LIBRARY

24 May 2014

Today, hundreds of workers gathered in Takeo’s provincial town to show their support for eight union leaders and union members who were arrested yesterday afternoon during a garment factory strike at the JSD Textile (Cambodia) Co. Ltd factory. The strikers were seeking a minimum wage of $160 and improved working conditions. Armed security forces have blocked the way to the court with barbed wire and to the provincial police station, where the arrested unionists are being held.

The eight unionists include six union leaders from the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers' Democratic Union (CCAWDU) and two CCAWDU staff, who came to assist the striking workers. As of now those arrested are being held at the provincial police station in Takeo’s provincial town where lawyers, unions and NGOs have been denied access to them.

12 May 2014

This morning starting at 7:00 am, more than 200 workers at 17 Caltex gas stations in Phnom Penh began a strike demanding a monthly wage of at least $160 and other staff benefits. Most Caltex workers currently earn $110/month. Workers plan to continue the strike until their demands are met.

This strike follows broader labor protests in late 2013, when garment workers began to demand a minimum wage of $160/month. In early January 2014, the government violently suppressed labor protests, resulting in at least four deaths, 38 people hospitalized, and 23 rights defenders and workers arrested.

Despite state clampdowns, workers and unions continue to demand wage increases. On February 6, workers at CINTRI successfully negotiated salary raises after going several days on strike: the salaries of trash collectors increased from $65 to $90, while salaries of garbage truck drivers on night shifts increased from $120 to $140. Similarly, on May 11, workers from Angkor Beer/Cambrew completed a two-day strike that led to an increase of their salary from $120/month to $150/month.

1 May 2014

Today's planned union gatherings in Phnom Penh to mark International Workers’ Day look set to face severe restrictions by authorities. LICADHO will be livestreaming developments as they happen.

23 April 2014

Early this morning, the 21 men detained in Kampong Cham province’s CC3 prison since their arrest during January’s widespread strikes were moved to Phnom Penh and will spend the next two nights in CC1 prison. The government’s clampdown left at least four people dead.

The 21, plus two others who were earlier granted bail, will be tried on Friday, April 25, at the Phnom Penh Municipal Court in three separate trials. On the same day, a fourth trial will be held for two men arrested during unrest that followed the SL garment factory strike last November during which one street vendor was killed. One of the two is currently detained in CC1 prison whilst the other was previously released on bail.

LICADHO will be live streaming all four trials on Friday, and coverage will begin tomorrow afternoon.

24 March 2014

2013 was dominated by one event: the National Assembly elections. Throughout the year, Phnom Penh saw some of its largest demonstrations in decades as Cambodian people took to the streets to demand their rights.

However, as documented by LICADHO in the report ‘Human Rights 2013: The Year in Review’, the elections witnessed an unprecedented level of fraud and left the country in a state of political turmoil; conflict over land and natural resources continued to be a major source of human rights violations throughout the year; strikes and labor issues gave rise to discord, often attracting violent action from the authorities; and human rights defenders remained a target of harassment, threats, unjustified criminal charges and violence.

20 March 2014

As the swelling protests were met with increased suppression, the judicial system remained true to form. 2013 saw a number of high-profile cases in court, with mixed results.

19 March 2014

If 2012 was the most violent year ever documented in terms of authorities using lethal force against individual human rights defenders (HRDs), 2013 saw the Cambodian authorities turn that force towards public protests.

8 March 2014

Today, March 8, 2014, factory workers, unions, and other members of civil society are planning to gather at the Freedom Park for a public forum on minimum wage and Women's Right. Follow our livestream as events unfold.

9 February 2014

LICADHO has compiled a timeline summarizing the series of event leading to and following the January 2-3-4, 2014, lethal clampdown on labour and political demonstrations in Cambodia's capital.

26 January 2014

A union and association gathering inside Freedom Park this morning has been violently blocked as hundreds of military police and riot police armed with guns and electric batons joined municipal security guards and thugs wielding slingshots, rocks and batons, with both groups indiscriminately targeting union supporters, journalists and rights observers. So far, at least eight people are known to have been injured.

The peaceful gathering, organised by 9 unions and associations including IDEA, CATU, CITA, CICA, CFSWF, NTUC, BWTUC, FTUWC and CYN, called for the release of 23 workers and rights defenders arrested earlier this month, a rise in the minimum wage to $160 a month, and end to violence against human rights defenders and justice for the deaths during the Jan 2 and 3 clashes. The gathering was blocked by at least 400 riot police and municipal security guards in Freedom Park, who forced hundreds of union organisers and supporters from Freedom Park and surrounding streets to Dragon Bridge, Wat Phnom and Preah Aung Dong hospital. During sporadic bouts of violence from 9.30am, security guards threw rocks in to the crowd and shocked and hit participants with electric batons. Two people believed to be undercover authority have been beaten by the crowd. Two people have reportedly been arrested during the clashes.

6 January 2014

Family members, lawyers and independent medical professionals have been denied information about the location of detention of 23 people arrested during recent brutal crackdowns in Phnom Penh. Those arrested include at least three human rights defenders, Vorn Pao, Theng Soveoun and Chan Putisak.

2 January 2014

The Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (LICADHO) and the Community Legal Education Centre (CLEC) are outraged by today’s violent crackdown on striking workers by a military special command unit and the consequent violent arrest of union leaders, garment workers and monks.

13 November 2013

Early on the morning of November 12, 2013, a violent clash between striking garment workers and armed forces, followed by two additional clashes between the growing number of armed forces and a crowd of citizens, resulted in the death of one bystander and at least nine injured in Phnom Penh's Meanchey district.

12 November 2013

Earlier this morning, a violent clash between striking garment workers and armed forces, followed by two additional clashes between the growing number of armed forces and a crowd of citizens, resulted in the death of one bystander and at least nine injured in Phnom Penh’s Meanchey district.

11 July 2012

Rong Panha of the Cambodian Alliance of Trade Unions (CATU) was beaten in front of Wat Botum after a group of 20 CATU workers had marched from Phnom Penh's Freedom Park to a public park nearby the Prime Minister's home to present a petition to his cabinet. The workers are employed by Tai Yang Enterprises, which supplies international clothing giants Levi Strauss, Gap and Old Navy, among others.

11 July 2012

We, the undersigned organizations, condemn the authorities' vicious and unprovoked beating of a union activist today in Phnom Penh, which came after trade union workers peacefully presented a petition to the Prime Minister.

15 March 2012

We, the undersigned groups and individual members of civil society, are calling for justice to be served in accordance with the rule of law, with regard to the brutal shootings of three young Cambodian female workers - Buon Chinda, Keo Nei and Nuth Sakhorn - on Feb. 20, 2012, in Svay Rieng's Bavet district.

Many Cambodian garment workers already live a life of hardship, suffering, poverty and uncertainty. As such, the workers should receive protection and support from the State, not face further victimization through brutal acts of violence.

17 October 2011

Cambodian recruitment agencies continued to send domestic workers to Malaysia on Monday morning, despite the Prime Minister's written order on Saturday imposing a complete ban on the practice.

LICADHO monitors at Pochentong Airport observed at least 25 Cambodian maids checking in for an Air Asia flight AK 273 to Kuala Lumpur on the morning of October 17, 2011. The maids were identifiable by their short haircuts and shirts, which were emblazoned with the name of their recruitment agency. LICADHO monitors also confirmed the women's destination by speaking to recruitment agency staff who accompanied the women.

31 August 2011

Cambodia's recently-enacted sub-decree on migrant labor is a "dismal failure" for workers and should be scrapped in favor of a new law, according to an analysis by LICAHDO.

LICADHO has documented horrific abuses in the industry over the past two years, including the use of debt bondage, deaths inside pre-departure training centers, the recruitment of underage workers, illegal detention of workers, the facilitation of forged documents, and the failure to pay salaries. None of these areas are addressed in the new law. Worker protections, meanwhile, are vague, limited in scope, and in many cases less stringent than the 1997 law it superseded, Sub-Decree 57.

8 May 2011

ADHOC, CLEC and LICADHO strongly condemn the government's brutal dispersal of union garment workers in Phnom Penh on Sunday morning during an ongoing strike over a labor dispute that begun with the recent burning of the workers' factory. The protest left at least eight workers injured, some seriously.

Approximately 2,000 workers from Mithona garment factory gathered on Sunday morning at the burnt factory on Ponchentong Road near the capital's airport. The group intended to temporarily block the road to draw the attention of Prime Minister Hun Sen, who was scheduled to return from abroad via the airport, to their situation. The action was organized by a local wing of the Free Trade Union Workers of the Kingdom of Cambodia (FTUWKC).