Social development
Housing rights and evictions
Orange Line plans hit giant bump
The Transport Ministry is planning to review the western section of the Mass Rapid Transit Authority’s (MRTA) Orange Line — from the Thailand Cultural Centre to Taling Chan — after residents refused to relocate. News of the review comes a day after the cabinet approved the construction ...
Report slams dam payouts
Households displaced by the massive Lower Sesan II hydropower dam project in Stung Treng province are being under-compensated by as much as $80,000, according to a new study. The research, published by the Rivers Coalition of Cambodia and led by political aspirant Kem Ley, found that ...
Dozens of Phnom Penh's homeless sent to Prey Speu
Just weeks after reports emerged of more fatalities from Phnom Penh’s Prey Speu social affairs centre and ensuing promises of reform, authorities yesterday rounded up dozens more homeless people and detained them at the notorious facility. Kim Vutha, Daun Penh district’s chief of security, said 61 ...
Ratanakkiri official defends disputed land
A Ministry of Interior immigration official at the centre of a long-running land dispute in a gem mining district of Ratanakkiri spoke out for the first time on 29 October, just days after 200 villagers protested what they termed their illegal eviction. The villagers from Bakeo ...
Rights report decries Thai sugar firm’s tactics
Asia’s largest sugar producer, Mitr Phol, is responsible for violating the rights of hundreds of villagers in Oddar Meanchey who saw their land grabbed, homes destroyed and livestock killed to make way for plantations, according to the National Human Rights Commission of Thailand (NHRCT). The Thai ...
In Vietnamese floating villages, a precarious life
For the thousand or so ethnic Vietnamese families who have lived and fished for years in the floating villages along the Tonle Sap river in Cambodia’s Kompong Chhnang province, the insecurity of their lives here was made clear last week. Evicted from moorings in the center ...
Compensation for Yangon-Dala bridge to be paid this month
In an apparent effort to ensure good relations with local residents and avoid the problems that have dogged other development projects, local authorities have agreed to pay compensation in advance to people forced to move to make way for the Yangon-Dala Bridge. The committee set up ...
Police block marchers on World Habitat Day
More than 1,000 demonstrators from about 50 communities across the country gathered Monday to mark U.N. World Habitat Day and protest against widespread land and housing evictions, but found their march blocked by municipal authorities, who claimed the protesters posed a risk to security. Beginning the ...
On Cambodia's Tonle Sap, Vietnamese families face mass eviction
The Kompong Chhnang provincial government is in the process of evicting about 1,000 mostly Vietnamese families who live in the floating villages on the Tonle Sap river near the provincial capital, moving them up the river as part of a five-year plan to beautify the ...
No options for families in Poipet facing eviction
Forty-three families from Poipet town and the nearby village of Kbal Spean 1 say they will ignore the 28 September deadline of an eviction notice from the Banteay Meanchey Provincial Court. Resident Ith Sim said the families have lived on the land for over a decade. Keep ...
