Protection for overseas workers

The Foreign Ministry last Thursday secured the release of 23 Cambodians who had been arrested and detained last month for overstaying their visas and working illegally in Malaysia. Another 16 Cambodians detained by Thai authorities for lacking passports were released as well. ...

A California judge has ordered lawyers representing two US seafood companies to appear in court for a scheduling conference following a lawsuit filed on behalf of seven Cambodians who claim they were duped into a life of servitude working in factories that supply the firms. ...

Foreign Affairs Minister Prak Sokhonn has ordered Cambodian Embassy staff in Malaysia to find out whether more nationals are being held in any of the country’s detention facilities after 18 Cambodians were released from a prison in Kuala Lumpur last week. ...

Cambodian embassy officials in Thailand are now assisting migrant workers in Thai prisons by providing lawyers for them. Embassy officials also announced they are looking for relatives of a Cambodian man who died in Thailand late last month to take his body, which is being ...

The abuse of Cambodians employed in Thailand’s fishing industry was raised yesterday in a letter from the government’s Cambodian Human Rights Committee (CHRC) to their Thai counterparts, calling for improved monitoring of the much criticized and troubled industry. ...

About 300 workers from South Korean firm LG Electronics gathered at the Ministry of Labor yesterday morning to protest against alleged mistreatment by their South Korean boss under Cambodian law. ...

After two weeks stuck inside an immigration office in Saudi Arabia’s capital Riyadh, a Cambodian domestic worker returned to Phnom Penh yesterday without assistance from the Cambodian government – on a plane ticket she says was paid for by Saudi immigration police. ...

In an attempt to protect the interests and safety of Cambodian maids who travel to Malaysia, the Association of Cambodian Recruitment Agencies (ACRA) signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Malaysia National Association of Employment Agencies (PIKAP) last week, according to officials. ...

In order to promote and protect the rights of migrants and migrant workers, Cambodia and the Philippines held their first bilateral roundtable meeting over migration earlier this week. ...

Fifty-four illegal migrant workers who were kept in Pontianak in Indonesia after being rescued from three Thai fishing boats in mid-April will return home soon, officials said. ...

The National Committee on Combating Human Trafficking released its annual report yesterday, with figures showing an improved effort by authorities since 2014 to crackdown on the trade. ...

The Cambodian Embassy in Kuwait successfully rescued a Cambodian woman working as a maid in Saudi Arabia who complained of abusive working conditions, lack of food and of having pay withheld. Him Srey, a Cham Muslim from Kampong Cham province who went to Saudi Arabia ...

Consular officials yesterday were working to repatriate a Cambodian maid fleeing what she described as unfair working conditions in Saudi Arabia, even as Cambodia’s minister of labour was en route to seal a long-awaited deal to open a pipeline of workers to the Gulf nation. ...

More than 500 trafficked Cambodian migrant workers were rescued abroad and sent home in 2015, a huge increase compared to 2014 numbers, though largely attributable to a handful of mass repatriations from Indonesia.According to a report by the Foreign Ministry, 573 workers were returned home ...

More than 500 trafficked Cambodian migrant workers were rescued abroad and sent home in 2015, a huge increase compared to 2014 numbers, though largely attributable to a handful of mass repatriations from Indonesia.According to a report by the Foreign Ministry, 573 workers were returned home ...

Nearly 70,000 Cambodian migrant workers have been registered this year as legal workers in Thailand, according to a report from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs released yesterday.  ...

At an event marking National Anti-Human Trafficking Day in Phnom Penh on Saturday, Prime Minister Hun Sen warned that officials who collude with traffickers must be punished. ...

The Foreign Ministry announced on Saturday the rescue of eight trafficked Cambodian women who worked either as maids in Malaysia or were tricked into becoming brides to men in China.Of the eight women, five worked as domestic workers in Malaysia and three were married off ...

Four years after Prime Minister Hun Sen personally outlawed the practice of Cambodian women traveling to Malaysia to work as domestic servants, the two countries have agreed to restart the maid trade, according to a statement released by the Labor Ministry on Thursday. ...

Cambodian migrants working in Thailand to process chicken for European consumers are forced into debt bondage and subjected to a range of rights violations, according to a new report.Trapped in the Kitchen of the World, which was released on Wednesday by European NGOs Swedwatch and ...

Two Cambodian maids have been repatriated from Malaysia, and a bride has returned from China following allegations of mistreatment, according to a statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. ...

A Tbong Khmum woman, whose family said she had been plagued by major personality changes and signs of mental illness since returning from working as a maid in Malaysia, hanged herself with a hammock cord in her house Sunday afternoon. ...

A new global treaty from the International Labour Organization (ILO) is calling on governments to step-up their commitment to tackling modern slavery in countries like Cambodia where forced labour remains endemic. ...

Thailand has agreed to relax enforcement against expired documents held by migrant Cambodians, which become invalid when they switch jobs without their previous employer’s written consent. ...