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CAMBODIA - TRAFFICKING & ABUSE OF DOMESTIC WORKERS IN MALAYSIA

A razor wire tripped Heng Hak's escape attempt from a rogue domestic workers training centre in Phnom Penh - Photo CLEC

PHNOM PENH, 17 March 2011 (IRIN) - Investigations by NGOs in Cambodia have found that companies are recruiting girls as young as 13 to work in Malaysian households, confining them in overcrowded and unhygienic “training centres”, forging birth certificates to raise their age, and paying finders’ fees to brokers.

Hou Vuthy, a deputy director-general at the Ministry of Labour, said the government is moving swiftly to address the abuses and that “vast improvements” have been made.

He estimated it would take about three more years to fully control the recruiting companies, some of whom employed unscrupulous agents who “cheated” illiterate village residents. He stressed, however, that the government had already managed to eliminate the illegal recruiters.

Attention has focused on the burgeoning industry, and the firm T&P Co. Ltd. in particular, since one woman died at its “training” facility in suburban Phnom Penh and another broke bones in both of her legs while trying to escape from its third floor balcony.

She got entangled in the razor wire around the second floor, and then fell to the pavement, neighbours said. The three people who carried her off the street and comforted her while awaiting an ambulance were later summonsed to the local police station and interrogated by officers who accused them of colluding with the “trainees” to help them escape, neighbours said.

Tola Moeun, head of the Labour Programme at the Community Legal Education Centre, said the Ministry of Labour and the Department of Anti-Human Trafficking and Juvenile Protection were more concerned with protecting the recruitment agencies than the welfare of the more than 20,000 Cambodians who had been recruited to work as domestic workers in Malaysia.

He said that in most cases he had investigated, the women were under 21, and many were under 18. He alleged that officials at the commune level were falsifying birth certificates so that passports with false dates of birth could be issued by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The Labour Ministry’s Vuthy admitted this had been happening, saying his office had no control over local officials and that it could not verify the authenticity of birth certificates that were delivered by the recruiting companies. He said, however, that the Ministry of Interior had cracked down on village and commune officials who forged documents. “That does not happen any more,” he said.

Government complicity?

MP and former minister for women’s affairs Mu Sochua has accused the government of complicity in trafficking.

“The Cambodian government has effectively legalized human trafficking,” Mu Sochua said. She also said the government was protecting the recruiting companies because some of its members might have financial interests in them.

Local media have reported more than 90 recruiting companies registered with the government, but Vuthy said there were 33, though they operate about 100 “training centres” in and around Phnom Penh. When asked if any companies were connected to the government, he replied: “It is legal in Cambodia for wives of politicians to run businesses,” but added, ownership is irrelevant because all companies must abide by the law.

Mu Sochua said some of companies brazenly violate the law. “The girls are being bought, documents are being forged; they are being imprisoned and abused in Cambodia, and then they are sent into an environment where there are no safeguards to protect them. Often their passports are confiscated and they are confined in households.”

Spotlight on region

PAKISTAN: Child domestic workers at risk of violence

SRI LANKA: Government seeks to boost migrant labour skills

INDONESIA: Raising awareness about migrant abuse

The Cambodia Human Rights and Development Association (Adhoc) warned in September 2010 that its investigation found severe cases of abuse at “training centres” in Phnom Penh and in Malaysia. Passports were being confiscated, domestic workers were forcibly detained, and some were beaten, raped and tortured, Adhoc said.

Lobbying for legal age reduction

“This is probably just the tip of the iceberg,” said deputy director of the Asia division of Human Rights Watch, Phil Roberston. “There is also an overland route for smuggling Cambodian girls into Malaysia through Thailand.”

He also warned that efforts to lobby the Malaysian government to lower the legal age of domestic workers from 21 to 18 were a “recipe for disaster”. “Our research has found that the younger the maid the more vulnerable they are to abuse and exploitation,” he said.

Vuthy said reports in Malaysian media that the Cambodian government was lobbying for a reduction in the age were fabricated by recruiting companies attempting to pressure Kuala Lumpur. Neither the Cambodian government nor the Malaysian government would give into their pressure, he said.

Recruitment companies in Malaysia set their sights on Cambodia in 2009 after Indonesia announced a freeze on sending new domestic workers to Malaysia, following reports of extreme abuse there.

Cambodian workers are more vulnerable because of the language barrier, greater cultural differences, the extreme poverty many came from, and the distance between the two countries, Robertson said.

Roberston said efforts by the international community to train Cambodian officials about trafficking had had little success. “Some top level officials go to seminar after seminar, while lower level officials receive little or no information on what trafficking is and how to prevent it. There is also a bigger problem of corruption among government officials, which is what we are seeing in relation to these labour recruitment schemes seeking to send maids to Malaysia.”

Vuthy sees things differently. He said his ministry was struggling with a surge in demand and a lack of experience and resources to monitor the industry. It was only last year that it produced its first orientation manual for migrant workers, he said.

“We’re learning quickly,” he said.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia-pacific/ap-interview-cambodian-maids-decry-abuse-and-exploitation-by-malaysian-employers/2011/08/17/gIQAwkMZKJ_story.html

Cambodia Maids Decry Abuse & Exploitation by Malaysian Employers

By Associated Press - August 17, 2011

KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia — Hok Pov had never been beaten and never known hunger until she came to work in Malaysia in April.

In the six weeks that she worked as a maid for a Malaysian family, she says she lost 22 pounds (10 kilograms) while toiling 20 hours a day with little to eat. Often she was slapped and punched by her employer, she says.

“I was so hungry that I even ate chicken bones,” a sobbing Hok Pov, 31, told The Associated Press at the office of Malaysian rights’ group Tenaganita that rescued her in June with the help of police.

“There was always lot of work to do and I had to suffer beatings. Once I was slapped so hard that my tooth fell off. Who can bear this?” Hok Pov said in her first media interview.

She is among 41 Cambodian maids rescued this year by the group, highlighting the frequent abuse and exploitation of foreign domestic workers due to inadequate laws in this wealthy Southeast Asian nation.

Concerns of abuse of Cambodian maids came under the public spotlight after a Cambodian maid was found dead last month outside the home where she worked, while another was rescued by Malaysian police after she was allegedly abused and had her head shaved bald by her employer

According to the embassies of Indonesia and Cambodia — which have supplied the bulk of more than 230,000 foreign maids in Malaysia — about 2,000 women come forward every year with complaints of abuse. Although that’s a tiny fraction of the total number, rights groups say every instance of abuse shows Malaysia in poor light and emphasizes the government’s uncaring attitude to the problem.

Malaysia’s rising prosperity has meant that fewer locals want to do menial, low-paying jobs. The gap has been filled by foreigners, mostly Indonesians who can be seen on construction sites, palm plantations and in homes as maids.

But a string of high-profile abuse cases, including deaths, led Indonesia to ban its women in 2009 from working in Malaysia. The number of foreign maids fell from 280,000 three years ago to about 230,000 today. Some 50,000 of them are Cambodians, of which 30,000 came this year alone.

The government says it condemns abuse of maid but has not done anything to review the laws to protect them. Malaysian immigration officials in charge of foreign domestic workers couldn’t be reached for comment on the issue, despite repeated attempts to contact them.

Tenaganita director Irene Fernandez said Wednesday that maids who come from poor countries are all vulnerable to abuse, except for Filipinos who are better protected by their government. She said abuse is institutionalized here as maids aren’t allowed to retain their passports and get no days off in a week.

“Instead of addressing the root problem of putting an end to abuse, the government is turning to other poor countries vulnerable to abuse to source for maids,” she said.

Tenaganita is urging Cambodia also to stop sending maids to Malaysia until the government puts in place tougher laws, or at least an agreement that protects the maids from abusive employers. Indonesia has negotiated such an agreement and is expected to lift the ban on its maids soon.

Hok Pov, who said her hair was cut short like a boy’s, was promised a monthly salary of 650 ringgit ($218) — double her wage as a factory worker in Cambodia. She has not received any money from her employer.

“I just want my salary and get out of here. I don’t ever want to come to Malaysia again,” said Hok Pov, who is married and has an 8-year-old son.

“They are rich, educated and religious people but why don’t they have any compassion for the poor like me? I have no one to turn to. Every night I cried myself to sleep. It was one and a half months in hell,” she said.

Tenaganita official Liva Sreedhana said it was difficult to file criminal charges against Hok Pov’s employer as she has no physical injury or scars to show, and only has her words. The group is now negotiating with the employer, who is refusing to give Hok Pov any money and is dodging meetings.

Men Chaveasna, who also lives in Tenaganita’s shelter with Hok Pov, completed her 2-year work contract last August but never got her wages. Her Malaysian employer bought her a flight home and ditched her at the airport.

Chaveasna, 30, who came to Malaysia to work to support her farmer parents, won a case in the labor court this year to demand wages totaling 7,700 ringgit ($2,580) owed to her. But her employer appealed to the high court and the case is pending.

“It is better not to work in Malaysia because we may not get paid,” she said. “There are many new factories in Cambodia and I can find jobs back home.”

Cambodian Ambassador Norodom Arunrasmy told the AP on Wednesday that Malaysia is the only country that recruits Cambodian maids, giving the poor a lifeline.

She said the Cambodian government was in the process of drafting a new law to protect its maids, including screening the employer to ensure the girls would be properly housed and not overworked.

“To ban or not to ban would be up to the high decision of my government ... but they (the government) also know that our people need work and jobs in order to survive,” Arunrasmy said in an email.

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