Chinese nationals, as young as 15 years old, are being trafficked and forced to work in online gambling and scam companies in Sihanoukville, according to pleas for help sent to a group of Chinese volunteers that rescues victims of human trafficking in Cambodia.
As mega-developer OCIC completes the filling-in of Phnom Penh’s new island, Koh Norea, nearby Chbar Ampov residents are staring at a mound of sand anxiously unsure if they will be evicted by the development or driven out by real estate speculation.
The trucks are not carrying sugarcane. There is no sugarcane for kilometers. Instead, the cleared land is filled with rice paddy ready for harvest. Kuy villagers in Preah Vihear are moving back onto plantation land from which they were once evicted.
The sister of disappeared activist Wanchalearm Satsaksit was summoned to a prosecutor’s office on Monday. Though it’s a first for Sitanan, criminal prosecution has become a routine reality for hundreds of Thais taking a stand in the country’s pro-democracy movement.
Both Nhung, 61, and Sok, 46, have lived their whole lives in Cambodia except to escape Khmer Rouge purges against ethnic Vietnamese. Now, alongside hundreds, they have been evicted from floating homes here, some told to cross a border blockaded by Vietnamese ships.
“Is this how things are supposed to happen in Cambodia?” Mean Pich Rita, who has accused an oknha of attempted rape, asks her mother in a widely circulated video. It is painful and frustrating to have to give a simple but true answer to this question: Yes, this is the way it has been, writes Future Forum researcher Theang Soriya.
In recognition of International Women’s Day, we gathered our own experiences, and the perspectives of several other women and men in newsrooms, to open a discussion about equity in journalism — whether the issues are about newsroom culture or punishable by law.
Volunteer community patrollers along the Mekong aim to stop a rise in illegal electric fishing, which harms river ecosystems and livelihoods that rely on protected fisheries. But the sale of outlawed gear allows the dangerous practice to continue.
Environmental advocacy group Mother Nature Cambodia is known for their confrontational videos, with activists exposing crimes against nature. But with three members jailed, and others facing harassment, the group has decided to conceal their identities.
A small number of remaining old masters are fighting to preserve Cambodian martial arts l’bokator after surviving the genocidal Khmer Rouge regime. Through their passion, the martial art is slowly regaining its popularity — with some of its ritualistic and violent traditions transformed as they are passed onto younger generations.
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