Cambodia – Claims of Abuse & Exploitation of Maids in Malaysia
Author: Womens UN Report Network
Date: August 22, 2011
WUNRN
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.”
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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.
_____________________________________________________________________
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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