Human Rights

This companion reflection to the Feminist Resilience Toolkit brings Cambodian feminist perspectives into wider debates on resilience, ecosystem shift, and civil society transformation. Against the backdrop of shrinking civic space, funding precarity, and organizational exhaustion, the text explores resilience not as mere survival, but as a political and collective practice grounded in care, solidarity, and transformative agency. By connecting global feminist debates with locally grounded experiences from Cambodia, the companion text contributes a critical Global South perspective to ongoing conversations on funding justice, movement resilience, and the future of civil society ecosystems.

“We should use this declaration as it is, a commitment by 11 member states of ASEAN including Timor-Leste after its official admission in October 2025. This declaration is our regional standard. As a next step, we have to do a gap analysis to make sure what we say on paper will become a reality.”

The Cambodian people have seen massive shifts of the pendulum when it comes to their art, architecture and music. 

Creating safe spaces for queer people is critical in the fight for equality and for them to have a voice. It took a police crackdown at the Stonewall Inn — one of the few bars in New York’s Greenwich Village that welcomed the queer community — for members of the community to stand against the violence they faced, demand an end to discrimination and spark the global Pride movement.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, Kamsort Khoeun, a poet, visited children and families living around the Stung Meanchey dump site in Phnom Penh. Interacting with the community gave him a better understanding of the challenges faced by families who relied on picking waste from the dump site. 

It is not an unusual sight to see narrow beams of light scanning the streets around markets every evening in Phnom Penh. The beams of light move from one pile of trash to another, occasionally stopping to see if there is any plastic, aluminum or recyclable waste.

Art plays a central role in raising awareness of social inequalities and injustices and can be used to advocate for disenfranchised people and communities where power structures suppress dissent or activism.

Cambodians from the LGBTQIA+ community face stigmatization and discrimination, and do not have access to the legal protections they are entitled to under universal human rights which are endorsed by the Cambodian government.

Talking about sex, pregnancy, abortions or menstrual health is rarely handled well in our homes or society and is often dealt with as an uncomfortable or stigmatized experience that everyone would rather ignore than deal with. In Cambodia, some of these moral and societal norms come from traditional diktats like chbap srey which sets out a code of conduct for women and explicitly shames their sexual activity. 

Challenging gender norms often begins with difficult conversations at home. This article follows the story of a young man navigating stigma, identity, and family expectations, revealing how deeply rooted ideas of masculinity shape acceptance and belonging. Through honest dialogue between parents and child, it shows how attitudes can shift—opening space for more inclusive understandings of gender, identity, and care.

Chhang Kheang first went to Thailand in 2008. The migrant worker who lives in Kampong Cham province moved to the neighboring country to work as an undocumented construction worker, earning around $5 a day. This was a meager salary, but it was just enough to support her family in Cambodia, including a young son and daughter, she had to leave with the child’s grandmother.

Vy Chhailim and Hok Pich sit under a tree at the Institute of Technology of Cambodia in Phnom Penh. The two are sipping drinks near a university cafe, as other students discuss their assignments and homework.

The Cambodian state has failed to put in place concrete legal protections for Indigenous groups in the country and instead wiped out their mention in laws and regulations around environmental governance and land management.

For the last three years, residents in northern Phnom Penh have seen a steady stream of construction trucks ferrying rubble into the waters of Boeung Tamok lake. After each truckload is dumped into the water and the cloud of dust settles, the lake they have lived next to for decades slowly disappears.

Kruy Phal sits at a small store on a dusty road right next to a massive condominium development in southern Phnom Penh, selling snacks, groceries and bright colored ice cream popsicles. Village residents stop at her store, buy a pink or purple or bean filled popsicle, not far from the boulevard that dissects the fast-disappearing Boeung Tompun lake.