Informal migration for labor

A trafficked Cambodian woman was taken into Malaysian immigration police custody after a raid on karaoke bars on Sunday night, Cambodian embassy officials confirmed yesterday. ...

Under an agreement with Malaysia, Cambodian migrant workers will be allowed to hold on to their passports and copies of their contracts but will be banned from any “political activities”, according to a draft version of the document obtained by the Post. The memorandum of understanding ...

20 Cambodian workers, who were rescued recently in Indonesia, will return home Wednesday afternoon, said a senior official. Kuong said the repatriation of the Cambodian workers is arranged by the Cambodian Embassy in Indonesia in collaboration with International Organization for Migration (IOM). Following a request ...

Cambodia and Malaysia expect to sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) by the end of the year that would reopen the pipeline of local maids being sent to work there, officials said on the sidelines of a final round of discussions yesterday between the countries. ...

On Saturday, Banteay Meanchey border police received a desperate call. More than 80 Cambodian migrants, including women and children, were locked in a house in Thailand. They were being starved and abused. Two boys, begging their captors for food, were kicked to death. So said the ...

The manager of a recruitment firm in Kampong Speu province was arrested this week for allegedly duping 50 workers out of $150 each on the unfulfilled promise of getting them work in Thailand. ...

Three Cambodian men arrested in Thailand last week were returned to Preah Vihear province on Monday and claim they were tortured by the Thai military before being released, according to a military colonel in the area who provided a video of the men’s accounts. According ...

Dissatisfied by wages at home, thousands of Cambodians have been lured to Malaysia by the promise of bigger pay cheques, but while many have found themselves subjected to long hours, unpaid wages, unsafe working conditions and even physical abuse, they have – until now – ...

Cambodian migrant worker hopefuls have heard murmurs about the poor work conditions in South Korea. However, they remain unfazed – even the recent reports of long hours and abusive employers are doing little to deter their quest to secure better wages abroad. ...

Twenty Cambodian fishermen forced to work on a trawler in Indonesia have been rescued, while a pair of Cambodian brides extricated from abusive relationships in China have been repatriated, according to a statement released by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday. ...

The Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Tuesday heard the case of a woman charged with defrauding 24 would-be migrant workers of more than $30,000. ...

Long considered the friendlier and less exploitative option for overseas Cambodian migrants, South Korea is now being slammed by Amnesty International for a number of abuses afflicting its migrant-dominated agriculture sector. The 20,000 foreign workers fuelling South Korea’s farming industry regularly encounter intimidation, violence, excessive working ...

Fuelled by poverty and debt, more than a quarter of Cambodian adults migrate, and, in the process, many are leaving behind their children, a new report finds. Part of a four-year research project on child labour, the Cambodian Independent Research Institute’s The Impacts of Adult Migration ...

A plan floated in Thailand to cut state educational support to migrant workers’ children has drawn the ire of rights groups, which say thousands of Cambodian youths could be denied their basic right to education. According to Thai media, Kamol Rodklai, secretary-general of the Office of ...

The government this weekend hit back at criticism of its embassies in China, Malaysia and Thailand, insisting that they are helping migrants in need. ...

Cambodian embassies rescued 13 Cambodian workers in Thailand and three maids in Malaysia, Koy Kuong, spokesman for Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, said Saturday. ...

A group of 50 migrant workers on Wednesday protested outside a branch of a recruitment agency in Phnom Penh’s Sen Sok district that they say duped them out of $260 they paid for a guarantee of employment in Thailand. ...

The Ministry of Labour plans to delay signing off on a controversial agreement to reopen a pipeline of Cambodian maids to Malaysia until a deal is reached on a second agreement regarding other migrant workers, a ministry official said yesterday. Labour Ministry spokesman Heng Sour told ...

The ministries of Labor and Interior met on Thursday to outline the government’s plan to more strictly enforce measures for employers of foreign nationals to ensure that their staff has proper documentation. Seng Sakada, director-general of the Labor Ministry’s labor department, said previous efforts have not ...

Thailand’s Director-General of Department of Employment Sumet Mahosot and Cambodian Director-General of the Labor Department Seng Sakada today briefed the press about the controversial migrant worker issue. The discussion comprised 4 topics. First, there is the requirement of proof of nationality, so Cambodia will arrange for ...

The families of three Cambodian workers killed after a six-storey condominium building collapsed at a construction site just north of Bangkok earlier this week have been paid compensation. ...

Cambodia’s embassy in Malaysia yesterday denied pressuring domestic workers from the Kingdom into renewing their visas, after rights groups told the Post last week that the embassy exploited a legal loophole to keep maids in the country. The statement came as a Malaysian employers association, which has observed the drafting ...

At least six people, including three Cambodian migrant workers, were killed late on Monday when a condominium construction project north of Bangkok collapsed, according to news reports, officials and witnesses at the scene. Twenty-four people, at least one of whom is Cambodian, were also injured in ...

After four days of waiting amid a mounting death count, Yat Meng got a call that his younger brother, Pheng, was found dead yesterday, buried under the concrete slabs of a collapsed condominium just north of Bangkok. Pheng, 20, was one of two dead Cambodian migrant ...