Informal migration for labor

The government today will begin strict inspections of agencies that recruit workers to send overseas, Labor Minister Ith Sam Heng said Tuesday. The labor minister has previously threatened to suspend or revoke the licenses of agencies that do not comply with labor laws. Speaking at a workshop ...

The Ministry of Labor said Wednesday that the government has agreed on a final draft of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Malaysia regarding sending Cambodian maids to work there, but that no timeframe for the signing of the agreement has been set. Following reports of ...

Seven Cambodians are now believed to have been killed and 14 injured by a falling beam at a construction site in Thailand on Tuesday, Foreign Affairs spokesman Koy Kuong said yesterday. “Cambodian embassy officials in Bangkok are working with the Thai police to find out the ...

Two Cambodian nationals are among those reported dead following the collapse of a beam at a construction site yesterday on the outskirts of Bangkok. The death toll stood at 11 as of 4pm yesterday, while another 17 were reported injured. A concrete beam fell down at the ...

Cambodia said Thursday that Thai soldiers shot and killed 69 Cambodians who were claimed to illegally cross the border between the two countries last year, up from 45 a year earlier. ...

Although human-trafficking cases dealt with by the Ministry of Interior decreased significantly in 2013, suggesting progress was being made in tackling the crime, trafficking in persons continues to be a major challenge for the government, the ministry said in its annual report on Tuesday. According to ...

The opposition leader Sam Rainsy called on South Korea to protect the rights of Cambodian people during his visit earlier this month. Chairperson of National Human Rights Commission of Korea, Byung-Chul Hyun, said in a letter to Sam Rainsy that “I share your concerns for ...

Cambodian labourers may soon be recruited to construction sites in the United Arab Emirates, where conditions are described as “tragic” by human rights groups. The Lebanon-based company that would hire the workers under the prospective scheme, Agostine & Raphael Group, is run by Middle Eastern tycoon ...

Opposition CNRP leader Sam Rainsy is to meet with Cambodian migrant workers during a two-day trip to South Korea later this week, at the end of a European tour that has included stops in Geneva, Brussels and Paris. “He will be visiting [South] Korea to meet ...

The Ministry of Interior has suspended the operation of an orphanage after it found that its director had colluded with a recruitment agency to cheat migrant workers out of an alleged $600,000, officials said Tuesday. “The Ministry of Interior temporarily suspends all activities of Our Friends ...

Two sisters from Preah Vihear’s Kulen district hired to work in Malaysia as maids by Mey Yorn Services have not been heard from in more than two years, their mother said yesterday. Sok Noun, 45, hasn’t spoken to her daughters Bien Phok, 17, and Bien Phoun, ...

Many Cambodian women arrive in South Korea or China for marriage, only to find themselves being chosen as mistresses, say labour rights activists. While young Cambodian men, who travel to Thailand to work on fishing boats, often fall prey to drug abuse. Loss of land, debt, ...

A village of 212 hectares in Battambang’s Bavel district has nearly become a ghost town after an alleged land grab by three tycoons has forced hundreds to find work abroad, locals and a rights group said yesterday. ...

Cambodia had dispatched some 22, 300 laborers overseas in 2013, down 36 percent from 34,800 a year earlier, figures from the Ministry of Labor showed Monday. The country sent 13,170 workers to Thailand last year, down 50 percent year-on-year; 8,820 to South Korea, up 8 ...

The Ministry of Labor hopes that a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) will see Cambodia resume sending domestic workers to Malaysia by February, but negotiations on the document have stalled after Malaysia recently rejected 90 percent of proposed provisions to protect workers’ rights. Most strikingly, Malaysia ...

Local human rights group Adhoc has called on the government to investigate the alleged detention and torture of a Cambodian woman at a Bangkok casino where she was employed. In a statement released Friday, Adhoc said the government must push for a “full investigation” into the ...

An NGO is working to free two Cambodian women forced into marriage in China, a representative of the organisation said yesterday. Huy Pichsovann, program officer at the Community Legal Education Center (CLEC), said that the two women, aged 22 and 27, were enticed from their Kampong ...

Family members of a group of Cambodian workers arrested with fake passports in Thailand on Friday claimed yesterday they had got them through a recruitment agency in Cambodia – an allegation the company’s president denied. According to Hau, Anny Rita Best Manpower promised that the ...

The International Labour Organisation (ILO) Country Office for Thailand, Cambodia and Lao People’s Democratic Republic for is pleased to support the official launch of measures to better protect Cambodian migrant workers. On 16 December 2013, ahead of International Migrants Day on 18 December, the Cambodian Ministry ...

Authorities issued an arrest warrant last week for the director of a local NGO involved with an operation that allegedly bilked thousands out of money by claiming the company could find them work in South Korea. Warrants for the arrests of Theun Samnang, head of NGO ...

A pilot scheme sending 400 Cambodian maids to Singapore has made a spluttering start, according to local media reports, with agencies in Singapore reportedly growing frustrated at the slow pace of maid arrivals and “sceptical” about the reliability of Cambodia as a source. Only about 100 ...

The opposition CNRP has written to the embassies of Singapore and Malaysia requesting copies of draft agreements with the Cambodian government on sending migrant workers to the countries that they say they were not privy to. A Ministry of Labor official last month said the government ...

The Cambodian and Malaysian governments will sign a memorandum of understanding (MoU) within three months that will restart the business of sending Cambodian domestic workers to the country after a two-year moratorium, a Labor Ministry official said Friday. After meeting with representatives from the Malaysian Home ...

Malaysia has not yet received a draft agreement aimed at protecting Cambodian migrant domestic workers from abuse, but the government is pressing Cambodia to lift its two-year moratorium on sending maids, a Malaysian official said Wednesday. In October 2011, Prime Minister Hun Sen imposed a ban ...