Human rights
Economic, social and cultural rights
Yangon’s extreme poverty needs action: report
In a one-room hut in north Yangon, a middle-aged woman has a trick for those evenings when the children complain of hunger and she has run out of money and rice. “I ask them to drink extra water and go to bed,” said mother-of-seven Daw ...
Residents push gov’t on OCIC project
Prek Liep community members involved in a land dispute with the Overseas Cambodia Investment Company held a religious protest and press conference outside the Cambodian People’s Party offices in the commune on January 14. During the ceremony, members prayed for the protection of their land ...
Palm oil projects destroy local livelihoods: report
More than 1.8 million acres of palm oil plantations in Myanmar’s southern Tenasserim Division do more harm than good for local Karen villagers, causing land conflict, damaging livelihoods, destroying biodiversity, and polluting the environment, according to a new report. Companies and businesspeople have taken over ...
Cambodia's water people pushed out of Phnom Penh sewer for billion-dollar ING City
For decades, the vast lakes and wetlands fringing Cambodia’s capital have been home to thousands of people making a living from the water — fishing and harvesting vegetables for market. Now they face eviction, as politically well-connected land speculators push them out. “If they fill ...
Special rapporteur barred from Laiza, Hpakant
Just a few days into her fifth visit and the UN special rapporteur on human rights in Myanmar has already encountered a few bumps in the road, with the government blocking her from going to Laiza and Hpakant, in Kachin State. Yanghee Lee and her ...
As catch and sales fall, Myanmar’s fishermen sink into debt
On a recent afternoon, the beach at Jatetaw village was bustling with fishermen hauling their boats a shore and off loading the catch. Local women carried the fish off in bamboo baskets and laid them out to dry in the sun, after which they would ...
Kasy town to be relocated to make way for railway
The urban centre of Kasy district in Vientiane province will be relocated to an area near the Kasy road to allow for construction of the Laos-China railway. A plot of flat land located in the Kasy road area has been allocated, requiring the relocation of ...
A struggle ‘on Chinese land’
Sitting on the edge of the dock, 68-year-old Vichay angrily pointed to three crumpled sheets of paper as he shuffled them around in his right hand. These wrinkled pages, he said, were the last remnants of evidence proving he owned the 15 hectares of land ...
Residents await Laos-China railway compensation payments
Preliminary counts have been completed in the provinces through which the Laos-China railway will pass, to pave the way for compensation to be paid to the affected villagers and residents who will be relocated. However affected residents in the provinces through which the railway will ...
Study maps 187 land conflicts as palm oil expands in Kalimantan
Palm oil production in Indonesia often comes at the expense of traditionally managed lands as well as the livelihoods of indigenous communities, causing widespread conflict in the archipelago country. With oil palm cultivation set to double in Indonesia over the next 10 years, methods for understanding ...
