Cambodia is well on track to achieve Millennium Development Goals 1, 4, 5 and 6, and poverty rate is set to fall further below 20 percent in 2014. Declines in infant and maternal mortality have already exceeded 2015 targets (CMDG Report, 2013). Despite the anxieties and concerns in the run-up to the election, Cambodia’s economy continued to grow, reaching 7.6 percent growth in 2013 and sustained by garment exports, tourism and construction. With GDP per capita at US$1,036 compared to approximately US$200 in 1992, Cambodia is well on its way to be ranked as a lower middle-income country (MIC) in the near future.

Integrity reform in Cambodia: Taking stock towards shared priorities for donor‐government dialogue, Himawari Hotel, Phnom Penh, 27 and 28 January 2010.

The objective of the training is to contribute in upgrading the quality of media reporting of Cambodian journalists in terms of skills and proper understanding on the role of media in the Cambodian society. The trainings are one of the components of the project of CCIM in promoting independent media in Cambodia. The other components include the media reporting through radio programs and the organizing of Cambodian journalists for them to work together to improve their professionalism.

Cambodia‟s 2013 national elections of the National Assembly were the fifth to be held since the first national elections were organized by the United Nations Transitional Authority for Cambodia (UNTAC) in 1993. Transparency International Cambodia (TIC), in cooperation with the Coalition for Integrity and Social Accountability (CISA) network, was accredited by the National Election Committee (NEC) to observe the Cambodian national elections on 28 July 2013.

As a National Contact of TI, a leading civil society anti-corruption movement, TI Cambodia looks at the three and half year strategy from a realistic point of view and focuses on the most urgent and relevant issues of corruption that need to be addressed in Cambodia. As founders and leaders of the organization, we believe that we are in a better position to perform these roles because of the following reasons…

Human Rights Watch has conducted research on Cambodia’s drug detention centers since 2009. The Cambodian government has shown callous disregard for the well-being of the thousands of mostly marginalized people—many of them children—who it sends to the facilities, where individuals are subject to vicious and capricious abuse. Simple mistakes like falling out of step while performing military-like drills or singing the wrong words in a marching song can subject the person to brutal punishment.

There should be no illusions: these centers are not intended to help those dependent on drugs.

As Cambodia prepares for the Human Rights Committee (the Committee) to consider the country’s second State Party Report (State Report), we must note that corruption remains endemic and violence against government critics is systematic. The nation’s corrupt and politically-influenced justice system continues to prosecute more government opponents, while State actors and well-connected individuals continue to enjoy unfettered impunity. Activists and journalists have been murdered and the authorities have consistently failed to properly investigate these crimes and bring the perpetrators to justice.

Cambodians who use drugs confound the notion that drug dependence is a self-inflicted condition that results from a character disorder or moral failing. When Human Rights Watch talked with these people, they were invariably softly spoken and polite. They talked openly and honestly about difficult childhoods (in many cases still underway) living on the streets, or growing up in refugee camps in Thailand. Often young and poorly educated, they spoke of using drugs for extended periods of time. Despite many hardships in their lives, their voices rarely became bitter except when describing their arrest and detention in government drug detention centers. They did not mince words when describing these places. One former detainee, Kakada, was particularly succinct: “I think this is not a rehab center but a torturing center.”

The government’s singular attempt to address overcrowding can only be characterized as missing the point: In April 2011, authorities in Bantey Meanchey transferred 38 accused drug users from prison to a local “drug treatment” center run by the Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation (MoSAVY) – essentially another prison. A Human Rights Watch report described similar facilities run by the same ministry as being havens of torture, physical and sexual violence, and other depravity.

All of this means that Cambodia’s prisons are still bursting at the seams. At least 12 facilities are at or near double their intended capacity, and some are allocating less than one square meter of cell space per inmate. Construction of new prisons and cells continues, but it is clearly not enough.