Cambodia


Today, June 12, marks the World Day Against Child Labour. Today we say loud and clear “NO to child labour in domestic work”.

The theme of this global campaign is both timely and relevant to all of us, especially in Asia, which is home to nearly half of all domestic workers worldwide.

With more than 15 million children under 18 around the globe “hidden” in domestic work, turning a blind eye to their plight can no longer be tolerated.

Most of these children are girls and nearly half work under extremely hazardous conditions in paid or unpaid work in households other than their own.

Indonesia


The Nias ethnic group displays genetic similarities with the indigenous people of Taiwan. A third cluster of Nusantara has been found.

HJ.T. Bijlmer's 1943 article in the journal Genetica switched on a lightbulb in Mannis van Oven's head that pointed toward Nias, an island off Sumatra's western coast. The molecular biology researcher from the Netherlands was amazed to learn that most Nias people were blood type O. Also the people of Nias seemed to have distinctive features compared with other Southeast Asian ethnic groups.

Thailand

Solar technology has changed lives overnight in the remote Moken sea gypsy community

From a quick glance, the Moken sea gypsy community at Moo Koh Surin's Ao Bon, off the southern coast of Phangnga province, seemed just as it had always been over the years; rows of raised huts are set right at the shoreline, men are busy with their boats, women (some topless) are engrossed in their handicraft work and little kids run around.

But taking a stroll through the village and observing closer, it is not an overstatement to say that the people there have begun living a completely different kind of life, one that would be unimaginable to their predecessors centuries before. This immense and dramatic change comes from a little solar panel not much bigger than a sheet of A4 paper, now set on every thatched roof of the home of people who were once sea gypsies.