The U.N. on Tuesday publicly released a letter challenging the government over alleged “intimidation” against a Licadho official, as the government continued to attack the group for participating in “a network” of local and international organizations working to “fabricate” news about Cambodia.
The Labor Ministry this week warned a labor leader and her union that it could be dissolved over her allegedly illegal incitement of workers to protest over a garment factory closure that left workers without contracts and compensation.
More than half of surveyed families in a Banteay Meanchey village said the need to repay microfinance loans compelled some in their households to migrate to Thailand for work, which researchers say is part of a longtime, well-documented trend of debt-driven migration.
Prime Minister Hun Sen said a new law on declaring a state of emergency is coming soon as the country’s confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus climbed to 107 on Monday.
The incarcerated mother of a 5-month-old baby girl who died while under the state’s care one month ago was released from prison on Friday, a government committee said.
The government’s human rights committee was “unlikely” to further investigate anyone responsible for the death of a 5-month-old baby who was living with her mother in prison, since the committee had already determined that the child died of “poor health,” its spokesman said.
A five-month-old child who lived with her incarcerated mother in a Phnom Penh prison died while under the care of state institutions, human rights group Licadho said, following renewed calls by Prime Minister Hun Sen to hasten trial proceedings for women in detention.
Two NGOs have declined a second meeting with a government spokesman after already discussing their joint report on the country’s microfinance sector with him last week.
UPDATED 10 a.m. — A government spokesman has called for a closed-door meeting with the authors of a critical report on the nation’s microfinance sector, which found that loan debt had resulted in “serious and systematic human rights abuses” against borrowers.
As prisoner numbers continue to swell far beyond the capacities of Cambodia’s overcrowded jails, the government has been urged to act on pledges to reduce the number of incarcerated women giving birth and raising children behind bars.
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