Independent Reporting on Social Injustices

Many workers in Cambodia experience unfair and unsafe labor conditions, especially in industrialized zones managed by foreign capital. Gender based violence towards female laborers is a persistent issue, with studies showing that up to 90 percent of these women have experienced verbal harassment or sexual assault at their workplace. The Covid-19 pandemic has aggravated the predicament in which these workers find themselves, offering a pretext for employers to cut wages, push lay-offs, and bust unions.

The Cambodian Center for Independent Media (CCIM) was one of the few organizations in Cambodia reporting on these issues. In early 2022, the Rosa-Luxemburg-Stiftung (RLS) funded the project “Social Justice Reporting in Cambodia on Media and Social Media Platforms”. It aimed at enabling CCIM to continue in relaying the struggles of Cambodian workers, highlighting the extent of gender-based violence and the impact of the pandemic, in order to raise awareness and encourage counter-measures.

As part of the project, CCIM has produced a series of articles, video features, and radio broadcasts in Khmer and English. Seven articles were written. They go greatly in-depth on the working conditions in varied fields and can be found on CCIM’s news website Voice of Democracy (VOD). The four video features and four radio broadcasts that were produced as part of this project were published on VOD’s social media pages. Through these outputs CCIM has reached a broad audience, having generated hundred thousands of views and engagements. Thus, the project successfully drew attention to the social justice issues at hand.

To learn more about the situation of women working in the Cambodian textile industry, check out the gripping documentary series “The Conscience of Clothing” funded by RLS.