WUNRN
International
Labour Organization: PR No. 15A - Text of the ILO Convention Concerning Decent
Work for Domestic Workers
Meeting
document | June 16, 2011
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Cambodia Domestic Workers in
Malaysia Can Find Abuses & Risks
Cambodian women who go abroad to Malaysia to work as domestic workers find the work fraught with abuse. Much of the mistreatment starts right away, in recruitment pre-departure training centers in Phnom Penh.
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (WOMENSENEWS)--Cambodian recruitment agencies for domestic migrant workers backtracked on a decision announced in May and said at the end of June they would no longer send domestic workers to Kuwait, following complaints of lack of legal and human rights protection for migrant workers.
But that policy doesn't extend east to
Many workers come home complaining about pay that is withheld for at least
four to seven months; work shifts that are unspecified and long; food
shortages; and physical and verbal abuse, according to local human rights and
labor rights organizations in
Cambodian workers first experience a taste of life in Malaysia in the Phnom Penh pre-departure recruitment training centers, where they wait for an average three months for their visas to clear.
"Once you are inside the center, you cannot leave, even if you are
sick," said Moeun Tola, chief of the labor program unit at the
Recruited women are often divorced or widowed, placing them in low social and economic standing in their communities that leaves them particularly vulnerable to abuse.
Deaths and Escape
Attempts
Two women have died in training centers since 2010, while more than 10 women have escaped. In early 2011, a woman broke both her legs after she jumped from a center's third-story window. These high-profile cases were reported in both national and international media.
Prak Srey Mom, 29, said in an interview with Women's eNews that she escaped
from a Top Manpower Co., Ltd, center on May 19, 2011, two weeks before her
scheduled departure for
"The girl who came back from
Days after the conversation, Prak snuck past the center's guards and climbed down from the building's roof. She successfully fled, but remains concerned for her sister, who was in the same center and was denied permission to go home and care for her sick children.
Representatives for Top Manpower and the Association of Cambodia Recruitment
Agency, both based in
The Cambodian Ministry of Labor has closed down a few pre-departure training centers, but not any companies themselves, said Ya Navuth, executive director of Coordination of Action Research on AIDS and Mobility, or CARAM, a nongovernmental organization that does outreach work with prospective migrant workers.
Expanding Opportunities
Opportunities for Cambodian domestic workers in
There are now more than 40 recruitment agencies in
"They target the poorest among the poor," said Moeun of the
CARAM conducts regular public forums on migration in targeted villages and in training centers. The frank sessions rarely persuade prospective workers to consider another option.
"We tell them that it will be very difficult, but they still choose to go," said Ya. "If they stay here, they can't find a job."
So Tay, 53, has worked in
Three Trips
On her first trip, So became sick and was sent back to
During her last work trip in 2005, she tried to quit and was placed in a
detention center run by a Malaysian-counterpart agency. She remained there for
three months, before being flown back to
So now lives in
Bruno Maltoni, project coordinator for the International Organization for
Migration's office in
"There's a lot of hammering in the media about this and a lot of emotions, which is quite right, but I don't think it is as widespread and as common as it is made out to be," he said.
He said that by 2020 he expects to see at least a 4-percent increase in the
migrant work force in