Cambodia Aims Hybrid Digital Currency On Blockchain At unbanked

When Cambodia’s central bank launched a pilot for a digital payment system in July 2019, its aim was to increase financial inclusion in the country and expand use of the local currency over the U.S. dollar. Then came the coronavirus pandemic. For the National Bank of Cambodia (NBC), which had been researching a blockchain-based payment […]
Men Enlisted To Fight ‘Tradition’ Of Gender Violence In Cambodia

Dinner is late. The laundry isn’t done. The pickles aren’t sour enough. When it comes to reasons for a man to beat his wife, Rem Ran has heard it all. For most his 40 years, the construction worker saw domestic violence as “a normal part of life” in a nation where, until 2007, girls were […]
Law To Ban ‘Inappropriate’ Dress In Cambodia Seen Threatening Women’s Freedoms

A proposed law that would let Cambodian police fine people deemed to be dressed inappropriately could be used to curtail women’s freedoms and reinforce a culture of impunity around sexual violence, rights campaigners say. The draft legislation, which will take effect next year if approved by several government ministries and the national assembly, would […]
Virus Fears Weigh On Cambodia’s Garment Workers

Climbing onto a crowded truck each morning, Cambodian seamstress Sim Samphor cannot help but worry about catching the coronavirus that has closed down most of the country in recent weeks. Schools, restaurants and casinos have been ordered to shut, religious gatherings and sporting fixtures banned, and hotels turned into makeshift hospitals by the government. Parliament […]
Cambodia Proves Fertile Ground For Foreign Surrogacy After Thailand Ban

After a long day of selling snacks at her son’s primary school, Kew, who is seven months pregnant, squats on the Bangkok pavement to take a rest. The single mother has no idea whose baby she is carrying, or where its future parents live. She says it makes no difference to her. “The first […]
Cambodians Sue US And Thai Firms Over Trafficking And Forced Labour Claims

Cambodian villagers have filed a lawsuit against four companies that supply American supermarkets, claiming they were trafficked to work under slavery-like conditions in a Thai seafood factory that exports to the US. The civil lawsuit, filed in June in a California federal court, accuses the US and Thai firms of knowingly profiting from the villagers’ […]
Robot Factories Could Threaten Jobs Of Millions Of Garment Workers

The jobs of nearly 90% of garment and footwear workers in Cambodia and Vietnam are at risk from automated assembly lines – or “sewbots” – according to a new report from the International Labour Organisation (ILO). There are 9 million people, mostly young women, dependent upon jobs in textiles, garments, and footwear within the Association […]