Cambodia: Hopes High for Maid Program
In one corner of the cavernous training centre, a woman patiently strips the baby blue sheets off a queen-size bed, removing the flower-patterned pillowcases and folding them neatly to one side.
Under the watchful eye of an instructor, she then remakes the bed, carefully fluffing the pillows and making sure...
Violence against Muslims threatening Myanmar reforms: UN
UNITED NATIONS - Violence against a Muslim minority in Myanmar is feeding a wider anti-Muslim feeling that poses a serious threat to the country’s dramatic economic and political reforms as it emerges from half a century of military rule, a UN envoy has said.
The government says at least 192...
Thailand: 500,000 People ‘Enslaved’ in Thailand
Thailand has the highest prevalence of modern slavery in Southeast Asia with up to half a million people living in forced servitude, according to a new index by international charity the Walk Free Foundation.
The index, which will be published annually, attempts to measure of the extent of modern slavery...
The Philippines: Groups condemn dismissal of case vs soldiers linked in Tampakan killings
Support groups of anti-mining communities affected by the Tampakan Copper Gold Project condemn the dropping of the criminal charges against some members of the Armed Forces of the Philippines' 27th Infantry Battalion.
On October 18, 2012, Juvy Capion and her sons John and Jordan were killed in what the 27th...
CAMBODIA: Time to get to work
The more Hun Sen attempts to ignore grievances of the increasingly vocal cohort of Cambodian voters who allege election irregularities and fraud, the more the emboldened and determined opposition party demands an independent impartial joint CNRP-CPP investigation committee to seek more accurate accounting of ballots cast in the July...
Malaysia: NGOs disappointed with vague Govt statement at UPR
KUALA LUMPUR: The Government’s statement regarding Malaysia's current state of human rights at the second Universal Periodic Review (UPR) in Geneva was criticised as being too vague by a grouping of local non-governmental organisations (NGO).
Members of the Coalition of Malaysian NGOs in the UPR Process (Comango) expressed their shock...
Over 200,000 Indonesians enslaved: Study
The Global Slavery Index 2013, published by the Walk Free Foundation, an Australian-based organization dedicated to eradicating modern-day slavery, reveals that there are more than 200,000 slaves in Indonesia.
The Walk Free Foundation’s inaugural Global Slavery Index, which was released at Chatham House in London on Thursday, estimates that there...
Brunei a throwback to an age of absolute monarchy
With a swing of his powerful arm, a prison guard landed a wicked-looking cane on the back of a dummy dressed in the white uniform of convicts in Brunei.
“It doesn’t hurt as much as you think,” he said.
Earlier this month, the International Convention Centre in Brunei’s capital, Bandar Seri...
ASEAN Leaders to intensify efforts towards ASEAN Community 2015
JAKARTA, Oct. 18 -- At the heels of the recently concluded ASEAN Summit in Brunei Darussalam, H.E. Nyan Lynn, Deputy Secretary-General of ASEAN told members of the diplomatic community that "the Leaders reaffirmed their commitment to intensify efforts towards realizing the ASEAN Community 2015."
In a statement, Lynn spoke on...
Vietnam: Drop Charges Against Internet Activist
(Bangkok) – Vietnam’s government should unconditionally release the social campaigner Dinh Nhat Uy, Human Rights Watch said today. He is scheduled for trial in Long An provincial court on October 29, 2013, for “abuse of democratic freedoms.”
Vietnam should revoke penal code article 258, under which he was charged, and...
