DHAKA: US first lady Michelle Obama was greeted by flag-waving schoolchildren on Saturday during her first trip to Cambodia as she pushes a US-led initiative to combat a ‘crisis’ in girls’ education.

Michelle visited a school on the outskirts of Siem Reap with Bun Rany, the wife of Cambodian strongman prime minister Hun Sen, to hear first-hand from schoolgirls about the problems they face accessing education and staying in school.

Dressed in crisp black and white uniforms, the children waved the national flags of Cambodia and America, greeting the first lady in carefully practised English.

The Harvard-educated lawyer is using a five-day trip to Japan and Cambodia to highlight how 62 million girls around the world are denied the right to go to school, primarily for economic or cultural reasons, reports The Straits Times.

BDST: 1535 HRS, MAR 21, 2015