Workers in Malaysia not an issue: minister

Khmer Circle: This official denial and playing down of crises and most other issues of grave national concern is not untypical of Cambodian authorities and rulers present and past. Nothing is of sufficient concern to these officials and autocrats; not even the national tragedy of recent time in history when millions of Cambodians had lost their lives and or had been made to go through unspeakable horrors and brutalities; the state sponsored plunders of all kinds of natural resources and assets; the deliberate and traitorous foreign and national policies and agendas that jeopardise the very life and survival of the nation, ranging from unjust territorial treaties to open-door policy towards foreign immigration and settlement... For that national tragedy that has since been waged as a propaganda tool and ostensible evidence of all that is evil in Cambodian nationalism as well as an expedient scarecrow weapon of fear with which to strike the hearts and minds of living Cambodians and the world community we have yet to hear words of apology from any of those historically responsible... Why bother to take any action while and if the victims are numerically a minority among their peers and certainly as long as I or my sons and daughters are precluded from that unfortunate few to experience abuse, molestation, torture or rape?

Labour Minister Ith Samheng speaks on the decent work plan for 2016-2018 yesterday in Phnom Penh. Photo supplied

Fri, 7 April 2017

Sen David

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Labour Minister Ith Sam Heng told reporters yesterday the drafting of an action plan to send workers to Malaysia was still underway, but maintained that the abuses faced by a small number of domestic workers there was not of concern.

Speaking on the sidelines of a joint event with the ILO, Sam Heng said a technical working group was still working with Malaysian officials to draft a revised memorandum of understanding, and insisted that the relatively small number of workers who face abuse in Malaysia meant it was not a big issue.

“Recently, there are victims being saved from Malaysia but I think its still less. [It’s] not a lot if we compare it to the amount Cambodian workers working in Malaysia, which is probably 50,000 workers,” he said.

In December 2015, the two countries decided to lift a 2011 ban on sending domestic workers to Malaysia following numerous horror stories of severe abuse, allegations of forced detention and underage recruitment. In October the two sides agreed to expand the MoU to include factory, construction and plantation workers.

Speaking at yesterday’s presentation of a report on the Decent Work Country Programme, Sam Heng also touted the ministry’s efforts in “giving [good] working conditions to the people, increases in wages, expanding a working group to find solutions for worker protests and the expansion of insurance services”.

However, the opposition have suggested that a lack of government commitment to attracting decent jobs had driven hundreds of thousands of Cambodians to seek work abroad.