A/HRC/30/30
44.
On 11 May 2015, in response to an application for preservative relief, the Court of
Appeal recognized for the first time in a Cambodian court the legality and legitimacy of a
communal land title and the co-ownership of land by a Phnong indigenous community in
Mondulkiri Province, overturning a contrary verdict of the provincial court. OHCHR
intends to assist in disseminating this landmark ruling widely, particularly in those
provinces with large numbers of indigenous communities.
45.
Through the Technical Working Group on Land, which is composed of
representatives of the Government, development partners and civil society organizations
active in the land sector, OHCHR continued actively to advocate for and to support
compliance with international human rights standards in the design and implementation of
policies and programmes on land, housing and natural resources.
46.
OHCHR continued to contribute to the further development of the legal and policy
framework regulating the land sector and the management of natural resources. As
mentioned above, it participated in consultations on a bill on environmental impact
assessments led by the Ministry of the Environment and provided written advice on the
harmonization of the final draft with international human rights standards. A national
housing policy that focuses on providing adequate housing and tenure security for poor and
middle class families, long advocated for by OHCHR, was finally promulgated in June
2014.
47.
OHCHR worked to improve women’s participation in public processes and to
promote women’s rights to land, tenure security, adequate housing and inter-connected
economic, social and cultural rights. In November 2014, OHCHR began to distribute a
version in Khmer language of the OHCHR publication entitled “Women and the Right to
Adequate Housing”. In December, OHCHR organized a regional workshop on women
human rights defenders working on land-related human rights issues, which convened
participants from Cambodia, the Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Myanmar, the
Philippines and Thailand. Also in December, OHCHR organized, together with UNWomen, a consultation on women’s right to adequate housing, attended by female housing
rights activists and victims of forced evictions.
V. Supporting prison reform
48.
The General Department of Prisons of the Ministry of the Interior is the main partner
in the OHCHR Prison Reform Support Programme in Cambodia. Through the Programme,
OHCHR aims to support prison reform in accordance with international human rights
norms and the State’s constitutional guarantees.
49.
OHCHR continued to collaborate with core trainers from the General Department of
Prisons and the Police Academy of Cambodia to improve the quality of prison staff
training. It organized two study visits for core prison staff trainers to five provincial prisons
in June 2014 and April 2015. The prisons visited were selected to provide different
perspectives to trainers, including from small to medium-sized prisons, with a population of
between 250 to 500 prisoners. Through the visits, trainers obtained feedback from prison
managers and former trainees on ways to improve future training programmes. In July and
August 2014, OHCHR supported the participation of female trainers in the delivery of
training to new recruits. In September, it partnered the General Department of Prisons and
the Police Academy of Cambodia in organizing a four-day “training of trainers” workshop
on a human rights-based approach to prison management. Based on an international
handbook on the same subject, previously made available in Khmer by OHCHR, the
workshop enabled the 21 trainers to review each chapter of the handbook in small groups to
prepare lesson plans and to present them to their peers for feedback and improvement,
11
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