Least corrupt Scandinavians fail to police bribery abroad

by News Desk / on February 10, 2014 at 10:14 /

Countries praised by the European Commission for experiencing little or no corruption at home are failing to stop their own companies paying bribes overseas, raising concerns that the squeaky-clean reputations enjoyed by much of Scandinavia and northern Europe may be tarnished by a different standard of conduct abroad.corrupt

In early February 2014, the European Union Commissioner for Home Affairs, Cecilia Malmström, released the Union’s first EU Anti-Corruption Report. It reported that that Denmark, Finland, Luxembourg and Sweden had the lowest experiences of bribery in the European Union, with less than 1% of respondents in those countries expecting to pay a bribe. These countries also earn stellar marks from Transparency International, whose widely cited Corruption Perceptions Index ranks them among the most upright nations in the world.

Yet media investigations, criminal prosecutions and successive reports by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), reveal that the same countries rarely prosecute and fine domestically-registered and even state-controlled companies suspected of paying bribes in across Asia, Africa, South America and Europe.

This disparity has raised concerns that the sunshine in European nations lauded for their transparency may not extend beyond their shores – and that some of the most influential organizations that are measuring corruption may only be telling half the story.

Countering Maritime Piracy and Robbery in Southeast Asia

Apr 18, 2014. hat explains the decade-long decline in maritime piracy and robbery in Southeast Asia? Miha Hribernik argues that regional cooperation – primarily through the ReCAAP mechanism – has been a key factor, which will become even more important with the added participation of Malaysia and Indonesia.
By Miha Hribernik for European Institute for Asian Studies (EIAS)
This report was originally published by the European Institute for Asian Studies in March 2013. Republished with permission.

Last year has seen a decrease in reported [2] attacks against ships in some of the world’s most piracy prone areas, such as the Gulf of Aden and – for the first time since 2009 – in Southeast Asia.[3] During the same period, however, the frequency of attacks in some parts of the latter increased substantially, most notably in the waters and ports of Indonesia. This paper argues the following: First, that the improving situation in Southeast Asia as a whole can largely be attributed to the success of multilateral counter – piracy initiatives, principally the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP). Second, the accession of Malaysia and Indonesia – the only two Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member states that are not ReCAAP contracting parties – could contribute to the mechanism’s greater effectiveness in Southeast Asia. The participation of Indonesia in particular could help address the rapidly increasing number of maritime piracy and robbery incidents within its jurisdiction. Third, multilateral initiatives such as ReCAAP represent an ideal opportunity for the European Union (EU) and individual European states to increase their influence in Southeast Asia and gain a foothold as security actors in the region.
The paper first discusses the role of ReCAAP and its Information Sharing Centre (ISC) in countering piracy and robbery attacks against ships in Southeast Asia, continues with a brief assessment of the situation in 2012, and finally sheds light on the existing and potential role of the European Union (EU) and European states within ReCAAP.
An overview of ReCAAP and the ISC
Southeast Asia has been plagued by well-organised pirate groups for centuries, long before piracy’s renewed rise in the late 20th century. Although it has not received as much media attention as pirate activity in the Gulf of Aden, Southeast Asia was considered the world’s principal piracy hotspot before the previous decade’s surge in attacks off the coasts of Somalia. It is important to note that since the 1990s, about half of all reported piracy events in the world took place in and around the South China Sea.[4] Given the fact that one third of the world’s shipping passes through this strategically vital section of the Pacific Ocean on an annual basis,[5] piracy in the region has the potential to significantly affect world trade.
The substantial increase in maritime piracy and robbery incidents in Asia that followed in the wake of the 1997 Asian financial crisis was soon perceived as a problem that needed to be addressed in a multilateral manner if it was to be tackled successfully. As a country dependent on maritime trade and concerned with the safety of vitally important sea lines of communication (SLOC), Japan first began taking official notice of piracy after a wave of attacks against Japanese vessels in the East China Sea during the early 1990s. Even as cooperation between Japan’s Maritime Safety Agency [6] and Chinese law enforcement succeeded in reducing the number of incidents there, maritime piracy and robbery in Southeast Asia continued unabated and became a significant concern for Japan. Tokyo’s attention began to focus on the problems of piracy in and around Indonesia and the Strait of Malacca after the 1998 hijacking of the Japanese – owned cargo vessel Tenyu. [7] As incidents in Southeast Asia became increasingly common at the turn of the 21st century, several anti-piracy initiative s took place across East Asia. One came in the form of the Asia An ti – Piracy Challenge Conference proposed by Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi . It took place in Tokyo in 2000 and was followed in 2001 by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi ’s initiative to create the world’s first intergovernmental body designed specifically to counter piracy.[8] The result was ReCAAP, which was drafted by 16 countries in November 2004 and came into force in September 2006. The drafting states were: Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Republic of Korea, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam. [9] Of these, all but Indonesia and Malaysia have signed and ratified the agreement to d ate. They were later joined by four European countries: Norway (in 2009), the Netherlands (2010), Denmark (2010), and the United Kingdom (2012). Despite their geographical distance, all of these states have an interest in the safety of their substantial merchant fleets that traverse Asian waters on a daily basis.
Although maritime piracy and robbery are being addressed within a variety of multilateral forums and organisations, [10] ReCAAP has formed the crux of Southeast Asian counter – piracy efforts since its inception. Indeed, its establishment and the basis for regional efforts to counter sea piracy and robbery it provides have been hailed as a significant achievement. [11] On the level of Asia as a whole, it has been able to reverse the trend of rising at tacks against ships that coincided with the beginning of the global economic downturn in 2009, bringing down the total number of attacks from 167 in 2010, through 157 in 2011, to 132 over the course of 2012.[12]
The ReCAAP agreement facilitates cooperation and capacity building in counter – piracy operations between its 18 contracting countries, with the Singapore – based[13] ISC serving as a hub for incident reporting and information sharing. Its work is supported by the Information Network System (IFN), a 24 – hour, web – based system that enables the collection, organisation, analysis and sharing of piracy and armed robbery information among ReCAAP member countries.[14] Since 2012, the IFN also includes a mobile version that allows for the submitting of incident reports through smartphones and tablets. Singapore also hosts the ReCAAP Secretariat and the Governing Council. The latter consists of 18 representatives – one from each contracting state – and convenes once a year in order to oversee the activities of the ISC.
The work of the ISC forms one of the most important aspects of ReCAAP activities as it maintains a database of piracy – related information and assists communication between various national agencies which persecute piracy cases.[15] To this end, the ReCAAP agreement[16] obligates contracting states to notify the ISC of all reported or imminent attacks; to take measures against vessels and individuals who committed piracy or robbery attacks if so requested by another contracting state; to extradite such individuals to another contracting state upon request; and to render mutual legal assistance in criminal matters.
At first glance the above provisions may not appear too ambitious in scope, as the procurement of equipment for and the actual conduct of counter – piracy operations remain the responsibility of individual contracting states. The facilitation of cooperation provided by ReCAAP has, however, proved vital in a region where sovereignty concerns – combined with the close proximity of countries and different maritime borders – still prevent the hot pursuit [17] of pirates fleeing into the territorial waters of another state. When a vessel escapes the maritime law – enforcement agency of one contracting state by crossing its maritime boundary, the ReCAAP ISC can notify the authorities in the other contracting state whose constabulary forces then continue the pursuit.[18] Such measures have largely proven to be effective in tackling Southeast Asia’s maritime piracy and robbery problem, but their effectiveness remains limited to the seas of ReCAAP contracting states. As will be discussed later in the paper, this shortcoming is particularly apparent in the case of Indonesia, which continues to refrain from ratifying the agreement even as attacks in its waters and harbours proliferate.
The year 2012: Reversing the rising trend?
The frequency of attacks against shipping in Southeast Asia[19] increased in the wake of the 1997 Asian financial crisis and peaked in 2000, when the Piracy Reporting Centre of the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) [20] registered 259 attempted and successful attacks.[21] Although this number fluctuated somewhat in subsequent years, it decreased in the period preceding the economic crisis of 2009. According to the ReCAAP ISC, it reached a low – point of 72 that year, before climbing to 120 in 2010 and 128 in 2011. The most recent available numbers show that the upward trend appears to have been reversed, as the counter stopped at 111 at the end of 2012.[22] The IMB puts the number of attacks in 2009 somewhat lower, at 68, but its statistics also reflect the substantial increase in incidents in subsequent years: 113 in 2010, 101 in 2011, and 110 in 2012.[23]
Even though the official data provided by the IMB Piracy Reporting Centre differs from that recorded by the ReCAAP ISC, it does reflect a broadly similar trend. The causes for the differences in the final tallies are difficult to determine, but are most likely the result of the fact that not every ship that comes under attack reports the incident to both the ReCAAP ISC and the IMB. This was, for example, the case with 12 attacks that took place in the Strait of Malacca between 2007 and 2011: They were reported to the ReCAAP ISC, but not to the IMB.[24] Furthermore, the ReCAAP ISC also augments its own data by collecting information on attacks from all openly available sources. This difference in reporting and methodology may also explain the noticeable discrepancy between the 2011 numbers (see Table 2 below), which has led the IMB to identify an increase in attacks between 2011 and 2012, while the ReCAAP ISC noted a decrease . Since the latter consistently records higher numbers and takes into account incidents which go unreported to the IMB, this paper relies on figures provided by the ReCAAP ISC and argues that the number of piracy and robbery attacks against ships in Southeast Asia indeed decreased between 2011 and 2012 (see Table 3 below ).
As absolute numbers of incidents do not allow for an assessment of the actual severity and damage caused, ReCAAP introduced a ranking of piracy and armed robbery incidents according to their severity. The attacks are classified according to two criteria: The violence factor (based on the type of weapons used, treatment of the crew, and the number of pirates/robbers engaged in the attack) and the economic factor (based on the type of property taken from the ship during the attack). This allows for a more effective classification and a clearer overall picture of the intensity of piracy and robbery attacks in Asia.[25]

Two 'Anonymous' hackers arrested in Cambodia

Apr 23, 2014. Two Cambodian hackers belonging to international collective Anonymous have been arrested in Phnom Penh on charges of hacking several government websites and stealing sensitive information, local media reported Wednesday.
The two 21-year-old information technology students, Bun Khing Mongkul Panha – who uses the online name Black Cyber – and Chou Songheng – who goes by the alias Zoro – were arrested in early April following a months-long investigation by Cambodian authorities with the help of the FBI, according to The Cambodia Daily newspaper.
The two are accused of hacking the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and National Election Committee (NEC) websites among others – taking them offline or replacing them with pictures of a masked Guy Fawkes, Anonymous’ symbol, and could face up to two years in prison.
“The National Police were cooperating with the FBI to conduct an investigation when we found these two suspects hacked the NEC…and other government institutions,” the Daily quoted Chhay Sinarith, head of the Interior Ministry’s internal security department, as saying.
Anonymous Cambodia became especially active in the wake of July’s disputed national elections and the mass protests that followed, with the group launching what it dubbed “Operation Cambodia Freedom” and “declaring war” on the Cambodian government in September after police opened fire on anti-government demonstrators killing one person.
In an interview with The Cambodia Daily last year, Black Cyber mocked the Cambodian government’s online security saying that when he hacked into the website of the Anti-Corruption Unit: “Their password was as simple as 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.”
The arrests come as the Cambodian government is in the process of drafting its first Cyber Crime law, a draft of which has been criticised by rights groups as containing measures that are meant to silence Internet users critical of the government.
On its Twitter page shortly after the draft law was leaked, Anonymous Cambodia wrote: “#OpCambodia is a go. Cambodia’s government is trying to censor their Internet.”
Cambodia’s Internet usage is currently unobstructed though only about 3 percent of the poor South-east Asian nation’s population have Internet access. Those who do have become increasing vocal over the past year, with many young Cambodians taking to social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter to air their political views and grievances.

Turkey May Day protests hit by tear gas near Taksim Square

May 1, 2014. Riot police in Turkey have used tear gas and water cannon to prevent demonstrators defying a ban on protests on Istanbul’s central Taksim Square.

The Anatolia news agency said several demonstrators were injured and at least five detained.

Intensive security measures were in place, and roads and streets near Taksim Square closed to traffic from the early morning.

Turkish media said some 40,000 police would be deployed in the city on 1 May.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan earlier warned people they should “give up hopes” of gathering on Taksim Square – a focus of anti-government protests.

But a joint statement from the main trades unions on Wednesday said: “We will be in Taksim despite the irrational and illegal ban. All roads will lead to Taksim on May Day”.

Mr Erdogan’s party won local elections in March. That was the first vote since mass protests last June, and was seen as a barometer of his popularity.

The prime minister has been eyeing a run for the presidency in August – the first time voters will directly elect the head of state – or may seek to change the rules to allow him to seek a fourth term in office.

Elsewhere in May Day celebrations:

A number of people are reported to have been beaten by security forces in Cambodia who were trying to break up an opposition march in the capital Phnom Penh
More than 100,000 Russians have taken part in a parade in Moscow’s Red Square, reviving a tradition last seen before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Countering Maritime Piracy and Robbery in Southeast Asia

Apr 18, 2014. hat explains the decade-long decline in maritime piracy and robbery in Southeast Asia? Miha Hribernik argues that regional cooperation – primarily through the ReCAAP mechanism – has been a key factor, which will become even more important with the added participation of Malaysia and Indonesia.

Last year has seen a decrease in reported [2] attacks against ships in some of the world’s most piracy prone areas, such as the Gulf of Aden and – for the first time since 2009 – in Southeast Asia.[3] During the same period, however, the frequency of attacks in some parts of the latter increased substantially, most notably in the waters and ports of Indonesia. This paper argues the following: First, that the improving situation in Southeast Asia as a whole can largely be attributed to the success of multilateral counter – piracy initiatives, principally the Regional Cooperation Agreement on Combating Piracy and Armed Robbery against Ships in Asia (ReCAAP). Second, the accession of Malaysia and Indonesia – the only two Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) member states that are not ReCAAP contracting parties – could contribute to the mechanism’s greater effectiveness in Southeast Asia. The participation of Indonesia in particular could help address the rapidly increasing number of maritime piracy and robbery incidents within its jurisdiction. Third, multilateral initiatives such as ReCAAP represent an ideal opportunity for the European Union (EU) and individual European states to increase their influence in Southeast Asia and gain a foothold as security actors in the region.
The paper first discusses the role of ReCAAP and its Information Sharing Centre (ISC) in countering piracy and robbery attacks against ships in Southeast Asia, continues with a brief assessment of the situation in 2012, and finally sheds light on the existing and potential role of the European Union (EU) and European states within ReCAAP.
An overview of ReCAAP and the ISC
Southeast Asia has been plagued by well-organised pirate groups for centuries, long before piracy’s renewed rise in the late 20th century. Although it has not received as much media attention as pirate activity in the Gulf of Aden, Southeast Asia was considered the world’s principal piracy hotspot before the previous decade’s surge in attacks off the coasts of Somalia. It is important to note that since the 1990s, about half of all reported piracy events in the world took place in and around the South China Sea.[4] Given the fact that one third of the world’s shipping passes through this strategically vital section of the Pacific Ocean on an annual basis,[5] piracy in the region has the potential to significantly affect world trade.
The substantial increase in maritime piracy and robbery incidents in Asia that followed in the wake of the 1997 Asian financial crisis was soon perceived as a problem that needed to be addressed in a multilateral manner if it was to be tackled successfully. As a country dependent on maritime trade and concerned with the safety of vitally important sea lines of communication (SLOC), Japan first began taking official notice of piracy after a wave of attacks against Japanese vessels in the East China Sea during the early 1990s. Even as cooperation between Japan’s Maritime Safety Agency [6] and Chinese law enforcement succeeded in reducing the number of incidents there, maritime piracy and robbery in Southeast Asia continued unabated and became a significant concern for Japan. Tokyo’s attention began to focus on the problems of piracy in and around Indonesia and the Strait of Malacca after the 1998 hijacking of the Japanese – owned cargo vessel Tenyu. [7] As incidents in Southeast Asia became increasingly common at the turn of the 21st century, several anti-piracy initiative s took place across East Asia. One came in the form of the Asia An ti – Piracy Challenge Conference proposed by Japanese Prime Minister Keizo Obuchi . It took place in Tokyo in 2000 and was followed in 2001 by Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi ’s initiative to create the world’s first intergovernmental body designed specifically to counter piracy.[8] The result was ReCAAP, which was drafted by 16 countries in November 2004 and came into force in September 2006. The drafting states were: Bangladesh, Brunei, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Republic of Korea, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam. [9] Of these, all but Indonesia and Malaysia have signed and ratified the agreement to d ate. They were later joined by four European countries: Norway (in 2009), the Netherlands (2010), Denmark (2010), and the United Kingdom (2012). Despite their geographical distance, all of these states have an interest in the safety of their substantial merchant fleets that traverse Asian waters on a daily basis.
Although maritime piracy and robbery are being addressed within a variety of multilateral forums and organisations, [10] ReCAAP has formed the crux of Southeast Asian counter – piracy efforts since its inception. Indeed, its establishment and the basis for regional efforts to counter sea piracy and robbery it provides have been hailed as a significant achievement. [11] On the level of Asia as a whole, it has been able to reverse the trend of rising at tacks against ships that coincided with the beginning of the global economic downturn in 2009, bringing down the total number of attacks from 167 in 2010, through 157 in 2011, to 132 over the course of 2012.[12]
The ReCAAP agreement facilitates cooperation and capacity building in counter – piracy operations between its 18 contracting countries, with the Singapore – based[13] ISC serving as a hub for incident reporting and information sharing. Its work is supported by the Information Network System (IFN), a 24 – hour, web – based system that enables the collection, organisation, analysis and sharing of piracy and armed robbery information among ReCAAP member countries.[14] Since 2012, the IFN also includes a mobile version that allows for the submitting of incident reports through smartphones and tablets. Singapore also hosts the ReCAAP Secretariat and the Governing Council. The latter consists of 18 representatives – one from each contracting state – and convenes once a year in order to oversee the activities of the ISC.
The work of the ISC forms one of the most important aspects of ReCAAP activities as it maintains a database of piracy – related information and assists communication between various national agencies which persecute piracy cases.[15] To this end, the ReCAAP agreement[16] obligates contracting states to notify the ISC of all reported or imminent attacks; to take measures against vessels and individuals who committed piracy or robbery attacks if so requested by another contracting state; to extradite such individuals to another contracting state upon request; and to render mutual legal assistance in criminal matters.
At first glance the above provisions may not appear too ambitious in scope, as the procurement of equipment for and the actual conduct of counter – piracy operations remain the responsibility of individual contracting states. The facilitation of cooperation provided by ReCAAP has, however, proved vital in a region where sovereignty concerns – combined with the close proximity of countries and different maritime borders – still prevent the hot pursuit [17] of pirates fleeing into the territorial waters of another state. When a vessel escapes the maritime law – enforcement agency of one contracting state by crossing its maritime boundary, the ReCAAP ISC can notify the authorities in the other contracting state whose constabulary forces then continue the pursuit.[18] Such measures have largely proven to be effective in tackling Southeast Asia’s maritime piracy and robbery problem, but their effectiveness remains limited to the seas of ReCAAP contracting states. As will be discussed later in the paper, this shortcoming is particularly apparent in the case of Indonesia, which continues to refrain from ratifying the agreement even as attacks in its waters and harbours proliferate.
The year 2012: Reversing the rising trend?
The frequency of attacks against shipping in Southeast Asia[19] increased in the wake of the 1997 Asian financial crisis and peaked in 2000, when the Piracy Reporting Centre of the International Maritime Bureau (IMB) [20] registered 259 attempted and successful attacks.[21] Although this number fluctuated somewhat in subsequent years, it decreased in the period preceding the economic crisis of 2009. According to the ReCAAP ISC, it reached a low – point of 72 that year, before climbing to 120 in 2010 and 128 in 2011. The most recent available numbers show that the upward trend appears to have been reversed, as the counter stopped at 111 at the end of 2012.[22] The IMB puts the number of attacks in 2009 somewhat lower, at 68, but its statistics also reflect the substantial increase in incidents in subsequent years: 113 in 2010, 101 in 2011, and 110 in 2012.[23]
Even though the official data provided by the IMB Piracy Reporting Centre differs from that recorded by the ReCAAP ISC, it does reflect a broadly similar trend. The causes for the differences in the final tallies are difficult to determine, but are most likely the result of the fact that not every ship that comes under attack reports the incident to both the ReCAAP ISC and the IMB. This was, for example, the case with 12 attacks that took place in the Strait of Malacca between 2007 and 2011: They were reported to the ReCAAP ISC, but not to the IMB.[24] Furthermore, the ReCAAP ISC also augments its own data by collecting information on attacks from all openly available sources. This difference in reporting and methodology may also explain the noticeable discrepancy between the 2011 numbers (see Table 2 below), which has led the IMB to identify an increase in attacks between 2011 and 2012, while the ReCAAP ISC noted a decrease . Since the latter consistently records higher numbers and takes into account incidents which go unreported to the IMB, this paper relies on figures provided by the ReCAAP ISC and argues that the number of piracy and robbery attacks against ships in Southeast Asia indeed decreased between 2011 and 2012 (see Table 3 below ).
As absolute numbers of incidents do not allow for an assessment of the actual severity and damage caused, ReCAAP introduced a ranking of piracy and armed robbery incidents according to their severity. The attacks are classified according to two criteria: The violence factor (based on the type of weapons used, treatment of the crew, and the number of pirates/robbers engaged in the attack) and the economic factor (based on the type of property taken from the ship during the attack). This allows for a more effective classification and a clearer overall picture of the intensity of piracy and robbery attacks in Asia.[25]

Patent lessons: Officials hold IP workshop in the capital

Wed, 26 March 2014
Officials from Cambodia, Laos and the United States gathered in Phnom Penh yesterday for a training program on the enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights.

Hosted by representatives from the US Department of State, US Department of Homeland Security and US Patent and Trademark Office, the three-day event at the Hotel le Royal in Phnom Penh will focus on investigation techniques to crack down on intellectual property theft.

“While we all benefit from state-of-the-art products and services, the degree of intellectual property theft is equally as sophisticated,” US Embassy Deputy Chief of Mission, Jeff Daigle, said.

Cambodia is stepping up it’s commitment to battle IP theft, said Minister of Commerce Sun Chanthol, who pointed to a draft sub-decree laying out the duties of all agencies tasked with enforcement. A special government task force is also being established to battle pirated CDs and DVDs, Chanthol added.

Cambodia warned, again, on intellecual property regulation

Thu, 27 February 2014
Daniel de Carteret
Cambodian manufacturers are at risk of being blocked from exporting to the United States for using pirated software, IT industry bodies warned yesterday.

Speaking at a seminar that was held at the Intercontinental Hotel in Phnom Penh, Michael Mudd, the secretary general of the Asia-Pacific Open Computing Alliance, whose members include Microsoft and some of the world’s largest software developers, said that US states are enlisting competition laws to clamp down on foreign companies using unlicensed software.

“For global trade … competition laws are really being used to prosecute intellectual property theft,” he said.

While no cases have been bought against Cambodian firms, Mudd cited two instances of manufacturers in China and India that have cases pending in California, where he said 80 per cent of all of Asia’s exports land.
Penalties handed down could be as extreme as blocking shipping to a prosecuting state’s ports, Mudd said.

Peter Fowler, the regional IP attache for Southeast Asia at the US Patent and Trademark Office, said that US State Attorneys beholden to their voters are keen to protect local jobs, and could use laws to ensure a level playing field for foreign competition.

“You can’t actually predict where the next case is going to be. So you need to be prepared,” he said, encouraging an audience of garment sector representatives to ensure the use of licensed software.

The lack of resources to support IP laws have long been a problem for the government, but a strategy aimed at improving enforcement and educating users on the importance of licensed software is now underway, according to Var Roth San, director of the intellectual property department at the Ministry of Commerce.

Cambodia Factories Grapple With Issue of Underage Workers

Dec 29, 2013. SIHANOUKVILLE, Cambodia—In this quiet beach town, Lim Loeung says she spends up to 80 hours a week gluing soles onto shoes at a factory that does work for companies including Japanese sneaker-maker Asics Corp. The factory believes Ms. Lim is at least 18 years old.
Except she’s not. According to her parents and her birth record, Ms. Lim soon will turn 15.

Ms. Lim said that at her job interview a factory employee wrote an earlier birth year on her paperwork than the one indicated on the birth record she presented. “If they see our age is younger, they will not choose us,” she said.
Her 20-year-old sister, Len, said a factory worker did the same thing when she applied there a couple of years ago before she had turned 18.
A spokesman for the factory, New Star Shoes Co., denied the girls’ claims. “We do not change the birthdays,” said the spokesman. The factory doesn’t employ any workers under 18, he said, but some people may lie about their age to get hired. He also said no one at the factory works 80 hours a week but declined to specify workers’ schedules.
Katsumi Funakoshi, general manager of Asics’ public-relations department, said the company recently conducted a third-party audit at New Star of labor and other matters. He said the inspection didn’t find evidence of employees who were under age 15 but that it revealed “excessive working hours” and health and safety issues at the factory, which he said Asics is working to fix.
Overall, child and teen labor is declining, according to recent United Nations surveys of numerous types of work across the world. But, despite that data, a Wall Street Journal investigation into the garment business indicates that underage labor continues to be an issue in that industry, especially involving teen workers who are able to pass themselves off as 18 or older.
Teen hiring carries moral complexities particular to poor nations, where much of the world’s clothes are sewn.
Employers in Cambodia, for instance, are required to ensure that workers under 18 are in safe environments and don’t work overtime or night shifts. Cambodia has also ratified U.N. conventions designed to keep teens who are under age 18 from hazardous work that jeopardizes their health or morals.
But the definitions of hazards aren’t always clear. And teens themselves, eager for money, sometimes present the identification documents of other people to appear older, according to labor activists, factory officials and some workers.
At the same time labor shortages, fueled by demand from global retailers, have set off a scramble for workers. “Every factory is short-staffed,” said Mashiur Rahman, general manager of Universal Apparel (Cambodia) Co. and Southland (Cambodia) Co. garment operations in Phnom Penh. “I have 2,000 workers. I need 3,000.”
Many people, including labor activists, believe it is vital to keep garment factories open to teens, in part because the jobs can help keep them away from the sex trade and other perils and allow the youngsters to help support their families.
One risk is that the teens “fall off the radar and into more informal-sector work that’s even less regulated and maybe even more dangerous, or morally damaging,” said Simrin Singh, a child labor specialist at the U.N.’s International Labor Organization in Bangkok.
The number of youths engaged in child labor fell by nearly 78 million between 2000 and 2012 to 168 million, according to U.N. data released in September. The decline was especially pronounced among younger children and appeared to accelerate over the past four years.
But scrutiny of the global garment trade, and the role young laborers continue to play in it, has increased after disasters including the April collapse of the Rana Plaza complex in Bangladesh, which killed more than 1,100 people. In Cambodia, accidents in May at two factories injured around 30 people and killed two, including a 15-year-old girl.
The 15-year-old, Kim Dany, was killed at a factory outside Phnom Penh after just two weeks on the job. She died when a mezzanine floor at the factory, Wing Star Shoes, collapsed.
Ms. Kim’s parents said their daughter used an older neighbor’s identity documents to get hired at the factory.
Ms. Kim’s cousin, Vann Dany, who said she is 16 years old and worked in the same factory, said her cousin was unhappy and had been planning to quit. “She wanted to go back to school,” said Ms. Vann, who quit after her cousin’s death.
Wing Star has the same Taiwanese ownership as New Star, the factory where the Lim sisters work.
Chea Sothavirith, director of administration at Wing Star, said the factory didn’t know Ms. Kim was underage before she died because she had presented false documentation. He said he didn’t know her cousin, Vann Dany.
“Since the incident happened, we respect the law more and we try to be stricter on child labor,” Mr. Chea said. “We do more studies on the documents and work with authorities before recruiting them.”
Ron Pietersen, senior general manager in the global legal and compliance division of Asics, which also contracts with Wing Star, said Ms. Kim’s death was a wake-up call for the company, which is now taking a “tougher” approach with its suppliers to ensure workplace safety is a priority. For example, Mr. Pietersen said, Asics instructed all its supplier factories in Cambodia to join the U.N.’s Better Factories Cambodia program, which monitors factories, publishes its findings and offers training for factories and workers.
Concern about child labor in developing-world manufacturing intensified back in the 1990s after a series of news reports, including one involving child workers allegedly making soccer balls for Nike Inc. in Pakistan, elevated the issue. A Nike official said the soccer-ball report was a catalyst for the company to improve its supply chain. Nike in the late 1990s said it would no longer employ anyone under 18 in its shoe factories.
But global retailers are still grappling with the teen issue. Nike revised its earlier prohibition on shoe-factory staff younger than 18 in 2010 to allow some employees as young as 16, provided they aren’t in hazardous work. Turning away workers under 18 could “potentially have unintended consequences” and deprive them of a way to move ahead in life, said Hannah Jones, Nike’s vice president for sustainability. “This is not an easy issue.”
Kailash Satyarthi, founder of New Delhi advocacy group Bachpan Bachao Andolan, or Save the Childhood Movement, said adolescents between 14 and 18 are particularly attractive to factory owners because they are more likely than younger children to have dropped out of school and are better able to work long hours.
In India, about 44% of the 530 young laborers the group removed from garment factories in the first half of this year because of unsafe or unfair conditions were 14-18 years old, he said. In all of 2011 that percentage was 27%. Several survivors of the Rana Plaza disaster in Bangladesh who were interviewed by The Wall Street Journal were under 18.
Cambodia, a poor Southeast Asian country, burst onto the global garment scene in the 1990s when its leaders looked to create jobs after years of civil war. In the first 10 months of this year, the value of Cambodia’s garment exports rose 20% to $4.61 billion over the previous year, according to the Commerce Ministry. Foreign direct investment rose 73% last year.
This rapid growth makes it harder to find enough workers.
In addition to ratifying U.N. conventions on child labor, Cambodia has set its own minimum-age rules. Children under 18 aren’t allowed to do hazardous or overtime work or to sign employment contracts without a guardian’s consent. Workers between 12 and 15 are prohibited from doing jobs that could interfere with school attendance, among other provisions. Children under 12 can’t hold jobs.
Some factory owners decided it wasn’t worth the trouble hiring youths under 18, given the extra rules, said Ken Loo, secretary-general of Cambodia’s Garment Manufacturers’ Association.
But some youths, like Ms. Kim, falsify their age. In other instances, factories falsify paperwork to make it appear that all their employees are over 18, according to workers. The lack of a universal birth registration system in Cambodia complicates things.
Nine of the 12 workers interviewed one Sunday this year near the New Star factory, where the Lim sisters work, said they had been hired by New Star when they were under 18. Half were still under 18. Six of the nine said they had submitted false age information. Lim Loeung, the girl who said she spends up to 80 hours a week gluing soles, said factory supervisors falsified her age. Two workers didn’t fully explain how they came to be hired despite their age.
The New Star spokesman said the factory in Sihanoukville doesn’t employ anyone under 18 and that when workers have appeared particularly young, the company has made efforts to verify ages with parents. He said working conditions at New Star have “significantly improved” recently and that the factory two months ago joined the U.N. Better Factories Cambodia program that helps monitor factory conditions.
The two Lim sisters who were hired before they were 18 are part of a team that makes 550 pairs of shoes a day. They work in a glue section. The smell “chokes” them, they say.
Cambodian law prohibits children under 18 from working around “harmful chemical” agents but doesn’t specify whether glue is considered such an item. The country’s secretary of state at the Labor Ministry, Oum Mean, said the legality of minors working with glue would have to be determined on a case-by-case basis after an investigation.
The New Star spokesman said the factory mostly uses water-based adhesives, which are considered safer by experts, but that sometimes the factory “cannot avoid using regular glue.”
Experts say the issue is complex. Jill Tucker, chief technical adviser of the U.N. factory-monitoring program Better Factories Cambodia, said specialists would have to examine which types of chemicals are used, the factory’s ventilation system and other factors before knowing whether a factory is safe for minors.
“It’s not as easy as ‘all glues are dangerous,’ or ‘no glues are dangerous,’ ” she said.
Ms. Singh, the U.N. child-labor specialist, said the thought of young employees working with glue made her “super nervous.” She said she would generally recommend that factories assign teens to tasks that have more certainty of being safer, such as packaging.
Lim Loeung’s older sister Len requested a transfer to another area of the factory. Her request was denied, she said. When the factory hired Loeung this year, they assigned her to the same section.
The New Star spokesman didn’t comment on the Lim sisters’ account.
When Loeung started work this year, she earned $30 a month for a probationary period. Now she and her sister Len each earn around $150 a month. They send half of it home to their family, which lives in a wooden hut on stilts in the countryside.
“I wanted to help my family,” 14-year-old Loeung said of her decision to join the shoe factory. “Working in the factory is not like working at home,” she said. At home, “we can go to sleep whenever we want.”
At her glue post, she works in silence. “We cannot talk because we have to finish work,” she said. The factory, she said, recently boosted her workweek to 80 hours from 70.
The New Star representative said workers are paid between one-and-a-half to three times their normal hourly wages for work beyond eight hours a day. (The higher rates kick in for Sunday or holiday overtime.)
Loeung and Len returned to their village for a joint interview with their parents. The Journal covered moderate expenses.
Their mother, Teum Heurn, a 46-year old rice farmer, said she is concerned for her daughters.
“I’m afraid they’ll get sick. I’m afraid they’ll get cheated by the factory. I worry about their safety. I’m afraid my children will go out at night and make bad friends. I worry about drug trafficking and violence,” she said.
But ultimately, she said, she didn’t feel that she had a choice because her family—she has nine children—is poor. The Lims have no toilet or electricity, which would cost $5 a month. Every three or four days the family goes to town to recharge a battery that runs a lamp. Charging the battery costs around fifty cents.
“I am grateful to the factory for hiring my daughters,” Ms. Teum said.
During the 420-kilometer drive back to Sihanoukville, the two Lim sisters chatted about their dreams for the future. Len said she and her older sister, Lim Lorn, hope one day to work in a beauty salon. But “we’re not able to do it now,” she said, because training costs money that they haven’t been able to save.
In the back seat, Loeung bragged that she was a better singer and eater than Len. She gobbled up four chocolate cookies and sang a favorite Cambodian love song, “Promise Before Sleeping,” as the car bounced along a country road past villages and farms.
Len started feeling carsick. Loeung, sprinkled with chocolate crumbs, patted her head to comfort her. Eventually the two collapsed onto each other under a blanket.
The girls pay $25 a month to rent a tiny room along the dirt alleys near the factory where they work. They sleep next to each other on a wooden platform that occupies most of the windowless room.
Their clothes hang on a string against the wall. For entertainment they go to a nearby mobile-phone shop where factory workers gather to buy local music and Thai videos to watch on their phones for about 25 cents a pop.
The girls chose their complex because it is for women only. There is a group of older male construction workers living nearby. The Lim girls said they are afraid of the older men.
“I am afraid they have bad intentions,” Len said. “We cannot see well when we leave work because it is nighttime.”
Geox SpA of Italy, which also manufactures shoes at the factory, said it is stepping up its questioning of factories it uses since the Rana Plaza disaster.
Juan Carlos Venti, head of external relations at Geox’s parent company, LIR Finanziaria, said that it recently decided to continue getting products from New Star even though a local Geox inspector had raised suspicions of underage workers with the factory. He said the decision came after New Star agreed to Geox’s demand that it start participating in Better Factories Cambodia.
But speaking generally of some of the factories Geox looks at, Mr. Venti said: “It is increasingly difficult to get the right documents, not fakes. Some factories lie and we’re scared by that because we don’t want any problems.”

Cambodian garment workers killed, dozens more injured and arrested

Jan 26, 2014.
At least four dead workers. Dozens more injured. Twenty-three beaten and arrested. More than 100 still missing. Thirteen workers terminated.
Just for demanding a living monthly wage, $65 a month more than the government was prepared to offer.
“Gunfire killed at least four people and injured dozens more, in an unprecedented crackdown on demonstrators ten days after a coalition of labour unions called for a national strike against Cambodia’s garment factories,” said Aljazeera in their January 9 story.
“The violence followed a Ministry of Labour announcement that the industry’s minimum monthly wage would be raised to $95 in 2014, less than the $160 that unions demanded.”
A Free The 23 campaign was launched by trade unions and human rights groups, who also called for a mass rally for January 26 at Freedom Park in Phnom Penh.
Solidarity rallies were held in other cities around the world, including Toronto.
“The garment sector accounts for more than 80 per cent of Cambodia’s exports, and is a lynchpin of the country’s economy,” said Aljazeera.

“The approximately 600,000 garment workers in the country currently earn a minimum monthly wage of $75, plus a $5 health bonus — a raise from the $61 minimum wage that prevailed last year in the industry.”
But unions insisted on a minimum monthly wage $160, an end to the violence and freedom for the 23 arrested more than three weeks ago.
“We are boiling hot because of the injustice to our brothers and sisters at home,” said Fa Lim, an organizer with the Cambodian Workers Solidarity Network in Toronto, where a solidarity rally with Cambodian garment workers was held on Sunday in frigid temperatures.
“Workers rights are human rights. Their fundamental rights ought to be respected.”
But that’s not the reality.
Last year, a Bangladeshi garment factory building collapsed, killing more than 1,100 workers. In Qatar, 382 Nepalese migrant construction workers have died in the last two years.
Last week in Mississauga, a welder wearing safety gear was killed on the job. One of many who die in the province every week.
“There’s only one way to win justice,” said Unifor National president Jerry Dias. “And that’s when workers from around the world unite to fight against these types of atrocities. We need to take control of our lives. And we need to do that by being aggressive.”
By fighting back when workers are killed or arrested for demanding a living wage. By fighting back when workers are killed on the job due to unsafe working conditions.
“We can’t have workers making $80 a month that work 80 hours a week,” said Dias. “Some of the richest corporations in the world are exploiting workers. And our governments aren’t doing a damn thing about it.”
Not a peep from the Canadian government.
“Did you hear them scream?” asked Dias. “No we didn’t hear a damn thing.”
A mile west of Dundas Square, the site of Sunday’s rally co-sponsored by the Workers’ Action Centre, the Toronto and York Region Labour Council and the Cambodian Workers Solidarity Network, used to be the home of Toronto’s garment industry.
For over a hundred years, thousands of workers from every nationality made clothes for the rest of the city, country and the world.
“Yes, they were exploited but they managed to stand up for their rights and raise standards,” said John Cartwright, president, Toronto and York Region Labour Council.
“But the global corporations have stolen those jobs from Spadina Avenue and they’ve taken them to one place after another where workers are exploited and paid less and less and less. And when the workers in Cambodia had the courage and the fortitude to demand a living wage, they were struck down by a dictatorship.”
A corrupt autocracy that came in 160 out of 177 countries on the Corruption Perceptions Index, an list that ranks countries and territories based on how corrupt their public sector is perceived to be.
“A mere dispute over wages doesn’t explain the violence,” said Matthew Yglesias, Slate’s business and economics correspondent in story published on January 3.
“The deeper roots of the clash are a July election, when Cambodia’s main opposition groups forged a united front and mounted the strongest electoral challenge the ruling party had seen in years. The incumbents responded with what international observers say was widespread fraud and stole the vote. The labor protests are linked to opposition politics, and conversely the dispute over wages is seen as a challenge to the regime.”
A regime that killed, beat and jailed workers. A regime that denied workers their rights, dignity and respect in their workplace.
“By the owners and the government,” said Carolyn Egan, resident of the Steelworker Toronto Area Council.
“So it’s terribly important that we gather on this stormy day in Toronto sending our message across the ocean over to Cambodia.”
A message delivered from a stage on Sunday where workers stood united in their determination to continue to support one another here and around the globe.
“We see workers being attacked all over the world,” said Egan. “In South Africa, Greece, Latin America and right here in Toronto.”
Where workers are fighting for a $14 hourly provincial minimum wage.
“We know that those in control of our corporations and our government are trying to pass the effect of the financial crisis down to the poor and the working class,” said Egan.
Trying to push a neoliberal agenda.
“Where workers don’t have rights,” said Chris Ramsaroop, co-president, Asian Canadian Labour alliance.
“The attacks of workers here are linked to the fights in Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Iraq, Cambodia and Bangladesh. Rather than create (free) trade agreements, we should have labour agreements to protect worker rights and democracy.”
The right to a living minimum wage. The right to health and safety regulations. The right to organize without fear of reprisal. And the right to protest without risking one’s life.
“It’s unjust for state forces to open fire on garment workers who are only asking for a minimum wage increase,” said Winnie Ng, CAW-Sam Gindin Chair in Social Justice and Democracy at Ryerson University.
“We need to continue the fight here because if we can maintain the standards then there’s a chance for workers in Bangladesh and Cambodia.”

Cambodian Military Commanders Accused of Fraud, Corruption

2014-01-10
Soldiers in Cambodia’s far northwestern Banteay Meanchey province have accused their commanders of blatant corruption, nepotism, and fraud, saying they were ripping off veterans of their pensions and running an illegal logging business using military vehicles along the border with Thailand.

The soldiers made their accusations against subregional commander Plong Dara and his deputy Keo Senglorn in a 16-page complaint to local rights group Adhoc.

Thirty-nine soldiers affixed their thumbprint signature in the complaint statement, saying they represented the whole of Banteay Meanchey’s provincial armed forces.

Sources close to the soldiers said that they had filed complaints previously to Prime Minister Hun Sen’s cabinet and to the Ministry of Defense, relevant military institutions and the Anti-Corruption Unit but to no avail.

Instead, after the complaints, 20 soldiers were fired, the sources said.
“It was all about money,” a soldier, who asked not to be named, told RFA’s Khmer Service. “They [the commanders] bribed the Ministry of Defense’s Inspectors” to avoid being detected, the soldier said.

Defense official accused

The sources accused the Ministry of Defense’s secretary of state Neang Phat of abetting the commanders and firing the soldiers who had earlier filed the complaints.

“Neang Phat helped fire those soldiers to eliminate evidence,” they said.

RFA tried calling Plong Dara about the complaint but he hung up on the reporter.

The soldiers also attached documents showing that the salaries of soldiers had been cut without any reasons for several years.

The documents also listed “phantom” names of soldiers and suggested that the commanders were stealing pensions from retired soldiers and family members of soldiers who have died, and exploiting the benefits of 159 disabled soldiers.

The names of the soldiers whose salaries were compromised were identified in the complaint.

They also accused the commanders of using military property, including trucks, for their personal business. They cited instances where military trucks had been used to transport luxury wood illegally from Thailand.

“On Dec. 4 and 6 [last year], Plong Dara ordered soldiers in Camp 505 to transport wood using six vehicles from Thailand to Sereisophoan for his private business,” they said in the complaint, which also accused the commander of encroaching on military land.

Abuse

Adhoc provincial coordinator Sum Chankea called on the Ministry of Defense to investigate the allegations, saying the commanders had abused the law and should be suspended pending the probe.

“If this problem continues, it will affect the morale of the soldiers who have sacrificed for the country,” he said, citing the questionable salary cuts as an example.

Another soldier told RFA that before any investigation, the commanders must be temporarily suspended so that investigators would be able gather more information on the various cases implicating them, such as ordering soldiers to bring in luxury wood from Thailand.

The soldier claimed that Thai soldiers had shot and killed some of the Cambodian soldiers who were forced to carry out the illegal logging.

Cambodia is the most corrupt nation in Southeast Asia, according to the latest survey by Transparency International. In a world ranking, it placed 160th among 177 countries.

Reported by RFA’s Khmer Service. Translated by Samean Yun. Written in English by Parameswaran Ponnudurai.

Bribery viewed as normal in Indonesia

Published: 3 Jan 2014 at 04.58Online news:

JAKARTA – Many Indonesians still think it is normal to bribe government officials and police officers to process civil registry documents or driving licenses, according to a national survey released Thursday.

The 2013 Anticorruption Behavior Index, published by the Central Bureau of Statistics, was at 3.63 on a scale from zero, meaning “very permissive towards corruption,” to five, meaning “highly anticorruption.”

According to the survey of 10,000 households in the country’s 33 provinces, 43% of respondents consider giving extra money to government officials to have their identification cards and other civil registry documents processed as normal, while 37% consider it normal to bribe police officers to have their driving licenses or other papers quickly processed.

Corruption is still rampant in Indonesia despite President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s political platform to eradicate graft. Many of the perpetrators are even members of his own Democrat Party and party-linked government officials, hurting his popularity.

Last month, Transparency International ranked Indonesia 114th out of 177 countries in its 2013 Corruption Perception Index. Among other Southeast Asian countries, Singapore ranked 5, Brunei 38, Malaysia 53, the Philippines 94, Thailand 102, Vietnam 116, Laos 140, Myanmar 157 and Cambodia 160.

“The fact shows that Yudhoyono’s administration has not optimized its efforts to push its strategic programs in eradicating and preventing corruption,” the Berlin-based organisation said.

“It has not touched political sector and other strategic sectors, such as judicial and public service sectors,” it added, referring to lawmakers, politicians and police officers as the most corrupt figures and institutions in the country.

IMF Keeps Cambodia’s Corruption in the Shadows

DECEMBER 26, 2013
Author(s): Jessica Evans

If the IMF’s message on corruption is to be more than rhetoric, Lagarde needs to convey it both publicly and privately each time she meets with leaders of the world’s most corrupt nations.

“Zero tolerance for corruption must be foundational. The state must be the servant rather than the master of the people,” Christine Lagarde, the International Monetary Fund chief, said earlier this year. But during her early December visit to Cambodia, named the second most corrupt country in East Asia and the most corrupt in the region that has formal relations with the IMF, she said nothing of the sort.

Transparency International’s latest corruption perceptions index, published during Lagarde’s visit, ranked Cambodia behind only North Korea in East Asia, at 160 of the 177 countries surveyed. The Asian Development Bank has similarly foundthat corruption continues to be the “main area of concern for improving the business environment and overall governance in Cambodia.” This is nothing new. In 2005, James Wolfensohn, then the World Bank president, said that Cambodia was facing three major challenges: “corruption, corruption, corruption.”

The IMF recognizes that corruption threatens market integrity, distorts competition, and endangers economic development, all while undermining the public’s trust in its government. Yet the IMF chief failed to mention this scourge, even obliquely, during her first visit to the country as head of the IMF. Lagarde emphasized inclusive growth, recognizing the gross inequalities in the country, and encouraged greater investment in education and jobs. But she ignored the misappropriation of state resources that siphons away desperately needed funds for education and other essential government services.

Lagarde also did not publicly acknowledge other key governance problems that harm the economy, exacerbate corruption, and deepen social and political problems. Cambodia’s courts remain controlled by the ruling Cambodian People’s Party (CPP), making the rule of law a still distant dream for Cambodians and investors alike. She didn’t mention what even otherwise cautious diplomats consistently highlight: the land grab crisis that benefits Prime Minister Hun Sen, other government officials and their cronies. This is no small issue in what is still a largely agrarian country.

Lagarde’s silence on these matters was even more apparent since her trip coincided with a political crisis after a deeply flawed election manipulated by the ruling party. Just before she arrived, a coalition of independent domestic and international election observation groups detailed serious election irregularities that could have changed the outcome of a close election and would have prompted a re-vote in many countries.

She could have met with the leaders of the political opposition to discuss their economic proposals. Instead, the IMF acted as if none of this existed when Lagarde met with Hun Sen on his 10,550th day (more than 28 years) in power and publicly shared her belief that Hun Sen’s government is resolved “to lay down a firm foundation of good governance.”

While the IMF might argue that elections are beyond its mandate, it can hardly dismiss corruption. Corruption corrodes every sector of the country. When I visited Cambodia this year, parents told me their children could only take their tests if they paid extra, “off the books,” fees to their grossly underpaid teachers. A government employee whose salary was paid by the private sector, which is problematic in itself, described the look of horror on his boss’s face when he asked for a record of tax paid. He could only assume it went into his boss’s pocket.

The UN special rapporteur on human rights in Cambodia, Surya Subedi, has found corruption to be widespread at all levels in the judiciary. Judges rely on patronage and political protection for job security, compromising their independence. A recent United States government review of the investment climate in Cambodia echoed concerns about corruption within the judiciary, saying, “Business people, both local and foreign, have identified corruption, particularly within the judiciary, as the single greatest deterrent to investment in Cambodia.”

Cambodia experienced one of the highest national rates of forest loss from 2000 to 2012, according to a recent study. And while Cambodia’s Forestry Law prohibits logging of rosewood, Chinese import documents provided to The Cambodia Daily reportedly revealed that 36,000 cubic meters of rosewood logs were transported from Cambodia between 2007 and 2012.

The Asian Development Bank has also pointed to ongoing informal links between the ruling party, medium-sized and large businesses, and senior levels of government. It recognized high risks of problems in procurement, citing procurement specialists who suspect that tendering agencies engage in a wide range of dodgy practices, including an expectation of kickbacks from those who win government contracts.

In recent years, the government has implemented superficial and ineffectual reforms to address corruption. But these spotty reforms also included an asset disclosure law that perversely criminalizes the public disclosure of the assets of government officials, while the new Anti-Corruption Unit is essentially a public relations unit for the government that lacks the power and independence to tackle high-level corruption.

Lagarde missed a major opportunity in Cambodia to highlight governance problems, but she can right this by speaking out when she returns to headquarters. If the IMF’s message on corruption is to be more than rhetoric, Lagarde needs to convey it both publicly and privately each time she meets with leaders of the world’s most corrupt nations.

Jessica Evans is the senior advocate and researcher on international financial institutions at Human Rights Watch. You can follow her on twitter @evans_jessica.

Cambodia Drops Further In Corruption Index

Dec 4 2013,
Cambodia continues to be perceived as one of the world’s most corrupt countries and is considered the worst in terms of public-sector corruption among its Asean counterparts, according to Transparency International’s 2013 Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), which was published Tuesday.

Cambodia, alongside Eritrea and Venezuela, came 160th out of 177 countries and territories in terms of perceived corruption in the public sector, with a score of just 20. A score of 100 represented the “cleanest” countries in terms of corruption.

Cambodia’s ranking as the 17th most corrupt country in the world marks a fall of three places from its 2012 ranking of 157, when it scored 22 points, which was a slight improvement from its 2011 score of 19.

“The 2013 ranking confirms that the public sector in Cambodia continues to be perceived as highly corrupt,” Transparency International Cambodia (TIC) said in a statement at the launch of the index in Phnom Penh.

Regionally speaking, Cambodia fell two places among Asean member countries to occupy the lowest spot, while Burma saw its score rise from 15 last year to 21 this year. Laos also improved its score from 21 to 26. Vietnam came in at 116th place with a score of 31, while Singapore fared the best at fifth place with 86.

Sophoan Rath, chairman of TIC’s board of directors, referred to the problem of corruption in Cambodia as a “hideous crime” that must be dealt with by actions instead of words.

“This year’s result continues to indicate that corruption is a major problem that negatively impacts the daily lives of Cambodian citizens and has serious consequences for Cambodia’s economic competitiveness,” Mr. Sophoan said in the statement.

“While it is encouraging to hear the highest level of Cambodia’s government reiterating their commitment to tackle corruption, corrupt practices will continue and become even more entrenched unless rhetoric is matched by actions. Acknowledgement and commitment are not enough,” he said.

“Substantial reform must be taken in order to fight this hideous crime.”

TIC acknowledged that “the Government has demonstrated a commitment to respond to the growing demands of Cambodia’s citizens and we remain optimistic that Cambodia is headed towards a more transparent and accountable future.”

It pointed to a number of government-led efforts to stamp out corruption, including the work of the Anti-Corruption Unit (ACU) and the introduction of official public fees at government ministries.

Cambodia’s position on the CPI was determined based on the findings of seven statistical data sources, including reports from the World Economic Forum, the World Bank and the Economist Intelligence Unit.

Denmark is perceived as the “cleanest” country this year, with a score of 91, followed by New Zealand, Finland and Sweden.

Somalia, North Korea and Afghanistan tied for last place, with scores of 8, while Cambodia fell immediately behind Burma, Burundi and Zimbabwe, which landed in 157th place with 21 points.

The TIC board members said that one of the ways Cambodia could offset its dismal reputation would be to pass the long-awaited and much-called for Freedom of Information law, a draft of which was rejected by the National Assembly in January.

“This measure will provide the public with the rights and mechanisms to participate more actively in the fight against corruption and therefore helps the government to achieve better results,” TIC said.

At the same time, the TIC board took note of a proposed cyber law that rights groups say would restrict freedom of speech, particularly on social-networking sites, and urged the government instead to focus on introducing legal protections for whistle-blowers who expose corruption.

Chhay Savuth, vice chairman of the government’s Anti-Corruption Unit, was defiant about the efforts that have been made to tackle the issue.

“It is their right to mention that Cambodia is ranked badly corrupt, but Cambodia has been developing, such as the construction of schools and bridges,” Mr. Savuth said.

“If we had corruption, how could this all happen? We can see it with our own eyes together,” he added, before declining to comment further.

Several health officials were last month exposed by the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria as having been paid hundreds of thousands of dollars in kickbacks—one of the most recent examples of deeply engrained corruption at a high level.

Just last week, the ACU also swooped on three state utility and tax officials in two separate cases of forgery and bribe taking.

Stop denying violence against women, says actor Nandita Das

Saturday, Nov 16, 2013, 16:40 IST | Place: New Delhi | Agency: DNA
Marisha Karwa
Experts urge all stakeholders to work together, press need to change social attitudes
Putting the onus on every individual and all stakeholders to create a safe environment for women, UN Women, Unicef and the Indian Women Press Corps (IWP) reiterated that violence against women must end.
Panel members at a discussion in New Delhi on Saturday said that the rise in the number of cases of violence against women reflects the increased confidence of women in reporting the crimes and should not be necessarily interpreted as an increase in the sheer number of cases of violence.
Actor and UN advocate Nandita Das described the bias on the part of men in acknowledging issues of sexual abuse and violence against women. “The denial that we are living in must stop,” she said.
Researcher Kalpana Vishwanath, who has been the force behind Jagori’s Safe Delhi for Women campaign, spoke about the “everydayness” of violence that women are faced with and how this “fear of facing violence” shapes women’s experience of a city. “More and more people are beginning to live in cities, and the very nature of an urbanised environment lends to increased incidence of violence,” said Vishwanath, who has co-founded the mobile app Safetipin. The app, released earlier this week for Delhi, works on the crowdsourcing principle to audit localities to determine if the areas are safe for women.
Policing is not the only thing that will make a city safe, said Vishwanath. “Other institutions and public service providers, such as transport and PWD officials, too are needed to improve safety.”
Talking about how violence against women is a global and regional problem, Anju Pandey, programme officer for UN Women’s Ending Violence Against Women campaign, said that the media must also report on victims of violence in rural areas as the marginalised often don’t have a redress mechanism. “Social apathy needs to change to empathy,” said Pandey. “Laws can only do so much. Social attitudes and legal recourse must evolve hand-in-hand.”
Explaining the excessive nature of violence faced by marginalised groups, Asha Kowtal of All India Dalit Mahila Adhikar Manch, said that the caste structure invariably leads to women’s exploitation. Belief in the concept of superiority by birth allows upper caste men, and sometimes women too, to perpetrate violence against lower caste women. The excessive public humiliation, such as naked public parading, tonsuring, etc, that invariably follows the act of violence adds to the stigma, said Kowtal. “We have to stop fooling ourselves that violence will end in our caste-based society. We need to dismantle institutions that reek of patriarchy and caste to build a better word for all women,” she said.
Unicef’s Dora Giusti and IWPC’s Mannika Chopra and Aruna Singh were the other panel members.

Japan, Cambodia set to improve maritime security cooperation

November 17, 2013
Japan and Cambodia have agreed on Saturday to enhance maritime security cooperation between the two nations, specifically by establishing the principle of the rule of law to settle disputes in the Asia-Pacific region. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and his Cambodian counterpart Hun Sen have come to an agreement that there needs to be an improvement in the cooperation between their defense authorities and work together to improve health and medical care in Cambodia, this according to a joint statement that they released after their summit in Phnom Penh.

The two leaders “underscored the importance of settling maritime disputes by peaceful means in accordance with universally recognized principles of international law in order to establish the principle of the rule of the law in the Asia-Pacific region,” the statement said. The document obviously alludes to the territorial rows between China and some Southeast Asian countries in the South China Sea as well as one between China and Japan in the East China Sea. Cambodia has close ties with China, and Abe’s trip to the Cambodian capital is the first by a Japanese prime minister in 13 years. The visit is believed to be aimed at keeping Beijing’s influence in the region in check.

Abe and Hun Sen also came to other agreements, including Japan assisting the capacity building of Cambodian peacekeeping officers. Cambodia is the first country where a Japanese mission consisting of Self-Defense Forces, police officers and election observers joined U.N. peacekeeping operations in 1992. The two leaders also agreed that Japan will utilize its advanced medical technologies and systems to help improve health and medical care in Cambodia. Abe said that Japan will launch a hospital providing emergency care in Cambodia in March 2015, which will be constructed at a cost of 4 billion yen (around US$40 million) with investment from a government-linked fund, engineering firm JGC Corp. and Kitahara International Hospital based in Hachioji in the suburbs of Tokyo.

Violent Bangladesh garment pay clash shuts over 100 factories

DHAKA — REUTERS
Last updated Monday, Nov. 11 2013, 7:15 AM EST

Bangladeshi police fired water cannon and rubber bullets on Monday to break up a protest by garment workers demanding a higher minimum wage, forcing the closure of more than 100 factories.

Bangladesh’s official wage board proposed a 77 per cent rise in the minimum wage for garment workers last week after a string of fatal factory accidents this year thrust poor pay and conditions into the international spotlight.

The present minimum monthly wage of $38 is around half that of rival Asian exporters Vietnam and Cambodia and just over a quarter of the rate in top exporter China, according to International Labour Organization data from August.

But factory owners said they could not afford 77 per cent.

Police also fired tear gas to disperse the stone-throwing demonstrators in the Ashulia industrial belt, on the outskirts of the capital Dhaka, that accounts for nearly 20 per cent of total garment exports.

“Owners are indifferent to our demand. They are not even ready to pay what the wage board proposed,” a protester said, adding that there was no other option but to take to the streets.

Garment factory staff went on strike over wages for six days in September, hitting production at almost 20 per cent of the country’s 3,200 factories. The strikes followed similar protests over the summer.

The new protest coincided with a four-day nationwide strike led by the main opposition party demanding next year’s election take place under a non-partisan government.

The impasse between the ruling party and opposition over election rules is a fresh threat to Bangladesh’s $22-billion garment export industry, the economic lifeblood of the impoverished country of 160 million, employing around 4 million people, mostly women.

The industry, which supplies many Western brands, has already been under the spotlight after the accidents, including the collapse of a building housing factories in April that killed more than 1,130 people.

Rock-bottom wages and trade deals with Western countries have helped make Bangladesh the world’s second-largest apparel exporter after China, with 60 per cent of its clothes going to Europe and 23 per cent to the United States.

Maid in Singapore: will Cambodian domestic workers be better protected?

Cambodia’s government says its workers will be shielded from abuse, but doubts linger over key welfare issues

Thol Srey Mach is one of 400 women taking part in a pilot scheme that is sending Cambodian domestic workers to Singapore.

There are more than 200,000 foreign domestic workers on the island, and if the trial goes well it could open the way for a new source of labour to sate the affluent city-state’s appetite for household help.

With that in mind, Srey Mach, 26, and dozens of other young women have been preparing by scrubbing floors, bathing plastic babies and brushing up on their English at a Cambodian recruitment centre.

The alternative to going overseas for many of these women would be working in a garment factory – a job that pays about $75 (£ 47) per month.

Srey Mach, who has worked in Malaysia, can expect to earn about $360 a month in Singapore, agents say, though her salary will ultimately depend on “market forces”, with no guaranteed minimum wage.

In 2011, the Cambodian government stopped sending domestic workers to Malaysia after a series of rights abuses, including confinement, beatings and sexual exploitation emerged. Two Cambodian agencies participating in the Singapore scheme were allegedly implicated in some of those cases.

The Cambodian government has said it believes its workers will be better protected in Singapore. But rights groups point to large placement fees and a lack of guaranteed rest days as potential welfare issues.

Although Singapore has recently mandated a weekly off-day for maids, employers are allowed to pay workers extra in lieu of a rest day if they agree. For an extra $15 a week, Srey Mach says she won’t take a day off: “I don’t know what I would do on an off-day. We want to work more so we can get more money.”

Cambodian workers’ rights advocates are appealing to Singaporeans to pay the placement fees, which other source countries, such as the Philippines, insist employers bear. Singaporeans complain that they already have to pay $213 a month in taxes – a “maid levy” – as well as a $4,030 bond to have a household worker.

The Cambodian women will have almost all of their salaries deducted during their first six months of work, to repay a $1,930 loan taken out to cover agency fees. If the worker returns home prematurely, she will still be tied to the loan.

In September, the Manila-based Association of Licensed Recruitment Agencies to Singapore (Alras) stopped sending domestic workers to Singapore in protest against salary deductions and placement fees, which are illegal under Filipino law.

Since April 2011, Singaporean law has set a two-month cap on fees that local agencies can deduct from a worker’s salary. But despite the laws, some Singapore and Filipino agencies have continued to deduct salaries for up to eight months, said Lucy Sermonia, president of Alras, which represents 110 Filipino agencies. “It is high time we think about the welfare of the household service workers,” she said.

Singapore’s ministry of manpower told the Guardian it had taken a “firm stance against excessive recruitment fees”, with heavy penalties for offenders. “We urge [agencies] to comply with requirements imposed by source-country governments … However, Singapore is not able to enforce the laws of another country,” a spokesperson said.

Singapore’s employment act, which regulates working conditions, does not cover domestic workers.

Although workers’ welfare has improved over the years, placement fees have increased in the past decade, said John Gee from Transient Workers Count Too, a Singapore NGO. “Before the Asian financial crisis it was pretty normal for Singapore employers to expect to pay for the placement costs,” he said. “Then agencies began advertising ‘$0 maids’, and the cost was transferred to the worker – and those costs tended to go up.”

The Philippines is the only Asian country to have ratified the landmark International Labour Organisation convention on domestic workers (pdf), which – among other rights protections – bans salary deductions to pay placement fees.

Manila’s tough stance has pushed up demand for domestic workers from other countries, Gee said, with Singaporean employers knowing it will be harder to get Filipino workers to forfeit their rest day. “The [employers] know the Filipinos will stand their ground, and they’ve got government backing,” he said. Workers from poorer countries such as Burma are marketed as “docile”, he added. “When they talk about workers in these terms, it’s a licence to exploit. They won’t complain and will do what they are told … There is the same image, I’m afraid, with workers from Cambodia.”

Gary Chin, managing director at Nation Employment, an agency in Singapore, said Filipino workers’ share of the market had plummeted from 90% two decades ago to 20-30% today because they were “too expensive”. “If [employers] want to pay less, they will turn to those countries that still allow their maids to Singapore and are [paying] the placement fees, like Burma, Indonesia and Cambodia,” Chin said.

Some U.S. Cities Have Higher Gun Violence Than ENTIRE Nations — Check This Map

When it comes to gun murders in America, some American cities rank among the most dangerous in the world — even when they’re compared to entire countries.

This map parallels the rate of gun murders in American cities to entire nations. The bigger the dot, the worse it is.

 

The Martin Prosperity Institute compiled the data, building on statistics from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, additional data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and other sources collected by The Guardian. The statistics are budled and from a mix of international crime data (which can be incomplete) and homicide data (which is more reliable).

Each dot represents gun murders per 100,000 people. For the United States as a whole, the rate of gun homicides is about 3 per 100,000 people. Honduras is the country with the world’s highest gun homicide rate, around 68 gun murders per 100,000 people.

New York, with a population of more than 8 million, had 237 people killed by guns in 2012, for a rate of around 3 gun homicides per 100,000 people. New York is a comparatively small dot. Still, New York has more gun murders per capita than Argentina, which has a population over 41 million.

What’s the most dangerous city in the world? That would be Honduras’ San Pedro Sula. Shockingly, San Pedro Sula had 1,218 murders for 719,447 inhabitants in 2012.

Here’s how things shake out:

– If it were a country, New Orleans (with a rate 62.1 gun murders per 100,000 people) would rank second in the world.

– Detroit’s gun homicide rate (35.9) is just a bit less than El Salvador (39.9).

– Baltimore’s rate (29.7) is not too far off that of Guatemala (34.8).

– Newark (25.4) and Miami (23.7) have gun murder statistics comparable to Colombia (27.1).

– Washington D.C. (19) has a higher rate of gun homicide than Brazil (18.1).

– Atlanta’s rate (17.2) is about the same as South Africa (17).

– Cleveland (17.4) has a higher rate than the Dominican Republic (16.3).

– Gun murder in Buffalo (16.5) is similar to Panama (16.2).

– Houston’s rate (12.9) is slightly higher than Ecuador’s (12.7).

– Gun homicide in Chicago (11.6) is similar to Guyana (11.5).

– Phoenix’s rate (10.6) is slightly higher than Mexico (10).

– Los Angeles (9.2) is comparable to the Philippines (8.9).

– Boston rate (6.2) is higher than Nicaragua (5.9).

– New York, where gun murders have declined to just four per 100,000, is still higher than Argentina (3).

– Even the cities with the lowest homicide rates by American standards, like San Jose and Austin, compare to Albania and Cambodia respectively.

The numbers give a stark portrait of American urban centers and the laws (or lack thereof) that seek to maintain safety in these cities. Other points on American gun culture itself, of course, can be teased out, but that’s a whole different story.

Crime rise’ blamed on protesters

November 21, 2013
Phnom Penh’s chief prosecutor yesterday attributed an alleged rise in Cambodia’s crime rate to an increase in public demonstrations.

Prosecutor general of Phnom Penh Municipal Court Ouk Savuth’s theory came out during a speech he made at a meeting of police and prosecutors held at City Hall on the topic of how police and prosecutors can curb crime.

“According to reports from all provincial and municipal courts, crime has increasingly occurred every year in our country,” Savuth said yesterday. “According to my own observation, I think the reason why the crime rate is increasing each year is because there have been so many demonstrations in Cambodia.”

Giving little in the way of solid data, Savuth proposed that when a large group of people get together in a public space, criminals invariably infiltrate the ranks and cause a ruckus. A report from Phnom Penh Municipal Court says 3,397 cases were brought before the court between the start of the year and November 15.

Savuth did not release figures for the number of reported crimes in years past.

The allegation of political and labour demonstrations being to blame for a heightened crime rate surprised Eang Vuthy, director of rights group Equitable Cambodia.

“This is a very baseless thing to say,” Vuthy said, expressing his disappointment with Savuth’s attitude toward demonstrations.

“This is very one-sided, and he’s supposed to work for the state, he’s not supposed to be working for any political party.”

Police are usually the perpetrators of violence at public demonstrations, Vuthy added, citing a demonstration of striking garment workers in Meanchey district last week that ended with a bystander being shot dead when police opened fire with live ammunition into the crowd of hundreds.

Demonstrators are usually not criminals, Vuthy said, but people with real needs.

“For the garment workers, they demonstrated for better working conditions, better salaries and respect for the worker rights,” Vuthy said. “The people who create problems are the human-rights abusers.”

Campaign Against Gender Violence Launched

November 26, 2013
The Ministry of Women’s Affairs, NGOs and several U.N. agencies Monday launched the 13th annual campaign against gender-based violence, which this year is focused on rape, organizers said Monday.

Sixteen Days of Activism Against Gender Violence is an international campaign celebrated in countries around the globe every year, and this year in Cambodia, 33 development agencies, including several U.N. organizations, will hold discussions on TV and radio, at universities as well as door-to-door campaigns in Prey Veng, Kompong Chhnang, Battambang, Banteay Meanchey and Pursat provinces, organizers said.

“Most people know that violence against women is wrong and the number of reports on [rapes and domestic violence] cases is increasing. It seems that people have started to discuss and know that they don’t have to hide it anymore,” said Ros Sopheap, executive director of the Gender and Development for Cambodia organization—which is taking part in the campaign.

“Ten years ago, people [did] not want to tell others [about gender violence] and [they kept] it silent because they loose face but now, they say that this happened and it is wrong and they report to the police,” she said.

According to local rights group Adhoc, two thirds of the nearly 200 rape cases reported to the organization so far this year were children, Ms. Sopheap said, adding that there is no analysis as to why victims appear to be getting younger.

“Perpetrators think it’s easy [to rape children], they use their power and intimidate them,” she said, adding that through the door-to-door campaign, activists would also be able to educate children about sexual abuse.

A recent report by the U.N., which found that 1 in every 5 Cambodian man admitted to having raped a woman at some time in the past, would also be the center of several public and on air discussions, she said.

Jenna Holiday, an adviser with U.N. Women, said that nationwide figures were needed to better understand the prevalence of rape, particularly after the report, which focused on men’s attitudes to the crime.

Reports of Rape On the Rise in Burma

November 25, 2013
RANGOON — The number of rapes reported to Burma’s police last year was the highest in five years, according to official figures highlighted by activists on Monday, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women.

Hundreds of women gathered in the shadow of Rangoon’s Shwedagon Pagoda on Sunday and Monday to for speeches and performances to mark the United Nations-designated international day.

Tha Zin Mar, from local NGO Charity-Oriented Myanmar, told the audience that police figures recorded a rise in rape in Burma last year, and that rape was now the second most commonly reported serious crime in the country, behind murder.

Some 654 rapes of women and children were reported in 2012, she said, a figure confirmed by an official at the police’s criminal investigations department in Naypyidaw. It is thought the figure represents only a fraction of the total number of rapes, which, in Burma as in most countries, are rarely reported to police.

“We may think that those victims are not our relatives or not from our blood, but we should not think like this because they are our sisters,” Tha Zin Mar said. “We have to think about how we can protect them to stop such crimes.”

The police official, who declined to be named as he is not authorized to speak with the media, confirmed to The Irrawaddy that rape, at 654, was the second most frequently reported serious crime. There were 1,323 murders in 2012, he said.

The official said the figure for last year was the highest in the past five years. Figures from before 2007 were not available.

In the four years from 2007, the number of rapes reported has fluctuated from 471 in 2007 to 430 in 2008, 384 in 2009, 377 in 2010 and 605 in 2011, he said. The official declined to give any more detailed statistics and it is unclear how many people are prosecuted for rape in Burma.

Little research has been published on rape in Burma. However, a report by the United Nations, published in September, interviewed 10,000 men across the Asia-Pacific region, not including in Burma, and found that rape of women was “pervasive.”

The study, covering Bangladesh, China, Cambodia, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Sri Lanka, found that 10 percent of men admitted to at least one rape of a woman who was not their partner. Almost a quarter admitted to raping a partner, the report said.

Tha Zin Mar said that research by her organization had found that during 2013 up to October, 85 percent of rape cases nationwide in Burma had been reported in Rangoon Division, the country’s most populous city and the commercial capital.

“Every women has her own rights,” she said, explaining that some women in Burma were not aware that being raped was a violation of their rights. “They need to come out to stand up for their rights. There are many organizations who work for women and we want them [victims] to know this.”

May Sabai Phyu of Gender Equality Network said Burma’s women are not protected by the law. “We do not have law, which could protect women and give them good security,” she said.

She said the arrest of rape suspects were often reported in the state-run newspapers, but she rarely saw the perpetrators convicted to jail terms.

“I have two daughters. I am always worried for them whenever they take a taxi or came back home late at night from their schools,” May Sabai Phyu said. “It is not only me who worries for my daughters, but all parents who have daughters in the country have the same worries as me.”

Clash Between Garment Workers, Police In Cambodia Turns Deadly

November 12, 2013
Protesting garment workers and riot police clashed Tuesday in Cambodia’s capital city, leaving a bystander dead and at least 20 people injured.

Workers from SL Garment Processing (Cambodia) Ltd. Factory were marching toward Prime Minister Hun Sen’s residence in Phnom Penh. Workers from the factory have been protesting for months, demanding better pay and working conditions. The factory makes clothes for H&M, Gap and other Western brands.

Riot police were sent to block Tuesday’s march. The clashes began when protesters surrounded five police officers sent to negotiate with them. The Associated Press reports:

“It was unclear which side started the attacks, which included police firing live bullets and tear gas to rescue their colleagues, and protesters throwing rocks and wielding iron bars and wooden sticks, Chan Soveth [senior investigator for the rights group Adhoc] said.
“A woman selling rice near the protest was killed by a police bullet, Chan Soveth and Am Sam Ath of the rights group Licadho said.”
Six protesters were wounded, along with nine members of the public. Five Buddhist monks were also injured when police fired tear gas into a pagoda where protesters had sought refuge.

“The crackdown conducted by police this morning against workers was very cruel and unacceptable,” Kong Athith, a spokesman for the Coalition of Cambodian Apparel Workers Democratic Union, which organized the protest, told the AP. “Workers were unarmed. Why did police use live ammunition to crack down on them?”

Cambodia’s garment industry is one of the world’s largest. It employs about half-million people in 500 shoe and garment factories. Many of these factories are foreign-owned, including SL Garment Processing, which is Singapore-owned.

The sector is Cambodia’s biggest export earner, accounting for about 80 percent of all exports. Last year, it shipped more than $4 billion worth of garments and textiles to the rest of the world. But the industry is rife with complaints about pay and working conditions. As we reported in July, a report from the U.N.’s International Labor Organization said compliance on key workplace conditions, including fire safety, child labor and worker safety and health — in Cambodia need to be improved. And in September, the ILO said it would resume a practice of naming and shaming those factories that violate Cambodian law.

The clashes in Cambodia come amid increased scrutiny of garment factories in Asia.

The collapse of the Rana Plaza in Bangladesh in April killed more than 1,000 people. The collapse revealed the working conditions at factories in the world’s No. 2 garment-making country after China. The incident was the worst in the global garment industry’s history.

Since then, workers in Bangladesh have also protested for better pay and working conditions. On Tuesday, clashes between workers and police resulted in more than 50 injuries as police reportedly fired tear gas and rubber bullets at the protesters near the capital, Dhaka. Here’s more from DPA, the German news agency:

“Workers have been demanding a minimum monthly salary of 5,300 taka ($66), as proposed by a government-appointed panel set up to review conditions after more than 1,100 workers died in a factory collapse in April.
“Factory owners have countered with a proposal of around $55, up from the current $39 minimum monthly wage for an entry-level factory worker, which the workers have rejected.”

UN: Work Conditions Must Improve for Bangladesh to Progress

November 19, 2013
Bangladesh must improve conditions in its garment industry, in which hundreds have died in factory fires, if it is to maintain economic growth, a U.N. report said on Monday.

The International Labor Organization (ILO) said it must also improve education and create more full-time jobs for young people to stop them from emigrating and draining the labor pool.

“Unless a comprehensive set of labor market and social policies are introduced, [Bangladesh] will be unable to maintain its economic momentum and improve living standards in a sustainable way,” the report said.

Important steps had been made towards an open economy, the ILO noted.

The report, two years in the making, was issued as Bangladesh suffers major labor unrest in the garment industry – a major source of clothing for European and North American markets and the mainstay of its export-led growth – and faces pressure from Western nations regarding factory conditions.

In April of this year, a fire at one garment complex employing mainly women just outside Dhaka killed 1,129 people. Just months before, in 2012, 117 workers died in another factory blaze, partly attributed to shoddy building standards.

Presenting the report at a Geneva news conference, ILO officials said that it was not originally linked to these disasters, as it had been started back in 2011. However, they also said the report reflected the situation that led to the incidents.

The report said the rise of Bangladesh’s ready-made garments industry over the past two decades had brought it to account for 4.8 per cent of global apparel exports, second only to China, from 0.6 per cent in 1990.

Unregulated Growth

“But unregulated industry growth has contributed to poor working conditions in the sector, which have acted as an obstacle to sustainable development,” the ILO said.

Although in the past six months, the government had taken some action to address health and safety issues, poor conditions remain a challenge in many factories.

National estimates say poverty has declined, according to the report, but as of 2010 some 76 per cent of the population of around 151 million were living on less than $2 a day, the highest level in the region, according to the report.

In the garment sector, which employs about 3.6 million people, wages were the lowest among Bangladesh’s regional export competitors – well below what workers in Cambodia, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Vietnam could earn.

Currently, Western companies who are major purchasers of the sector’s products – like U.S.-based giant Wal-Mart, France’s Carrefour and Spain’s El Corte Ingles – are in discussions with the Bangladesh government, companies and unions on compensation for workers who died in the April fire.

The discussions are being conducted under the auspices of the European Union which, like the United States, has warned that concrete steps must be taken to improve how the industry operates.

However, talks have failed to produce an outline agreement satisfying all participants.

Some U.S. companies say they prefer to negotiate directly, while manufacturers in Bangladesh are nervous about an accord that would bind them in the future.

Myanmar as the ultimate global pivot

November 20, 2013 7:00 pm JST
THITINAN PONGSUDHIRAK

Thitinan Pongsudhirak
Few countries on the global geopolitical canvas are as pivotal as Myanmar. After almost five decades of military dictatorship and economic autarky, the nation’s breathtaking political liberalization, economic reforms and bureaucratic loosening over the past two years have created a new-style development laboratory. In turn, the country’s domestic dynamics are awakening the surrounding region. Myanmar is now the hinge on which Southeast Asia will turn, a global pivot that will draw the major powers into what may emerge as a regional “Great Game” over the next two decades.

Fulfilling potential

The opening of Myanmar and the geographical corridor to Thailand have focused attention on the area as the next global growth center. Known as the Greater Mekong Subregion, this rising corner of the world comprises Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam (CLMTV), along with Yunnan and Guangxi provinces in southern China. Now boasting a consumer market of 320 million people, a $1 trillion combined GDP and upward growth trajectories throughout, the GMS concept emerged from an economic cooperation framework initiated two decades ago with help from Japan and the Asian Development Bank. Today, its vast road and rail networks carry goods and people across mainland Southeast Asia.

In many ways, the future of this region resembles its precolonial past. For example, more than 2.5 million Myanmar and 250,000 Cambodian migrant workers now form the labor backbone of the Thai economy. Myriad Chinese from Yunnan and Guangxi fan out across the mainland as investors and tourists. As borders are blurred, mainland populations are crisscrossing the region, enmeshing as they did before Western imperialists arrived two centuries ago.

Myanmar also fulfills the potential of the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations, which aims to be an integrated community by 2015, with political and security, economic and sociocultural pillars. As the economic pillar, the Asean Economic Community has gained most of the attention, but Asean cannot rise as a whole without Myanmar’s opening. In the past, Asean engagements with the outside world were frequently impeded by widespread condemnation of Myanmar’s human rights record and authoritarian regime.

But Myanmar is Asean’s albatross no longer. In response to its sweeping reforms, Asean has handed Myanmar the group’s rotating chairmanship for 2014 — a striking change from 2006, when the country was pressured to skip its turn amid criticisms of its human rights record. Myanmar’s reforms have thus enabled Asean to move closer to its planned integrated community and capitalize on its potential.

Escaping China’s orbit

A regional organization, Asean comprises both maritime and mainland domains. Its maritime members — Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Singapore — are beset with tensions with China over conflicting territorial claims in the South China Sea. Their geostrategic concerns have helped reinforce U.S. military presence and political leverage in the region, and the growing Sino-U.S. rivalry there will likely weigh indefinitely on regional security.

On the mainland, China’s influence is clearer. The CLMTV group of countries move in China’s orbit to varying degrees. China is the largest trader and investor in Cambodia. The Beijing-Bangkok axis is stronger than ever, even though Thailand is a formal U.S. treaty ally. In Laos, China’s investment makes it the dominant economic force.

While CLMTV countries are likely to remain in China’s sway, they may also hedge toward the U.S. when it suits them. Washington knows it is behind the curve and has upped its game with the Lower Mekong Initiative, a modest-capacity development fund for Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam. But as a faraway superpower, the U.S. is unlikely to outstrip China as a rising resident power in the region.

The CLMTV will also look to India and Japan to counterbalance China’s assertiveness. Japan has spent decades since World War II assisting development in mainland Southeast Asia. The GMS is perhaps the crowning achievement in its efforts and funds. But Tokyo must step up its economic pursuits and assert its strategic interest if it does not want to squander its investment.

Myanmar, meanwhile, is central to the promise of this neighborhood. To enable the region to bloom and boom, Myanmar must maintain its reform course. It faces capacity challenges as it gears up to chair Asean. The government’s responses to sectarian violence in Rakhine state involving stateless Rohinya Muslims will weigh on Myanmar’s external relations, while the country’s internal leadership struggles may undermine its reform momentum. The military’s willingness to let democratization continue is also vital. If these challenges can be met, Myanmar will rise, bringing its neighborhood with it.

Thitinan Pongsudhirak teaches international political economy and directs the Institute of Security and International Studies at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok.

How Canada Encourages Corrupt Companies

11/08/2013
The bribery allegations facing engineering giant SNC-Lavalin are just a “few aberrations” associated with a “few individuals” who are no longer with the company, according to Leslie Quinton, SNC’s senior vice-president for Global Corporate Communications.

CEO Robert Card — who took over from Pierre Duhaime after he was forced to resign over $56 million in alleged improper payments — declared the problems at the firm were “compartmentalized,” “limited” and “fixable” and that key stakeholders now “trust and respect” the company and believe it is “on the right track.”

And Gwyn Morgan, the former chairman of SNC-Lavalin and founder of gas giant Encana, said that when a “small number” of individuals in a large company (SNC employs more than 34,000 people in countries across the globe) sets out to falsify documents, pay bribes and cover up theft, it is “exceedingly difficult to detect.” Corporations around the world face this problem, not just SNC-Lavalin, he added.

Whether the corruption charges against SNC-Lavalin were the work of a few bad apples, as the company’s spokesmen claim, or whether the company was infused with a culture of corruption, is about to be examined in court. Filings from individuals, including those who have been charged themselves, suggest that, contrary to claims from the company’s executives and former directors, bribery and corruption was systemic and well-known.

Mohammad Ismail, an engineer who was fired from the company and is facing charges of bribery related to the $3-billion Padma bridge project in Bangladesh, filed a wrongful dismissal suit against SNC-Lavalin and said that a secret code assigned to bribe payments was used on many projects. He said that he and many others tried to alert upper management to the bribe payments but they “failed and/or neglected to address” them. The case against Ismail and two other SNC-Lavalin employees, Ramesh Shah and Kevin Wallace, continued last week at a courthouse in Toronto.

Another former employee, Joseph Salim, who alleges he was dismissed when he blew the whistle on millions of dollars of illegal payments for a hydro dam contract in Angola, has also filed a suit against the company. He alleges that SNC-Lavalin’s former CEO Jacques Lamarre, among other top executives, signed off on the 10 per cent “agent fee.” A few years later, Jacques’ son, Patrick, who was an SNC-Lavalin executive vice-president, reduced that fee to the company’s 5 per cent restricted rate, triggering outrage by the Angolan agent. According to CBC, SNC-Lavalin staff was told, with the consent of at least Patrick Lamarre, to find a way to get the 10 per cent to the agency, while declaring only 5 per cent on the books. A deal was allegedly struck to accomplish this by artificially increasing the price of the dam by $200-million.

And Stephane Roy, former vice president and controller of the company’s construction division, is also claiming that there was a culture of corruption at SNC in his $1-million wrongful dismissal suit after he was fired for helping to smuggle the son of Libyan dictator Moammar Gadhafi to Mexico. He said SNC-Lavalin created “a corporate culture where it was common practice to do all that was necessary, including the payment of ‘commissions’ and other benefits to obtain contracts, including in Libya,” adding that he always acted on company orders and, for that, he is now being made a “scapegoat” and labelled a “rogue employee.”

The sheer list of countries where allegations of corruption involving SNC-Lavalin have surfaced — Canada, India, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Algeria, Angola and Libya — seem to defy the claim that questionable practices were the work of a few “rogue” elements.

If questionable practices were woven into SNC-Lavalin’s fabric it wouldn’t be surprising, given Canada’s, and especially Quebec’s, lax stance on corruption.

According to Michael Hershman, an international expert on transparency and accountability who is now advising SNC-Lavalin on how to eliminate internal wrong-doing, corruption is more severe in Quebec than anywhere else in Canada and a “culture of corruption” has invaded the province’s business elite. Indeed, eight out of the 10 largest engineering firms in the province have been named in testimony at the Charbonneau inquiry in connection to donations to Quebec’s political parties. The head of one company alleged that a group of engineering firms, including SNC-Lavalin, colluded in order to increase the cost of construction projects.

At the federal level, bribe payments were not only legal but even tax-deductible as a legitimate business expense, leading Bernard Lamarre, the former head of Lavalin Inc., and older brother to Jacques, to boast to Maclean’s in 1991 that whenever he did business in the Third World, he never handed out bribes without first demanding a receipt. “I make sure we get a signed invoice,” he explained. “And payment is always in the form of a cheque, not cash, so we can claim it on our income tax!”

After Parliament passed the Corruption of Foreign Public Officials Act in 1998, the feds spent the next decade largely ignoring it. It wasn’t until 2008 that the RCMP created an office to investigate corruption by some of the country’s leading corporations.

Janet Keeping, Chair and President of the Canadian chapter of Transparency International, the international corruption watchdog, recently argued that SNC-Lavalin’s troubles might not have ballooned if Canadian law enforcement had done its job.

Though the RCMP now has 35 active investigations of foreign corrupt practices by Canadian companies or their employees, Transparency International remains unimpressed. In its recent annual report, TI placed Canada in its “limited enforcement” category — second to last on its four-part scale — for enforcing rules against bribery by multinational corporations.

In contrast, Transparency International says the United States has the “most developed and active” legal and enforcement regime in the world when it comes to foreign bribery. The U.S. has in recent years taken on corporate behemoths such Pfizer, Chevron, ExxonMobil and Oracle, among others.

Even SNC-Lavalin’s new ethics chief, Andreas Pohlmann agrees that Canada is soft on corrupt Canadians. When it comes to the legal tools to stop bribery and corruption of foreign officials, he said, “if I had to compare the United States with Canada, I would say the United States are 20 years ahead of Canada and 10 years ahead of Europe.”

For Bernard Lamarre, Canada’s tolerance of bribery was Canada’s advantage. In describing his company’s grease payments back in 1991, he said, “of course, we have an advantage over the Americans — they’re forbidden by law to pay out agents’ commissions.”

That “advantage” must be looking decidedly different to SNC-Lavalin’s current executives who are today trying to exorcise the ghosts of corruption from Canada’s largest engineering firm as it prepares for its days in court.

Thai Senate Rejects Amnesty Bill That Sparked Bangkok Unrest

By Suttinee Yuvejwattana & Anuchit Nguyen – Nov 11, 2013 7:57 PM PT

Thailand’s Senate rejected a bill that would have provided an amnesty for political offenses stretching back to the nation’s 2006 coup, easing concern that street protests in Bangkok may escalate into violence.
Senators voted 141-0 against the draft after more than 10 hours of debate, Surachai Liengboonlertchai, vice president of the Senate, told reporters in Bangkok late yesterday. The bill will be sent back to parliament’s lower house, which can re-submit the bill after 180 days, Surachai said.
Thousands of people joined daily rallies throughout the Thai capital over the past week, arguing that the amnesty law would fail to heal social divisions if it also exonerated politicians including Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra’s brother, former premier Thaksin Shinawatra who was ousted by the military in 2006, and soldiers and political leaders who oversaw a deadly crackdown on demonstrators in 2010.
“This amnesty bill is still not dead, even though the Senate is voting to block the bill,” Suthep Thaugsuban, a former deputy prime minister with the opposition Democrat party, told supporters in Bangkok late yesterday. “The lower house can still bring back the law for approval again.”
Suthep called for a general strike by workers Nov. 13-15, and urged people to join rallies to oust the government, which won a majority in elections in 2011.
Baht Slump
The protests have already harmed tourism and investor confidence in an economy that’s growing at the slowest pace in Southeast Asia, central bank Governor Prasarn Trairatvorakul said Nov. 10.
Overseas investors have sold a net $3.8 billion of Thai shares this year, the most in the region, on concern that political risk has increased in a country where clashes between Thaksin’s supporters and opponents since the coup have led to an airport seizure and arson attacks.
The baht has slumped 1.1 percent against the U.S. dollar in the past week to its weakest level since Sept. 18, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. It traded at 31.575 per dollar at 10:50 a.m. local time. The benchmark SET Index (SET) of stocks rose 0.7 percent to 1,415.77.
The amnesty bill angered Thaksin’s opponents, who said it could whitewash crimes he allegedly committed in power, while some of his own supporters criticized the law for protecting opposition leaders who allowed the army to use live ammunition to disperse protesters in 2010 when their Democrat party held power.
Thaksin fled abuse of power charges that stemmed from a military-appointed panel for helping his wife buy land from the government. He’s lived in self-imposed exile overseas, and has helped guide policy from abroad since Yingluck led the Pheu Thai party to victory in a 2011 election.
Lese-Majeste
Parties linked to Thaksin have won the past five elections, and Pheu Thai commands a majority in parliament. About 10,000 members of the pro-Thaksin Red Shirt movement gathered on Bangkok’s outskirts Nov. 10 to counter protests against the government, the Bangkok Post reported yesterday.
Absent from the draft reconciliation laws discussed in recent weeks was protection for people charged for lese-majeste, which mandates jail sentences as long as 15 years for defaming, insulting or threatening the king, queen, heir apparent or regent.
Thousands of people joined separate anti-government rallies in Bangkok yesterday as the Senate debated the amnesty legislation. Deputy Police Chief Vorapong Chiewpreecha said yesterday that some demonstrators may use guns and bombs incite violence and blame it on the police.
Temple Dispute
Yesterday’s vote also coincided with an International Court of Justice ruling in a territorial dispute between Thailand and Cambodia that has been used in the past to fan nationalist sentiment in Thailand.
The International Court of Justice ruled that Cambodia had sovereignty over the Preah Vihear border temple, a World Heritage site, and urged both countries to hold talks on the use of land surrounding the temple. Thailand and Cambodia have yet to demarcate their 803-kilometer (499-mile) land border and 26,993 square kilometers (10,422 square miles) in the Gulf of Thailand that may contain oil and gas reserves.
To contact the reporters on this story: Suttinee Yuvejwattana in Bangkok at suttinee1@bloomberg.net; Anuchit Nguyen in Bangkok at anguyen@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Rosalind Mathieson at rmathieson3@bloomberg.net

Corruption Risk Index reveals long-term lack of will to tackle corruption in BRICs

Despite the rising frequency of anti-corruption protests and high profile scandals, the governments of Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRICs) have made no significant advancement in combatting the issue of corruption over the last four years, reveals the latest annual Corruption Risk Index from global risk analytics company Maplecroft.

According to Maplecroft, the lack of progress on corruption is having a detrimental effect on the economic performance and political environment of the BRICs countries, as well as exposing foreign companies to high levels of risk of complicity when conducting business with government officials and local partners. Public disillusionment with government corruption is also a key factor in rising levels of societal unrest in the BRICs, states the company.

The Corruption Risk Index (CRI) evaluates 197 countries on the reported prevalence and persistence of corruption in the public and private sectors, as well as the efficiency of governments in tackling the issue. It has been developed to enable companies to identify the countries where the risk of association with corruption is highest.

The World Economic Forum estimates that corruption adds up to 10% to the total cost of doing business globally and up to 25% to the cost of procurement contracts in developing countries. According to Maplecroft, these risks are highest in DR Congo, Somalia, Myanmar, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Equatorial Guinea, Guinea, North Korea, Cambodia and Venezuela, which feature as the 10 most corrupt countries in the CRI.

African nations dominate corruption top 10

27 September 2013 | Will Green

The Democratic Republic of Congo and Somalia have been ranked the most corrupt countries in the world.
The Maplecroft Corruption Risk Index places both African states as joint number one, followed by Burma in south east Asia and Sudan equal third.

African countries make up six of the top 10 most corrupt countries, though several African nations are also among the most improved.

Mozambique has seen the most improvement of the 197 countries in the index, moving from 51 – an “extreme risk” – to 71 – a “high risk” – over the course of a year, following a new anti-corruption law and subsequent convictions, according to Maplecroft.

Senegal has risen from 34 to 48, due to efforts by president Macky Sall to tackle corruption, while Burkina Faso has climbed 14 places to 54 and Papua New Guinea 18 places to 60. Botswana, at 154, remains the African country with the least corruption.

China’s position in the ranking has worsened, dropping from 88 to 75 in the “high risk” category.

The UK is placed at number 181, along with Germany, ahead of the US at 173. Andorra is the least corrupt country at 197.

The World Economic Forum estimates corruption adds up to 10 per cent to the cost of doing business globally and up to 25 per cent of the cost of procurement contracts in developing countries.

Trevor Slack, senior corruption analyst at Maplecroft, said: “Scandals continue to arise in all of the key growth markets and corruption remains one of the most prominent compliance risks that businesses face. Where corruption is widespread, it also impedes democracy, the rule of law, protection of human rights and economic development.”

The top 10 most corrupt countries in 2014

1. Democratic Republic of Congo
2. Somalia
3. Myanmar
4. Sudan
5. Zimbabwe
6. Equatorial Guinea
7. Guinea
8. North Korea
9. Cambodia
10. Venezuela

– See more at: http://www.supplymanagement.com/news/2013/african-nations-dominate-corruption-top-10/#sthash.GCuygo4x.dpuf

Taiwan makes biggest heroin bust in 20 years

October12, 20120

(AFP) –Taipei — Taiwan seized more than 220 pounds of heroin in its biggest bust of the drug in 20 years, arresting two people involved in smuggling it from Vietnam, officials said Saturday.

Agents confiscated the 270 heroin bricks smuggled in a cargo container in southern Kaohsiung city on Friday.

They had been stored in 40 bags marked as frozen taro, and were mingled with hundreds of bags of real taro, the Bureau of Investigation said in a statement.

The drugs were believed to be manufactured in Myanmar and shipped to Taiwan via Vietnam, the bureau said, adding that 530 pounds of ketamine were also found in the container.

The drugs are worth an estimated $100 million.

Drug abuses have been on the rise in Taiwan. Authorities last year seized 176 pounds of heroin worth around $80 million in a fishing boat, and arrested seven people involved in smuggling it from Cambodia, according to the bureau.

Under Taiwan’s anti-drug laws, manufacturing, transporting and dealing heroine is punishable by death.

Taipei — Taiwan seized more than 220 pounds of heroin in its biggest bust of the drug in 20 years, arresting two people involved in smuggling it from Vietnam, officials said Saturday.

Agents confiscated the 270 heroin bricks smuggled in a cargo container in southern Kaohsiung city on Friday.

They had been stored in 40 bags marked as frozen taro, and were mingled with hundreds of bags of real taro, the Bureau of Investigation said in a statement.

The drugs were believed to be manufactured in Myanmar and shipped to Taiwan via Vietnam, the bureau said, adding that 530 pounds of ketamine were also found in the container.

The drugs are worth an estimated $100 million.

Drug abuses have been on the rise in Taiwan. Authorities last year seized 176 pounds of heroin worth around $80 million in a fishing boat, and arrested seven people involved in smuggling it from Cambodia, according to the bureau.

Under Taiwan’s anti-drug laws, manufacturing, transporting and dealing heroine is punishable by death.