The microfinance debt crisis that is crushing Cambodia

International development agencies must act to protect borrowers' human rights

Naly Pilorge

September 2, 2021 17:00 JST

People wait to get tested inside a red zone with strict lockdown measures in Phnom Penh on Apr. 30: in red zone areas many households took new, larger loans to cope with the economic stress. © Reuters

Naly Pilorge is the director of the Cambodian League for the Promotion and Defense of Human Rights (LICADHO).

I have spent most of my adult life working on land rights in Cambodia, and I have never encountered a threat to land rights as pervasive and potentially catastrophic as the current microfinance crisis.