuary, especially after independent forest patrollers were stopped by authorities from entering, but officials have defended their ban on unregistered forest patrols.
More than 40 people have been arrested this year in relation to alleged chaos-causing incitement and spreading coronavirus-related “fake news,” a police spokesman said.
The editor-in-chief of popular online news outlet TVFB was jailed on Thursday on incitement charges in relation to a Facebook post in which he shared remarks made by Prime Minister Hun Sen this week about struggling informal workers.
The government said it will not release any of the nation’s nearly 39,000 prisoners on bail amid the Covid-19 pandemic, despite concerns about possible outbreaks in prisons raised by human rights groups, the U.N. and prisoners’ families.
The government has raised traffic fines by as much as five times the previous rates in an effort to reduce rising roadway injuries and deaths, but officials said new penalties would not be immediately imposed to give police time to adjust.
Prime Minister Hun Sen on Monday said China was transporting raw textile materials to Cambodia to relieve some garment factories of shortages caused by the Covid-19 outbreak, which a union leader called a welcome but short-term fix.
An online petition launched on Tuesday by the outlawed main opposition party calling for investigations into extrajudicial killings in Cambodia, and foreign visa sanctions and the freezing of assets of Prime Minister Hun Sen and others has gained more than 400 signers, with goals of half a million signatories.
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