"Stop Reprisals Against CENTRAL Over Better Factories Report", 27 June 2024

The Interior Ministry’s decision to investigate the Center for Alliance of Labor and Human Rights (CENTRAL) for a … report the NGO issued about the Better Factories Cambodia programme is a clear reprisal and an attempt to intimidate an NGO…

Better Factories Cambodia is a programme run jointly by the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC). Both the ILO and the IFC are clear that civil society should be allowed to freely engage, advise and criticise their activities in order to strengthen their operations…

The report’s recommendations aim at centering workers in the assessment of an exporting factory, under the remit of Better Factories Cambodia. The claim that this report undermines the Better Factories programme, or the situation of workers and unions in Cambodia, is blatantly false and it is difficult not to view it as a flimsy pretext to intimidate one of the country’s strongest defenders of labour rights…

We disagree with public calls made for a ministerial investigation into the financing and operations of CENTRAL, which rely on tired tropes of foreign interference and control in Cambodia’s civil society…

We call on ILO, IFC and Better Factories Cambodia to publicly acknowledge the value of critical research in improving its programmes’ operation and implementation. We call on any unions that disagree with the findings to continue raising their concerns publicly and to conduct and publish their own research, ... And we call on the government to reaffirm its commitment to preserving the freedom of expression, and to allow for all NGOs to conduct their work free from harassment and retaliation.