WUNRN
Human Rights Watch
http://www.hrw.org/news/2011/10/31/cambodia-malaysia-domestic-workers-face-abuse
CAMBODIA/MALAYSIA DOMESTIC WORKERS FACE ABUSE - WOMEN & GIRLS
Direct Link to Full Report:
http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/cambodia1111webwcover.pdf
The 105-page report, “‘They Deceived Us at Every Step’: Abuse of Cambodian
Domestic Workers Migrating to Malaysia,”documents Cambodian domestic
workers’ experiences during recruitment, work abroad, and upon their return
home. It is based on 80 interviews with migrant domestic workers, their
families, government officials, nongovernmental organizations, and recruitment
agents. The report highlights the numerous obstacles that prevent mistreated
women and girls from obtaining justice and redress in both
“
Since 2008, forty to fifty thousand Cambodian women and girls have migrated to
Domestic workers told Human Rights Watch that agents forcibly confine
recruitsfor three months or longer in training centers without adequate food,
water, and medical care. Some labor agents coerce women and girls to migrate
even if they no longer wish to work abroad. Workers who escape from the
training centers face retaliation for escaping or for failing to pay debts
related to the recruitment process.
The husband of a domestic worker who escaped from a training center told Human
Rights Watch:
The representative from the company said if my wife doesn’t return he will
auction this house and land. And if the auction is not enough, they will arrest
me and put me in jail.
At times collaboration of government officials with private recruitment
agencies makes it almost impossible for workers to seek effective redress,
Human Rights Watch found. One domestic worker said that two women had attempted
suicide in a training center in
The agency then held a meeting with all recruits. Two police officials were
there.
“The police officials told us that if we [attempted to] commit suicide,
then they would put us in jail,” one of the workers said. “They also said that
we should never try to escape. Even if we escape, the police will find [us] and
we will still be sent to
In the first successful prosecution of a recruitment agency, a Cambodian court
in September 2011 sentenced a manager of the VC Manpower recruitment agency to
13 months in prison for illegally detaining child workers. However, the
government has failed to arrest and prosecute other recruitment agents involved
in similar abuses, and it has not revoked the license of a single recruitment
agency.
“While the conviction of one abusive agent in
Once in
Malaysian labor laws exclude migrant domestic workers from key protections,
such as a weekly day of rest, annual leave, and limits on working hours.
Immigration laws tie a domestic worker’s residency to her employer, so the
employer can terminate a domestic worker’s contract at will and refuse
permission to transfer jobs. These policies restrict domestic workers’ ability
to seek redress and to change employers, even in cases of abuse, Human Rights
Watch said.
Human Rights Watch documented cases in which the combination of deception and
indebtedness during recruitment, forced confinement, unpaid wages, and threats
of retaliation for escaping or failing to pay debts amounted to forced labor,
including trafficking and debt bondage. Abused workers often turn to the local
agents of their recruitment companies, since they are typically the only
contact the worker has in Malaysia, but may face intimidation and a return to
the same abusive employer.The Cambodian embassy in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia’s
capital, has also returned workers, including those who experienced sexual and
physical abuse, to their recruitment agency or employers.
The Cambodian government should introduce a comprehensive migration law,
strengthen monitoring of recruitment agencies, and imposesignificant penalties
when violations occur, Human Rights Watch said. The Malaysian government should
revise its labor and sponsorship laws to strengthen protection for domestic workers.
Both countries should increase support services for abused workers, including
legal aid and psychosocial services.
Human Rights Watch also urged
“When the Cambodian embassy in
Selected accounts from victims and their families
interviewed for the report:
The real names of the speakers have not been used to protect their identities.
Sorn Srey Leak, a domestic worker, described her
experience at the training center:
Two weeks after I started living in the training center, I fell sick. I
called my mother and asked her to bring money and pay back the loan so that I
[could] return home. But the company asked my mother to pay them $450. We were
penniless. How could we pay the money?
Chain Channi, a domestic worker who started work each day at
5:00 a.m. and was not able to go to sleep until 3:00 a.m., never got a chance
to rest. She described her experience at her employer’s house in
If I finished my job quickly, my boss made me clean the house again. The
wife of the employer shouted and beat me every day. She kicked [me], slapped
me, pulled my hair and beat me all over my body… The employer also beat me with
his hands and kicked me. I never received my salary.
Thy Thip, age 16 and a prospective domestic worker,
recalled her experience during her recruitment in
I told the broker that I am still under age. The broker told me that
because of my physical appearance, I look older than my real age, and being
under age will not be a problem. I applied to work in
Sok Sendescribed what happened after his wife ran away
from a training center:
She wanted to return home but the agency demanded that she pay them $1,000…
I tried to find her but I don’t know where she is… The representative from the
company said if my wife doesn’t return he will auction this house and land. And
if the auction is not enough, they will arrest me and put me in jail.