LIBRARY

28 June 2021

A video featuring the voices and experiences of community members who face over-indebtedness due to microfinance and microloan debt. Difficulties include coerced land sales, child labour, migration, hunger, and other human rights violations. These borrowers have the right to relief.

9 April 2021

Understanding your rights as a borrower is important. Watch this video to learn about some of the negative consequences and unethical practices in Cambodia's microfinance and microloan sector.

8 March 2021

This #IWD2021​, LICADHO is calling for immediate improvements to the grave conditions facing every woman and girl locked in Cambodia's dangerously overcrowded prisons.

Among these women are human rights defenders Chhoeun Daravy, Eng Malai, Long Kunthea and Phuon Keoraksmey. They have tirelessly stood up for the rights of others, but they have been put behind bars in an attempt to stifle their peaceful activism.

7 March 2021

Mother Nature Cambodia activist Phuon Keoraksmey was arrested in September for her peaceful work protecting Cambodia’s natural resources from private greed.

At first, it was hard for Keoraksmey’s mother to support her daughter’s daring activism. Now, she says, she couldn’t be prouder.

7 March 2021

Arrested in September 2020 for planning a one-woman protest to call for the preservation of Phnom Penh’s largest lake, Long Kunthea has been locked in prison for more than 180 days.

Kunthea’s cell is constantly filled with smoke from other detainees. Every day, she struggles even to breathe.

6 March 2021

Last September, Khmer Thavrak youth group member Eng Malai was arrested after attending a non-violent protest demanding justice for Rong Chhun after the union leader’s imprisonment.

In prison, Malai faces a daily struggle with disease, injury and stress.

6 March 2021

In August last year, youth activist Chhoeun Daravy was dragged into a van by plainclothes security after taking part in a peaceful demonstration calling for imprisoned unionist Rong Chhun’s release.

Since her arrest, Daravy has shaved her hair and is boycotting some meals to protest her unjust imprisonment.

10 December 2020

Too often, women and children who are raped by a family member are being denied both the safety that they need and the justice that they are entitled to.

"The police told me not to tell anyone. I said, 'This happened, and you want to keep it a secret too?'"

More than a year after Seiha* reported being raped by her grandfather, he has still not been arrested for his crimes. And Seiha is far from alone.

20 October 2020

Every year, communities all over the world come together to celebrate World Habitat Day and the right to shelter. For many Cambodians, the right to adequate housing remains unfulfilled. Land conflicts with large corporations rob families of their farmland. Lack of essential infrastructure such as roads, schools and health centres keep communities from accessing the basic services they need to live secure and dignified lives. Year after year, these communities have joined together in peaceful demonstrations to call on authorities to ensure that these fundamental rights to life and livelihood are respected.

4 September 2020

5 May 2020

For many families in Cambodia’s northwest, migrant work is the only way they can manage their rising microfinance debts. In this video, men and women from the Thai border share their fears of what will happen when they can no longer pay back their loans.

9 December 2019

To mark the international campaign, 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence (25 November - 10 December), LICADHO is highlighting pregnant women and mother and children incarcerated in Cambodian prisons. Over the 16 days, we will profile women who will share their stories of pregnancy, motherhood and of survival in the Cambodian prison system.

Life is extremely harsh for people incarcerated in Cambodia’s prisons. Violations of basic human rights such as denial of access to food, clean water, time outside cells and legal representation occur on a mass scale and the realities of prison life are such that if prisoners do not have money to pay for these basic necessities, then they will go without.

2 December 2019

To mark the international campaign, 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence (25 November - 10 December), LICADHO is highlighting pregnant women and mother and children incarcerated in Cambodian prisons. Over the 16 days, we will profile women who will share their stories of pregnancy, motherhood and of survival in the Cambodian prison system.

Life is extremely harsh for people incarcerated in Cambodia’s prisons. Violations of basic human rights such as denial of access to food, clean water, time outside cells and legal representation occur on a mass scale and the realities of prison life are such that if prisoners do not have money to pay for these basic necessities, then they will go without.

26 November 2019

Land rights activist and human rights defender Tep Vanny has continued to speak out since her release from prison in September. Here she delivers a short message to mark the international campaign 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence.

25 November 2019

To mark the international campaign, 16 Days of Activism Against Gender Based Violence (25 November - 10 December), LICADHO is highlighting pregnant women and mother and children incarcerated in Cambodian prisons. Over the 16 days, we will profile women who will share their stories of pregnancy, motherhood and of survival in the Cambodian prison system.

Life is extremely harsh for people incarcerated in Cambodia’s prisons. Violations of basic
human rights such as denial of access to food, clean water, time outside cells and legal
representation occur on a mass scale and the realities of prison life are such that if prisoners
do not have money to pay for these basic necessities, then they will go without.

19 August 2019

Farmers often take microfinance debt, but then struggle to repay it due to falling crop prices or crop failures. Selling their land is sometimes the only way they can repay their microfinance loans.

13 August 2019

Many Cambodians have had family members migrate to pay off microfinance debts. A report by the IOM in 2016 found that more than 40% of Cambodians who migrated abroad did so to pay debts. End debt-driven migration.

8 August 2019

The average size of a microloan in Cambodia is now the highest in the world. Many farmers are trapped in a cycle of debt, forced to get larger and larger loans to survive. Watch the video below to learn one man's story.

7 August 2019

More than 2 million Cambodians currently have a loan with a microfinance institution, or MFI. Levels of debt have skyrocketed in recent years, leading to a number of human rights abuses, including coerced land sales, child labour, debt-driven migration, and bonded labour, according to a joint report from the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (LICADHO) and Sahmakum Teang Tnaut (STT).

Collateral Damage: Land Losses and Abuses in Cambodia’s Microfinance Sector details the size and scope of Cambodia’s MFI sector and seeks to highlight the human rights abuses that researchers discovered. The research spans 10 communes in 4 provinces as well as Phnom Penh and features seven detailed case studies of abuses, chosen from the 28 MFI clients who suffered human rights abuses that were interviewed by researchers.

8 March 2019

Women activists continue to lead the struggle for human and environmental rights in Cambodia. To celebrate International Women's Rights Day, take a moment and listen to four Cambodian women describe their experiences as land, labour and environmental activists.