This is Andrew Haffner, editor in chief over here at Southeast Asia Globe. I haven’t written anything directly to you, our readers, for a while now. It’s feeling pretty good though, so we’ll have to make it a more regular thing.

You’re hearing from me because we’re trying something new, doing a little experiment by introducing one of our writers in a more personal way. The idea here is to open a window into their reporting process, to give readers a sort of “behind the scenes” look at what goes into producing a feature for Southeast Asia Globe. We’re still experimenting with the format of this – moving forward, I’m thinking it could be like a short podcast episode – so please do let us know what you think of it. 

For our inauguration, we’ll be hearing from our contributor Daniel Zak, who wrote an in-depth article for us this week about the minority Cham population around Phnom Penh here in Cambodia. This majority-Muslim ethnic group has a storied history in our region and, in recent decades, some of their communities have taken to living on their fishing boats in response to persecution on land. Their bright blue boats have long been a visible fixture on the Mekong and Tonle Sap rivers in the heart of Phnom Penh.

Daniel has long taken an interest in distinct cultures within the Cambodian mainstream. So when he pitched me this article about Cham boat-dwellers forced by ecological pressures to leave their traditional livelihoods behind, I took note. He and his friend and colleague Tith Chanthara went out to meet these people and speak with them about the process of going to land. The result is a very human report about what that looks like, bumps and all.

If you haven’t already, give the piece a read at the link above. Then, check out the Q&A below to learn more about how this project came together.

Andrew: 

Just to jump right in, tell me a bit about why this subject was something you wanted to pursue as a journalist.

Daniel: 

In general, I feel that I’m personally very interested in minority groups in Cambodia.

This is not the first story I’ve written about these types of people. Their stories are something that I feel I’m specialising in, which I’m starting to be very happy with. And I think it’s important to keep an eye on these issues they face because, especially with something like this that stems from ecological problems – people think of these types of things as something which will someday, in the future, mess up all of our lives. 

But that’s the wrong way to think about it. It’s not a specific wall. Many lives are already being affected by this sort of thing, and the people who get hit first tend to be these types of [minority] groups.

What’s happening to the Cham now will happen to basically everyone as the decades go on. 

A: 

Yeah, I guess some of the factors that make them more marginalised in Cambodia also make them especially vulnerable to these ecological changes. When you decided to pursue this story, what was that first step that you took in the reporting process?

D: 

I always start with going into [academic research platform] JSTOR and basically reading these sorts of academic papers that have been written about the subject, even if it doesn’t actually factor that much into an article. 

One of my favourite quotes is, “Everything is the way it is because everything was the way it was.”

Having a more academic understanding of the subject matter just makes me feel more comfortable when charging in and starting to ask questions. So when they start talking about their own history, I already have a grounding and understanding of what they’re talking about. It makes it a lot easier to understand.

A: 

Yeah, that makes sense. Something that we liked about your piece was that it was very human. You had that historical background and some of the modern political context, but for the most part, it was stories about people.

There were very personal narratives that you put together to show this bigger picture of a society. I thought that was really cool. 

D:

Yeah. I think that having the historical context actually really helps with that. I think it’s a big thing that’s missing in a lot of journalism, because when you go into it as just, “Oh, the Chams are a marginalised, poor group”, you’re missing a huge part of who they are and their identity. That they’re not just marginalised. They have quite a proud history and it gives them a lot of meaning in their lives to know they’re a part of that.

A:

Yeah, a very interesting history. They have this civilizational lineage that I think could be overlooked nowadays based on, right, their minority status, lack of their own country, whatever factor you want to go with. But I agree, that does add real depth to the things we see today.

Based on our prior conversations, you had been to some of these communities before, right? 

D:

Yeah. Even before I started working in journalism, I was fascinated by them. I really do enjoy looking into subcultures. So I spent a day just walking around with Chantara, who worked on the story with me. 

We just went around the Cham community and started asking people stuff. At one point I even considered maybe I should just say I’m a journalist so that they don’t feel so weird when I ask them questions. So it was fun to go back and actually have a reason to ask them about these things.

A: 

So when you interact with folks in these communities, what kind of things did you have in mind when you made that approach? Were there any considerations that you had to take?

D:

Not really.  We went to the community and walked up to the very first people we would find to tell them about the story we were working on, and ask who we should talk to. Originally, I knew that I wanted to interview somebody who successfully transitioned from fishing into a different profession, and it was pretty hard to find those people. 

So most of the people we talked to were people who we originally just went up to for directions to find that first type of person. And we thought, “Oh, actually this person has their own perspective, may as well get it while we’re here.” 

By the time we had actually found the people who I wanted to interview first, we ended up having most of the story.

A:

Was there stuff that you noticed during the reporting process that didn’t make it into the story?

D:

A lot, yeah. There were a lot of accusations back and forth within the community about how the land was distributed amongst the fishers.

The people who didn’t get it were not happy with the process. We also bumped into this one fisher, and this was a little weird, but he was better dressed than all the other fishers. And he had a metal platform to get onto his boat and he was the only one that waved at us like, “Oh, come talk to me.”

And then he just said, “No I make a lot of money fishing, these other guys are lying, they’re lazy, that’s why they’re not getting enough fish. There’s no ecological damage here.”

And we noticed no other boats were docks next to his and it seemed like nobody liked him. [Laughs] Yeah, it was very strange.

A:

That’s interesting, yeah. So of all the things that you learned that you weren’t able to include for reasons of space or format or whatever, what did you think is the most interesting bit that didn’t make it in?

D:

I would say that there was so much internal strife within that fishing community. I lived on a kibbutz before I moved to Cambodia, and I was always under this impression that in a small community things are so tight-knit, like it’s very difficult for corruption and things like that to germinate. 

But here, people would be like, “That guy right over there is corrupt”, like pointing at him. And then the people next to him would say, “No, he’s great.”

So it was almost this microcosm of larger things, like they had their own fully functioning, polarised political system in this tiny community.

The post Behind the scenes: Cham fishers going to land appeared first on Southeast Asia Globe.

 The 75-year-old’s memories of Myanmar fade in and out as he narrates his upbringing. 

His experience is multicultural and cuts across generations, spanning the Hindu Tamil temples of the villages bordering Yangon to the dusty paths of the bustling Burma Bazaar in Chennai, in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu. 

His story is one of many. 

“I was born in Burma and consider it my homeland. I can speak fluent Burmese. My family is originally from Tamil Nadu in southern India. My family migrated back to India when I was in my teens,” Varadharajullu recalled. 

Despite continued discrimination by the current government, the Tamil community of Myanmar has carved a niche by navigating between Tamil and Burmese spaces. Despite living in Myanmar for generations, unlike other ethnic groups such as the Karen or Chin, Tamils are not considered native to Myanmar and do not have citizenship rights. 

The democratic transition from full military rule in 2011 spurred hope of reforms in protecting the identity of minorities like the Tamils. However, things changed with the February 2021 coup, which placed the Tamil community in a precarious position in the face of renewed discriminatory policies.

“I still have family in Myanmar. Although we share cordial relationships with our neighbours of other ethnicities in Myanmar, my family are afraid of the outcome of the current coup on our existence as a community in Myanmar,” Varadharajullu said. “Tamil schools have been shut down and there is a linguistic dominance of Burmese.”

According to the Indian government, ethnic Tamils born in Myanmar comprise the largest group of the country’s 4% Indian population. The Tamil community originally hails from South India. They began migrating along with other Indian ethnic groups to Burma during the 1800s, working as shop owners in the cities or agricultural labourers under the British colonial government. 

As Burma became the largest exporter of rice during colonisation, Tamil and Telugu unskilled labourers and farmers carved a niche in cultivation and sales. Many of their descendents would carry their legacy of migration, flowing back to India at various points during the tumult of modern Myanmar history. 

Two-Fold Migrations and Conflicting Memories

Vijayraghavan Koorathalvar, 66, is one of the many Tamils who harbour conflicting sentiments of carrying a bicultural identity in Myanmar. 

He moved to India in 1985 and now lives in the Burma Colony of Tiruchirappalli city, also in Tamil Nadu, but he was born in the Myanmar city now known as Bago. His grandfather had migrated there under the British colonial government. 

One generation later, his father would become a member of the anti-colonialist Indian National Army (INA), which collaborated with the Japanese in World War II in a bid for Indian independence. 

His father was also an owner of a rice mill employing about 700 workers in Bago, which was then known as Pegou and was home to a bustling Tamil Burmese business community. 

“During the 1962 coup, we faced difficulty in maintaining business during periods of civil war. Tamil businesses were targeted,” said Vijayraghavan. 

The various Indian ethnic communities in Myanmar faced waves of repression through the 21st century as the country underwent a series of violent upheavals.

During the 1920s-30s, it is estimated that 300,000 Indian Burmese who inhabited Burma in various occupations including trade, agriculture and banking were ousted from their homes in Burma. 

Later, during World War II, more than 15,000 Indians fled Burma amidst the Japanese invasion. Discriminatory, state-ordered expulsions sent more than 100,000 Indians back to India. Another 200,000 walked back through rough terrain, many dying on the journey. 

“I remember hearing stories of the Japanese invasion of Burma. The Japanese were not like the peace loving people we see now. They were brutal against our community,” said Vijayraghavan. 

After Burma became an independent country, the 1962 military coup and General Ne Win’s “Burmanisation” policy led to the official imposition of the Burmese language and preferential treatment of the majority Burmese community. Tamils were pushed down in the ethnic and social hierarchy and their schools were forcibly closed. Tamil languages were only allowed to be taught in temples. 

The Indian government welcomed Tamils and other communities of Indian origin to repatriate around this time, and continued to embrace them into the 1980s.

As part of this, the government created “Burma Colonies” throughout the country, including in the Indian states of Manipur and Tamil Nadu. These settlements would recreate a sense of life in Burma, and are still distinctive today for their continued embrace of Burmese cuisine and consumer brands.

 Varadharajullu returned to India in 1965 at 17 in a refugee ship provided by the Indian government in the tussle of the 1962 military coup. His family’s early months in India were marked by famine and poverty, and they soon decided to move to the Burma Colony for a new chance at life.

Despite the historical ethno-political tensions, many Tamil Burmese today maintain deep roots in Myanmar. Like the soft spoken Varadharajullu, many try to stay away from politics as they process conflicting memories of hardships, warfare and profound friendship. 

“The Burmese are good people and treated us well, they are like Gods and have warm hearts,” he said.

He saw the religious and historical connections between Hinduism and Buddhism as helping the Tamil and majority Bamar communities to find some common ground amidst discriminatory governmental policies that target ethnic minorities. 

Vijayaraghavan Koorathalvar carries similar sentiments. He once spent 15 months in a monastery in Myanmar for good karma. Along with the Buddhist monks, he shaved his head, dressed in the common orange and red robes and was provided khoodu (rice) daily. 

He also recalled a temple of Kaliamma where processions and celebrations took place in the streets with throngs of worshippers carrying an idol of the Hindu goddess Kali. 

For Vijayaraghavan, the religious connection between India and Myanmar cements a fairly cordial relationship despite political tensions.

 “Other minority ethnic and religious groups like Rohingya Muslims have it worse,” he said.

Burma Bazaar and Identity

Burma Bazaar, a chain of markets in the Burma Colonies of Chennai, Tanjavoor and Trichy in Tamil Nadu, came about in the 1960s when those who came as refugees set up shops with the help of the local government. 

They were very lively at the time, and despite steady decline in business in recent years, remain cultural centres throughout the state. The bazaars allow Tamil Burmese and other Burmese of Indian origin to maintain ties with the land of their birth while living in India, forming a distinct and enduring identity.

Varadharajullu remembers the shop in Burma Bazaar that his family, including his parents and eight siblings, set up in the 1960s. Similarly, Vijayaraghavan’s family established two shops in Burma Bazaar in the city of Trichy in the 1990s, selling goods as varied as calculators, perfumes and jewellery while also exchanging currencies. 

These days, business has weakened in these bazaars as many of the foreign items they’d specialised in selling are now available locally. Meanwhile, the Tamil Burmese community has largely assimilated into mainstream society – but their food stalls and shops selling the popular Burmese breakfast, mohinga, or atho, and other cultural delicacies live on.

The Persisting Tamil Community in Burma 

Young Tamil Burmese living in Myanmar are more fully assimilated than earlier generations and carry a different perspective on their dual identities. 

Most speak Burmese, eat Burmese food and are fully integrated into Burmese society.

Rajagopal, a trained lawyer in his twenties, lives in Yangon. He grew up in the city and attended an English language law school, graduating before the pandemic.

However, due to the economic effects of Covid-19 and the military coup, he is unable to practice law – he’s since made the shift to a career in wedding planning. 

“I have to be careful as a Tamil man living in Myanmar these days as I fear repression from the military,” he said.

At the same time, Rajagopal believes Tamil Burmese maintain good relations with the different local ethnic groups: “We get along very well.” 

The older Tamil Burmese who have remained in Myanmar feel a similar mix of official tension and local welcome.

Priyadharshini, who is in her 70s, lives not far outside Yangon. Born and raised in Myanmar, she spoke with a lilt in her voice as she narrated her story as an example of the daily lives of Tamils in and around the former capital. Still, Priyadharshini was reluctant to go into detail for fear of the repressive nature of the ongoing coup.

“I am afraid to say too much as it would put me and my family in danger. We are trying to be careful with our words as we are a minority in this country and I would rather not talk about politics,” she said.

Priyadharshini said her grandfather came to Myanmar in 1887. She lives in a joint family with her husband’s relatives and has nine children, mostly daughters.

Her family lives the dual identity that is particular to many Tamil Burmese of her generation who effortlessly weave speaking Burmese fluently outdoors with preserving Tamil culture at the home. 

They visit Hindu temples, such as those devoted to the deities Perumal, Kali and Mariyamman, to stay in touch with their ancestral traditions. The Tamil Sangam cultural association in Yangon also provides a gateway for those of Priyadharshini’s generation to retain their heritage and pass it on to their children while remaining integrated in Burmese society.

Already a challenging balance, the coup has made cultural preservation even more difficult.

“My grandson has not yet picked up Tamil and Telugu [language],” Priyadharshini said. “He goes to Burmese language schools as Tamil schools are not allowed under the current government.”

She added that most Tamil Burmese children today are only able to learn their ancestral language through family or private teachers. 

Despite hurdles and upheavals, these generations of Tamil Burmese both in India and Burma are maintaining their ancestral legacy against the odds. At the heart of this is an enduring sense of family and community that has traversed lifetimes. 

“I belong to Burma and I belong to India. I want my children to live fulfilling lives and be recognised,” Priyadharshini said. 

The post Myanmar’s Tamils maintain legacy in the face of upheaval appeared first on Southeast Asia Globe.

ទាំងនេះគឺជារឿងរ៉ាវ ៣ ផ្សេងគ្នា ដែលអ្នកស្រី Meta Meulenbelt-Hörz ជាម្តាយចិញ្ចឹមរបស់ទារកនោះ ត្រូវបានគេប្រាប់ អំពីប្រភពកំណើតកូនស្រីចិញ្ចឹមរបស់គាត់។ ក្នុងចំណោមរឿងទាំង ៣ នេះ គ្មាននរណាម្នាក់ដឹងទេថា មួយណាជាការពិតនោះ។

អ្នកស្រី Meulenbelt-Hörz បានប្រាប់ថា «ពួកយើងដឹងថាមានរឿង ដែលពួកយើងមិនធ្លាប់បានដឹងអំពីជីវប្រវត្តិរបស់កូនស្រីពួកយើង ប៉ុន្តែពួកយើង នៅតែមិនអាចស្វែងរកការពិតបាននោះទេ»។

ពេលនេះ Jane មានវ័យ ២១ ឆ្នាំទៅហើយ ហើយនាងរស់នៅក្នុងប្រទេសហុល្លង់ជាមួយនឹងអាណាព្យាបាល និងបងប្អូនប្រុសចិញ្ចឹម ដែលមានឈាមជាជ័រជាចិន។ នាងគឺជាក្មេងម្នាក់ក្នុងចំណោមកូនខ្មែរតូចៗ រាប់ពាន់នាក់ ដែលត្រូវបានស៉ំយកទៅចិញ្ចឹមនៅក្រៅប្រទេស (ការស្មុំកូនអន្តរប្រទេស) នៅចន្លោះឆ្នាំ ១៩៨០ និងឆ្នាំ ២០១០។ ត្បិតពេលនេះពួកគេពេញវ័យក៏ពិតមែន ជីវប្រវត្តិរបស់ពួកគេ សុទ្ធតែពុំត្រូវបានគេដឹងនៅឡើយថា  មូលហេតុអ្វីបានជាពួកគេមកនៅមណ្ឌលកុមារកំព្រាបែបនេះ  ឬមួយក៏ឪពុកម្តាយរបស់ពួកគេនៅរស់ ហើយកំពុងតែស្វែងរកកូនរបស់ពួកគាត់។

ត្រឹមថ្ងៃនេះ វាអាចមានរយៈពេលតែប៉ុន្មានខែទៀតប៉ុណ្ណោះ មុនពេលគ្រួសារដែលសុំចិញ្ចឹមក្មេងនៅប្រទេសអ៉ីតាលី នឹងអាចនាំក្មេងទាំងនោះមកប្រទេសកម្ពុជាវិញបាន។

បន្ទាប់ពីមានដំណើរការស្ទាក់ស្ទើរក្នុងនីតិវិធីស្មុំកូន នៅឆ្នាំ ២០១៩ ជុំវិញការចោទប្រកាន់ពីអំពើពុករលួយ និងបទជួញដូរមនុស្ស ប្រទេសកម្ពុជាបែរលុបចោលការហាមឃាត់ការស្មុំកូនអន្តរប្រទេសនៅក្នុងឆ្នាំ ២០១៤។ ប៉ុន្តែនាពេលដែលប្រទេសផ្សេងៗ រួមមានសហរដ្ឋអាមេរិក អង់គ្លេស បារាំង និងអូស្ត្រាលី បានហាមប្រាមការស្មុំកូនពីកម្ពុជានៅដើមទសវត្សរ៍ឆ្នាំ ២០០០ ប្រទេសអ៉ីតាលីឯណោះវិញមិនបានផ្អាកនីតិវិធីនេះទេ។

កាលពីខែ មករា ឆ្នាំ ២០២៣ បើយោងតាមគេហទំព័រផ្លូវការរបស់គណៈកម្មការសម្រាប់ការស្មុំកូនអន្តរប្រទេសនៃប្រទេសអ៉ីតាលី ដែលជាអាជ្ញាធរកណ្តាល ក្រោមរដ្ឋាភិបាលបានឱ្យដឹងថា មានការស្មុំកូនពីប្រទេសកម្ពុជា​​ ចំនួន ៩ ករណីទៀត ដែលពុំទាន់បានសម្រេច ជាមួយនឹងអង្គការ ៣ ពីប្រទេសអ៉ីតាលី។

«២០២៣ នេះគឺជាពេលវេលាមួយ​» លោក Michele Torri អ្នកតំណាងការស្មុំកូនអន្តរប្រទេសនៅអង្គការ Amici Dei Bambini បាននិយាយ។ នេះជាអង្គការមួយក្នុងចំណោមអង្គការចំនួន ៨ ក្នុងប្រទេសអ៉ីតាលី ដែលកំពុងរង់ចាំឱ្យមានការអនុញ្ញាតដើម្បីបន្តនូវការស្មុំកូនមកពីប្រទេសកម្ពុជា។ ប៉ុន្តែទោះជាយ៉ាងណាក៏ដោយ យោងតាមលោក Torri បានឱ្យដឹងថា គណៈកម្មការអ៉ីតាលីបានអនុវត្ត «ដោយប្រុងប្រយ័ត្ន និងហ្មត់ចត់» ដោយអនុញ្ញាតឱ្យការស្មុំកូនប្រចាំឆ្នាំមានចំនួនកំណត់ និងសម្រាប់តែកុមារដែលត្រូវការការថែទាំសុខភាពខ្លាំងប៉ុណ្ណោះ។ លោកបានបន្តថា ការធ្វើដូច្នេះមានភាពប្រសិទ្ធភាពក្នុងការតាមដានគ្រប់ជំហានទាំងអស់ រាប់តាំងពីពេលចាប់តាំងពីដំណាក់កាលដំបូង ដល់ដំណាក់កាលចុងក្រោយ ព្រមទាំងផ្ទៀងផ្ទាត់ភាពស្របច្បាប់នៃជំហាននីមួយៗ។

នៅដើមឆ្នាំ ២០០០ ការស៉ើបអង្កេតអន្តរជាតិបានលាតត្រដាងរឿងអាស្រូវទាក់ទិននឹងអំពើពុករលួយដ៏ធំ ពាក់ព័ន្ធនឹងកុមារកម្ពុជាយ៉ាងច្រើនដ៏គួរឱ្យព្រួយបារម្ភ ដែលត្រូវបានគេយកទៅចិញ្ចឹម ដោយគ្មានការអនុញ្ញាតពីឪពុកម្តាយដើមរបស់ពួកគេ ហើយឯកសាររបស់ពួកគេក៏មានការក្លែងបន្លំថាជាកុមារកំព្រារផងដែរ។ 

ទោះបីជាមានការចុះអនុសញ្ញាទីក្រុងឡាអេ ស្តីពីការការពារកុមារ និងសហប្រតិបត្តិការទាក់ទងនឹងការស្មុំកូនអន្តរប្រទេសក្នុងឆ្នាំ ២០០៧ និងការអនុម័តច្បាប់ស្តីពីការស្មុំកូនអន្តរប្រទេសនៅក្នុងឆ្នាំ ២០០៩ គេឃើញថា ច្បាប់ការពារកុមាររបស់កម្ពុជា មិនទាន់បានអនុលោមទៅតាមច្បាប់អន្តរជាតិ។ មួយទសវត្សរ៍បន្ទាប់ រដ្ឋាភិបាល ជាមួយការគាំទ្រដោយអង្គការ UNICEF បានបង្កើតនីតិវិធីថ្មីសម្រាប់ការស្មុំកូនក្នុងប្រទេស។ ក្រោយមកការសម្រេចបង្កើតច្បាប់នេះ ពុំទទួលបានជោគជ័យឡើយ ដោយសារតែជម្ងឺកូវីដ១៩។​

ទោះជាយ៉ាងណា កង្វៈតម្លាភាពនៃយន្តការ និងនីតិវីធីនូវតែជាហេតុផលដ៏ព្រួយបារម្ភសម្រាប់អង្គការការពារកុមារ និងសិទ្ធិមនុស្ស។ 

នាយិកាប្រតិបត្តិនៃអង្គការ Licadho លោកស្រី Naly Pilorge មិនត្រឹមតែបានទទួលស្គាល់ថា គ្មានការស៉ើបអង្កេតទៅលើសកម្មភាពបំពានច្បាប់កន្លងមកដោយភាគីកម្ពុជា លោកស្រីក៏បានបន្ថែមថា រដ្ឋាភិបាល និងក្រសួងពាក់ព័ន្ធនៅតែស្ថិតក្នុងចំណោមប្រទេស ដែលមានអំពើពុករលួយ និងកម្សោយច្បាប់។ គាត់បានបន្តថា បញ្ហានេះពិតជាពិបាកក្នុងធានានូវសិទ្ធិកុមារឱ្យកាន់តែមានភាពល្អប្រសើរ។

លោកស្រី Pilorge បានមានប្រសាសន៍ថា «នៅក្នុងបរិបថបច្ចុប្បន្ន វាពិតជាពិបាកស្មានណាស់ថា កម្ពុជានឹងសាកល្បងបើកឡើងវិញ នូវការស៉ំកូនចិញ្ចឹមអន្តរប្រទេសសារជាថ្មី ឬយ៉ាងណានោះទេ ហើយយើងមិនដឹងថា ប្រទេសខ្លះដូចជាប្រទេសអ៉ីតាលី ហ៊ានប្រថុយទៅនឹងការរំលោភបំពានទៅលើសិទ្ធិកុមារ តាមរយៈការចូលរួមក្នុងការបើកដំណើរការឡើងវិញនូវការស្មុំកូននេះ»។

ជាការឆ្លើយតបទៅនឹងអ្នករិៈគន់ លោក Torri បានលើកឡើងថា ទោះបីជានីតីវិធីនេះមានហានិភ័យ អាជ្ញាធរដែលធ្វើការលើកិច្ចការស្មុំកូនអន្តរប្រទេស គួរតែលើកយកលក្ខនិកៈទូលំទូលាយជាងមុន។

លោក Torri បាននិយាយថា «ជម្រើសមានដូចជា ដើម្បីកុំឱ្យមានហានិភ័យ គឺត្រូវលុបបំបាត់ចោលការស៉ំកូន ព្រោះវាគ្មានហានិភ័យអ្វីទាំងអស់ រួចអនុវត្តវិធីងាយៗ ដោយទុកពួកឱ្យពួកគេនៅមណ្ឌលកុមារកំព្រា ហើយមិនឱ្យពួកគេមានឱកាសបានស្វែងរកគ្រួសារ ឬមួយក៏សុខចិត្តប្រឈមមុខនឹងហានិភ័យ ទោះបីជាការធានាលើពួកគេទាំងអស់មិនទាន់អនុវត្តបានទាំងស្រុងក៏ដោយ»។ 

ទោះបីជាយ៉ាងណាក៏ដោយ ក្រុមគ្រួសារ និងកុមារទូទាំងប្រទេសកម្ពុជា និងទូទាំងពិភពលោកកំពុងតែស្វែងរក និងរង់ចាំសាច់ញាតិរបស់ពួកគេ។

អ្នកស្រី Meulenbelt-Hörz និងប្តីរបស់អ្នកស្រីបានយក Jane មកចិញ្ចឹមនៅក្នុងឆ្នាំ ២០០២ នៅពេលដែលនាងមានអាយុត្រឹមតែមួយខួបប៉ុណ្ណោះ។ នៅលើសំបុត្រកំណើតរបស់នាង គេបានសរសេរថា «ម្តាយ និងឪពុកមិនត្រូវបានគេស្គាល់អត្តសញ្ញាណឡើយ» ហើយថ្ងៃខែឆ្នាំកំណើតរបស់នាង ត្រូវបានប៉ាន់ស្មានថានៅខែតុលា ឆ្នាំ២០០១។

ដោយសារតែកាលពីមុន រដ្ឋាភិបាលកម្ពុជាមិនបានធ្វើបមាណីយកម្មទៅលើការឈ្មោះស្មុំកូន Jane និងអាណាព្យាបាលរបស់នាង មិនអាចស្វែងរកឪពុកម្តាយរបស់នាងឃើញឡើយ តាមរយៈការស្វែងរកឯកសារផ្លូវការ។ Jane គ្មានមធ្យោបាយផ្សេងទៀតឡើយក្រៅពីការពិនិត្យ DNA។ 

ពេលនាងមកទស្សនាប្រទេសកម្ពុជា Jane  និងគ្រួសាររបស់នាងបានបិតខិតប័ណ្ណរាប់រយសន្លឹកនៅជុំវិញរោងចក្រ ដែលត្រូវបានគេសង្ស័យថា នាងត្រូវបានគេបោះបង់ចោលនៅកន្លែងនោះ។ មិនយូរប៉ុន្មាន មានវត្តមានគ្រួសារចំនួនពីរមកទាក់ទង ហើយត្រូវបានគេយក DNA ទៅពិនិត្យ។ គ្មានលទ្ធផល DNA ណាមួយបញ្ជាក់ថា គ្រួសារទាំងពីរជាឈាមជ័ររបស់នាងនោះទេ ប៉ុន្តែការពិនិត្យ DNA នោះ បាននាំឱ្យមានការបង្កើតនូវ DNA Cambodia (ឬអង្គការឌីអិនអេកម្ពុជា)។ គម្រោងស្តីពីការផ្ទុកទិន្នន័យនេះ សហការជាមួយនឹងអង្គការក្រៅរដ្ឋាភិបាលក្នុងស្រុក គឺអង្គការសប្បុរសធម៌ដើម្បីគ្រួសារខ្មែរ ឬហៅកាត់ថា KFCO ដែលជួយសាច់ញាតិ ដែលបែកបាក់គ្នាដោយសារសង្គ្រាម ការប្រល័យពូជសាសន៍ និងជីវភាពទីទាល់ក្រ អោយជួបជុំគ្នាវិញ។

បច្ចុប្បន្នមានទម្រង់ DNA ជាង ៣០០ នៅក្នុងគម្រោងនេះ ត្រូវបានផ្ទុកជាមួយនឹងមូលដ្ឋានទិន្នន័យ របស់វេទិកាអនឡាញ MyHeritage and Family Tree។

នៅមុនពេលដែលការស្មុំកូនចិញ្ចឹមត្រូវបានគេដាក់បម្រាម ការស្មុំកូនត្រូវបានរៀបចំដោយអ្នកសម្របសម្រួលឯករាជ្យ ជាជាងតាមរយៈទីភ្នាក់ងារ ឬអង្គការផ្សេងៗ។ តែឥលូវនេះការស្មុំកូនទាំងអស់ ត្រូវស្ថិតក្រោមការគ្រប់គ្រងរបស់ទីភ្នាក់ងារដែលអនុញ្ញាតដោយរដ្ឋាភិបាល។ ក្រុមហ៊ុនឯកជនដែលមិនមានការអនុញ្ញាត និងមណ្ឌលកុមារកំព្រា លែងត្រូវបានគេផ្តល់សិទ្ធិអនុញ្ញាតក្នុងការចាត់ចែងនូវការស្មុំកូនអន្តរប្រទេសដោយផ្ទាល់ទៀតហើយ។ 

តាមរយៈបទពិសោធន៍របស់គាត់ ជាមួយនឹងកូនចិញ្ចឹមរបស់គាត់ អ្នកស្រី Meulenbelt-Hörz បានយល់ឃើញថា ការកែលម្អនីតិវិធីនៃការស្មុំកូនអន្តរប្រទេស នឹងមិនទាន់អាចកាត់បន្ថយហានិភ័យបាននោះទេ។ 

អ្នកស្រីបាននិយាយថា «បន្ទាប់ពីបានឃើញនូវដំណើរដែលកូនៗខ្ញុំបានឆ្លងកាត់កន្លងមក ខ្ញុំមិនគាំទ្រការស្មុំកូនទៀតទេ។ កុមារៗដែលជាប់ពាក់ព័ន្ធនឹងការស្មុំកូន សុទ្ធសឹងតែជាកុមារដែលមានរបួសស្នាមក្នុងជីវិត»។

*ឈ្មោះពិតរបស់ Jane ត្រូវបានគេសុំមិនបញ្ចេញដោយសារការរក្សានូវឯកជនភាព

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បកប្រែដោយ៖ ឡាយ សុផាន់ណា

The post អ៊ីតាលីហៀបនឹងបន្តការស្មុំកូនអន្តរប្រទេសពីកម្ពុជា appeared first on Southeast Asia Globe.

These are the three stories that Dutch adoptive mother Meta Meulenbelt-Hörz was told about her adoptee daughter’s origins. Which one of these tells the truth, nobody knows. 

“We knew there was something untold about our daughter’s story, but we could never find out the truth,” Meulenbelt-Hörz said.

Jane is now 21 and living in the Netherlands with her adoptive parents and her adoptee Chinese brother. And she is just one of the thousands of Cambodian children who were given to international adoption between 1980 and 2010.  Most of those children, now adults, have never known their real origins – how they ended up in an orphanage or if their birth parents are still alive and searching for them.

Today, it can be a matter of just a few more months before international adoptive families from Italy will again be able to bring Cambodian children home. 

After halting all the procedures in 2009 due to corruption and human trafficking allegations, Cambodia removed the ban on inter-country adoption in 2014. However, the country only made solid steps towards full reopening in mid-2022 by resuming discussions with the Italian government. Countries including the U.S., U.K., France and Australia banned adoptions from Cambodia in the early 2000s and have not shown interest in resuming them so far, deeming Cambodia not yet ready to fully align with international child protection standards.

But Italy never halted the procedures from its side. Instead, it has been at the forefront of bilateral discussions with local authorities throughout the entire time, aiming at resuming adoptions as soon as allowed.

In January 2023, according to the official website of the Italian Commission for Inter-Country Adoption – the central authority under the government – there are still nine pending adoptions from Cambodia with three organisations: CIFA Onlus, Comunità di Sant’ Egidio ACAP and Lo Scoiattolo ONLUS. Among them, only the latter confirmed with the Globe that its two pending proceedings are currently suspended until further notice.

“2023 is the year,” said Michele Torri, inter-country adoption representative at Amici Dei Bambini, one of the eight Italian organisations awaiting to be authorised to resume inter-country adoptions from Cambodia. “We are so close to receiving the final green light from the Cambodian inter-country adoption authority, that we can almost safely say that the authorised bodies can start preparing to resume new adoption procedures from Cambodia within the next few months.”

However, according to Torri, the Italian commission has opened up “in a cautious and controlled manner”, allowing only a limited number of annual adoptions, and only for children with special healthcare needs. That is to effectively monitor every process from beginning to end, as well as verify the legitimacy of each step, he said.

In early 2000, international investigations uncovered a major corruption scandal linked to an alarmingly high number of Cambodian children given to international adoption without the authorisation of their birth parents with forged documents stating false orphan status, as well as altered names and ages.

Despite signing the Hague Convention on Protection of Children and Cooperation in Respect of Inter-Country Adoption in 2007 and passing the Law on Inter-country Adoption in 2009, Cambodia’s child protection system failed to align with international standards. A decade later, the government, supported by UNICEF, developed updated procedures for domestic adoptions. In the end, these were never finalised due to the disruption of Covid-19. 

With the same objective, UNICEF recently also supported the Ministry of Social Affairs Veterans and Youth Rehabilitation to draft a child protection law that regulates adoption. This, once passed, will fill some of the main existing gaps in the process and procedures, such as the establishment of an inter-country adoption registry, UNICEF communication specialist Bunly Meas explained to the Globe.

While this legislation is enough to convince Italy that Cambodia is ready to safely resume inter-country adoption, the lack of transparency about the new mechanisms and procedures remains a reason for concern among child protection and human rights organisations. 

Cambodian rights group Licadho has been following government developments on the subject and working with families who have lost children to illegitimate international adoption procedures. Through that, the group’s outreach director Naly Pilorge doesn’t believe it’s possible for Cambodia to guarantee that international adoptions won’t be marred by the same fraud and corruption as past adoptions. 

“Cambodia has barely acknowledged past abuses – there have been no meaningful investigation or prosecutions,” Pilorge said. “No assistance has been provided to help birth families or adopted children who are still suffering.”

Pilorge also stressed that the Cambodian government and related institutions still rank among the world’s lowest for perceived corruption and weak rule of law. That would make it close to impossible to ensure children’s best interests, she believes. 

“In the current context, it is unthinkable that Cambodia would seek to restart intercountry adoptions, and unconscionable that countries such as Italy would risk infringing on children’s rights by participating in such a reopening,” Pilorge said. 

In response to critics, Torri argued that although there are and always will be risks connected to these procedures, adoption authorities should evaluate a broader set of conditions. 

“The choice is to either close everything down, take zero risk, and go with the easy way out leaving the minors in institutions without giving to even one of them the chance to find a permanent family, or to take on the risk and activate the mechanisms even where the total guarantees are not yet entirely ready in practice,” Torri said.

But a lack of transparency is what also makes several academics sniff at the effectiveness of the new regulations. Patricia Fronek, social worker, researcher and associate professor at Griffith University who published several works on the alternative care system in Cambodia, even alleged that “adoptions of children with special needs kept going even after the ban in 2009”, and an unknown number of children have been sent abroad since then. 

The central agency for inter-country adoption did not respond to comments. UNICEF reported being “not aware of any recent case of international adoption”, although there is no official register despite the child protection law containing provisions for its establishment. To make up for this lack, the Ministry of Social Affairs has recently adopted the use of a UNICEF-backed case management system that collects such information, “but there are no measures for monitoring, reporting and family linking after adoption,” Bunly reported.

But regardless of the bureaucratic procedures and improvements of safety measures on a national level, families and children across Cambodia and around the world are still searching for their blood relatives and seeking answers. 

Meulenbelt-Hörz and her husband adopted Jane in 2002 when the child was one year old. Her birth certificate states “mother and father unknown”, and an approximate estimate of her birth date is October 2001. 

Because the Cambodian government had no unified adoption registry at the time, Jane and her parents failed in their attempt to find her birth parents through an official documentation search. Jane had then no other choice but to rely on DNA tests. 

During her second trip to Cambodia, in 2019 she and her family stuck hundreds of flyers around the factories where she was allegedly abandoned. Soon after, two families went forward and took DNA tests. Neither resulted in a match, but that DNA marked the first step toward the establishment of DNA Cambodia. The databank project works in partnership with local non-governmental organisation KFCO, which helps to reunite families separated through war, genocide and poverty.

To date, there are more than 300 DNA profiles in this project stored within the MyHeritage and Family Tree Databases.

While all adoptions before the ban were organised by independent facilitators rather than through agencies or organisations, now, all international adoptions must be handled by government-authorised agencies. Unauthorised private companies and orphanages are no longer allowed to handle global adoptions directly.

But neither Meulenbelt-Hörz nor Fronek believe that such an improvement will change their contrariety in inter-country adoption. Fronek sees the strengthening of the national foster care system as the only effective and safe solution to the deinstitutionalisation of abandoned or orphan children. 

“If the foster care system is strong, children can find a permanent and secure home right away, without ever living in an institution,” she said.

Deinstitutionalisation is also the objective of U.S.-based non-profit organisation HOLT International, which has been piloting domestic adoptions in Cambodia with government support and working on strengthening foster care across the country, explained Thoa Bui, vice president of programs and services. 

“We really don’t want to see children age out in orphanages,” she said.

Lynelle Long, founding director of InterCountry Adoptee Voices, a global network of inter-country adoptees, who was adopted from Vietnam as a child and now lives in Australia, sees foster care as a more suitable and safer option for orphan or abandoned children. While, from a legal perspective, adoption is a private transaction – once successful, no government or NGO has the right or duty to check up on the children – foster care remains under the control of the government. That way, the safety of children in foster care is constantly ensured by government-authorised entities. 

“Adoptee children very often end up in abusive households in foreign countries,” Long said. “Nobody is making sure they are safe and healthy once they are adopted. While those in foster care are checked upon and have always the chance to report the abuse to their country’s central authority”

She, like thousands of other adoptees, also experienced isolation and racism in their communities, as well as a lack of understanding by their adoptive parents. 

“Adoptive parents often struggle to understand what their adoptee children go through,” Long said. “They are from a different cultural background and do not know how to handle the psychological burden on their adoptee kids.”

Meulenbelt-Hörz, also agreed that adoption should be avoided at any cost. 

“After seeing what hardships my kids have gone through, I am not favourable to adoption anymore,” she said. “All children involved in adoption are children with trauma.” 

*Jane’s real name has been withheld for privacy reasons

The post Italy close to resuming inter-country adoptions from Cambodia appeared first on Southeast Asia Globe.

The only virus requirement for visitors will be a negative Covid test, the country’s ministry of health said in a statement.

The communist state’s tourism sector was worth up to $32 billion a year before the pandemic, but it ground to a standstill during the pandemic as the government restricted travel.

Virus curbs have slowly been eased in recent months, with visitors trickling back in since November to play golf at resorts, under a bubble arrangement.

Vietnam also announced the resumption of 15 days’ visa-free travel for citizens from 13 countries: Germany, France, Italy, Spain, Britain, Russia, Japan, South Korea, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Belarus.

The country, which has a population of 97 million, is still reporting nearly 200,000 new Covid cases a day as the Omicron variant sweeps through.

But the health ministry says the situation “remains under control” with hospitalisation and death rates staying low.

Officials attribute that to the high vaccination rate, with 98 percent of adults fully inoculated according to the health ministry.

The country is making efforts to roll out booster jabs to the population while preparing to vaccinate children and young teenagers.

© Agence France-Presse

The post Vietnam ends Covid quarantine for international travellers appeared first on Southeast Asia Globe.

While a common tale among migrant workers, domestic workers are even more likely to find themselves vulnerable with little chance of escaping exploitative behaviour by irresponsible and occasionally cruel employers.

Even for those who escaped, migrant domestic workers who seek shelter in government, NGO or embassy-run facilities may find themselves at another crossroads – to choose between reclaiming their rights or going home and starting anew.

It was slightly past 7pm on a Tuesday evening and a group of about a dozen women were sitting in two rows along a corridor.

Like every other night, they had just finished dinner and their chatter whiled away time spent at the Indonesian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur’s (KBRI) shelter.

Hidden out of sight from the bustling daily crowd of hundreds lining up to process their travel documents, the shelter comprises five bedrooms, a communal kitchen, shared bathroom, prayer room, laundry, and since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic – a quarantine section for newcomers.

Following an assignment roster posted on the wall, residents in each bedroom take turns carrying out the daily cooking and cleaning tasks. They were not permitted to purchase food at the public canteen.

Another sign listed 21 more rules to be followed, including a 10pm bedtime, no leaving the premises unless with permission, no switching rooms and no possession of electronic devices.

“We can accommodate a maximum of around 50 to 60 people. The condition is not ideal,” conceded KBRI KL counsellor Rijal Al Huda, in charge of its administration.

“One room can fit 10 to 15 people at once, some on bunk beds while others lay mattresses on the floor,” he said.

Quizzed on the ban on electronic devices, Rijal said it was intended as a safekeeping measure “to avoid things from going missing”. He was quick to add that calls or messages are accessible via a landline in the office and the shelter coordinator’s mobile phone.

Additionally, Rijal said the embassy is also renting another house that is used to shelter mostly mothers with children or those in need of more space.

Entering the embassy’s main gate, as written on a whiteboard in the guardhouse, there were 29 women at the shelter as of Dec 6 and three children. There were also another 12 women and three children in the second facility, bringing the total number to 47.

This year up to Dec 3, 321 women and children have been repatriated from the shelter.

Can’t afford lawyers 

On average, Rijal said those with no outstanding cases could expect to leave for Indonesia within two weeks, while others in more “complicated situations” have had to remain in shelter for more than a year.

Of the current active cases, he said almost half, or 47.7 percent, involved labour disputes with employers, and about one-quarter, or 24.38 percent, had immigration issues, for example, missing official documents.

Both local and migrant domestic workers in Malaysia are currently excluded from protection under the Employment Act 1955 – a legal shortcoming cited by Rijal and migrant activists as a factor driving many women to flee an exploitative working condition, at times leaving behind their claims to unpaid hard-earned wages.

With a limited budget to hire lawyers, Rijal said the embassy has to be selective about which cases to fight.

“It is not certain that we will hire a lawyer. We will have to calculate the pros and cons. For some cases, we hire lawyers, but usually, in civil matters like unpaid salaries, we will try our best first (to seek redress) before we resort to hiring lawyers.

“First, we will try to contact the employers, the agents, and we also in some cases talk to the Labour Department,” he said.

Rijal said the situation became more complex when dealing with cases of undocumented migrants who are illegally employed here.

In one ongoing case, Rijal said the woman has been in the shelter for close to three years, going up against an employer who allegedly tried to “deny her existence”.

“We had to come up with creative ways of proving otherwise,” he added. “We have proven she was employed by the employer and right now, we are hiring a lawyer.

“But with the Covid-19 pandemic, the hearing has been changed multiple times already. It is heartbreaking to have them here for a long time, knowing that the facilities we have are not ideal,” he lamented.

Some are tempted to give up

Having spent years away from their families, in some cases leading to estrangement due to prolonged lack of contact, Rijal noted how some women requested to leave, even with outstanding salaries owed to them.

“There are at least three or four cases that due to the length of time… they just gave up. We have already assigned lawyers and the first step is to issue a letter of demand.

“After that initial step, they had to wait here for a long time and eventually, they asked us to send them home,” he said.

Malaysiakini previously reported on other ongoing claims for back wages handled by the Indonesian Embassy on behalf of women in their shelter, one of which allegedly amounted to RM106,000 for 12 years of unpaid work.

The outstanding amount varies between cases, to be claimed either via mediation, a Labour Court declaration, or civil proceedings, for any sum totalling more than six years.

Tenaganita officer Joseph Paul Maliamauv said one of the migrant rights group’s longest ongoing cases was filed on behalf of Nona* (name changed to maintain her privacy) – a young woman from Kupang, East Nusa Tenggara – seeking unpaid wages for work performed from 2013 until her escape sometime towards the end of 2017.

Little did Nona know that her newfound freedom turned out to be another ordeal.

It took her several more years of living in Tenaganita’s shelter before she eventually returned to Indonesia early this year. That too, with no certainty she would ever receive her hard-earned wages.

“She was being abused, and finally, she couldn’t take it anymore. She left the place with the help of a pastor who knew about us, so he took her to Tenaganita. That’s how she came to us,” Joseph said.

“With no end in sight, she wanted to go back home. ‘How long do I have to wait? I want to rebuild my life again’,” he said, quoting Nona.

Nona was promised a monthly salary of RM550 but never saw a single sen of her money, with RM9,000 or about 16 months’ pay from her four-and-a-half years in service supposedly sent directly by her employer to an account belonging to a family member.

She was being abused, and finally, she couldn’t take it anymore”

Joseph Paul Maliamauv, Tenaganita officer

On Aug 14, 2018, Labour director Misswandi Pardy said Nona’s claims for unpaid wages amounting to RM30,265.32 “be rejected and subsequently dismissed” as he argued that the Labour Court is not competent to hear the case because Nona was an undocumented migrant worker.

On July 19, 2019, after a year of multiple deferments and a change in presiding judge, a ruling was finally made that the Labour Court must hear cases involving undocumented workers.

“(However) her employer has appealed against the High Court ruling that she has a right to be heard in the Labour Court.

“That is where the case stands now. The appeal hearing has been postponed for over a year now,” Joseph said in an interview at his office in Tenaganita’s headquarters.

His office is filled with years of case files, documents and a small framed photograph of his late wife, well-known migrants rights activist Irene Fernandez.

Even if Nona’s claim was eventually heard in court, Joseph noted that with the time that had passed, there could be little evidence left to counter the employer’s defence that she never worked for them.

Nevertheless, he said the High Court ruling would still serve as an important legal precedent for claims by undocumented workers, despite a Labour Department’s alleged refusal to accept such cases.

‘My son calls me sister’

Coming into Malaysia through proper channels is also no guarantee of protection from being trapped in an exploitative working condition.

Mary* from Cambodia came to Malaysia in 2009 with a dream of saving enough money to raise her three-month-old son. Now, 12 years later, she stays on to fight for her hard-earned money.

“My boss didn’t pay me… I worked for nine years, but she would only pay me small sums of RM50 or RM100 or RM200.

“I asked my boss for my salary, and she said ‘you’re not going back so why need to keep so much salary?’ I said, ‘Never mind, I want to keep the salary myself. (Whether) I use or no use, it’s my problem because you already give it to me’,” said Mary.

For nearly 10 years, Mary said she was denied access to a mobile phone, cutting off ties with her growing son and family in Cambodia, as well as any chance of making new friends in Malaysia.

It was only sometime towards the end of 2020 that Mary said she finally had a mobile phone and her employer’s two children show her how to download TikTok.

From TikTok, Mary found another Cambodian domestic worker who, from what little information was available, managed to track down her mother.

Recalling their first phone call in a decade, Mary said, “Mother, father, I didn’t die. I really miss you.”

As for her son, Mary said he was raised by her mother. “He calls her ‘mother’ and calls me ‘sister’.

“I stay here. I no happy because my boss no good to me. My maam very good, my boss not good. When maam not home, he touch my everything [sic],” she revealed, instantaneously hugging herself.

With assistance from the Cambodian Embassy in Kuala Lumpur who was informed about Mary’s predicament at her workplace, Mary said she tried to negotiate with her “maam” but only to be told, “I let you play phone, why do you give problems to me?”

The Cambodian Embassy then attempted to engage with her employer. However, after the employer refused to discuss Mary’s release, she was rescued by a representative of the embassy and placed in Tenaganita’s shelter while waiting for a resolution of her case.

Malaysian authorities, through the Social Welfare Department, also shelter migrant workers and domestic workers believed to be victims of human trafficking, although Malaysiakini’s requests to obtain official data were denied.

With no formal recognition of their status as workers, the recruitment of domestic workers – including from Indonesia and Cambodia – are guided by bilateral agreements.

The agreements, in the cases of these two countries, were signed, thus lifting the recruitment bans imposed in 2011 over reports of widespread abuse.

They include stipulations for workers to be allowed to keep their passports and monthly salaries to be made into bank accounts, among others.

Malaysia is eyeing a January deadline to sign its latest agreement on domestic workers recruitment from Indonesia.

Human Resources Minister M Saravanan said that conclusion of the deal would also restart the entry of some 32,000 Indonesian migrant workers to fill urgent demands from the plantation and manufacturing sectors.

Indonesia has set the signing of an agreement as a condition before allowing its citizens to officially work in the plantation sector.

While the various new deals under discussion are meant to introduce safeguards for the future, it remains unclear how quickly the authorities will end the suffering of those who have suffered the double whammy of unpaid wages and a long stint in limbo while fighting to reclaim their losses.

This report was originally published on Malaysiakini and produced in collaboration with Indonesia’s Tempo Magazine. It is part of the Seafore Asean Masterclass Project and is supported by IWPR.

The post Trapped in shelters: Domestic workers’ dilemma appeared first on Southeast Asia Globe.

In the video they recorded, the women explained that they were domestic workers stuck at a deportation centre in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia’s capital. They needed help getting back to Vietnam.

“The employers brought us here without returning our belongings, passports or salary,” one of the women, H’Thai Ayun, reads from a letter in the video. 

Amid pandemic-related border closures, some of the women had been stuck in the deportation facility for several months, others for over a year, having escaped employers who, they say, physically and mentally abused them, denied them healthcare and made them work more than 12 hours a day, seven days a week. 

“If you don’t let me go home, I’ll die here.”

H’Thai Ayun, domestic worker

H’Thai Ayun was desperate to get back home. She pleaded with her employer for permission to leave, and when that failed, she refused to speak for seven days straight. After the employer released her to the Saudi Arabian agency that had placed her in that job, she went on hunger strike and demanded to be sent to a deportation facility where she would be able to meet other Vietnamese women. She eventually told the agency: “If you don’t let me go home, I’ll die here.”

Other women in the video had also tried calling their recruitment agents and the Vietnamese embassy seeking help getting home, H’Thai Ayun tells New Naratif. But when those efforts failed, they decided to post their video on Facebook, where it has since been shared more than 100,000 times.

As of November, most of the women are back in Vietnam, after activists from the US-based NGO Boat People SOS saw the video and helped them get on a flight that carried Vietnam’s national football team home following a match against Saudi Arabia. 

Lan*, another Vietnamese domestic worker in Saudi Arabia, was also hoping to get home on that flight, but she couldn’t secure a seat. 

“I’m so sad. Every time there is a flight, they say it’s my time to go home. But in the end, it’s not,” she says. Her two-year employment contract expired in October 2020.

Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, domestic workers from Southeast Asia who work in wealthier countries in East Asia and the Middle East were already one of the most under-protected classes of workers. Often excluded from their host countries’ labour laws and lacking legal recourse, they are particularly vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. Movement restrictions in place since 2020 to curb the spread of COVID-19 and the resulting economic fallout have heightened these vulnerabilities. 

“Due to this pandemic, live-in migrant domestic workers worked longer hours with increased workloads, had no day off and limited access to [personal protective equipment], and faced some problems such as unpaid salary and physical as well as mental health issues,” says Bariyah, a field organiser for the International Domestic Workers Federation. 

Still, some migrant workers from Southeast Asia have found their own ways to resist.

Resisting discrimination

The Asia-Pacific region is home to more than 38 million domestic workers—more than any other region, even without counting China’s 22 million domestic workers. Some 4.2 million domestic workers are originally from Southeast Asia, where industrialisation and environmental destruction have driven farmers off their land and into low-paying informal work in urban areas that can hardly sustain a family. Most of these domestic workers are women from the Philippines, Indonesia and increasingly Vietnam, who migrate to places like Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, and even as far as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.

In Hong Kong, the government has enacted pandemic-related policies that specifically target domestic workers. In late April, the government singled out around 370,000 migrant domestic workers for mass testing and vaccination after only two had tested positive for COVID-19. Other occupations, as well as the domestic workers’ employers, whom they live with, were not included in the plan.

“This is an act of discrimination carried out by the [Hong Kong] government against migrant workers,” says Aluh Ibrahim, a 37-year old Indonesian domestic worker in Hong Kong who serves as secretary of the Indonesian Migrant Workers’ Union.

Since June, whenever she goes grocery shopping, Ibrahim has been sporting a white T-shirt emblazoned with a red ribbon, the logo of a local campaign known as iRED, which stands for “I resist exclusion and discrimination”.

Co-organised by Indonesian and Filipino migrant workers’ unions in Hong Kong, iRED opposes discriminatory COVID-19 policies that exclusively target domestic workers. 

In addition to donning her iRed shirt, Ibrahim has participated in online dialogues with Indonesian consulate officials to request support for migrant workers in navigating Hong Kong’s mandatory testing and vaccination plan. She has also participated in an online advocacy campaign calling out discrimination against migrant workers in Hong Kong’s COVID-19 response.

“Everyone has the potential to catch the virus, but why are only migrant workers required to be tested and forced to be vaccinated? Migrant workers are accused of spreading the virus, even though the number of migrant workers infected with the virus is very small compared to local residents who have contracted the virus,” Ibrahim says.

“We do not refuse to be tested or vaccinated as long as our bodies are healthy, and this should apply to everyone in Hong Kong,” she adds.

Discrimination against domestic workers in Hong Kong did not start with the pandemic. They were already guaranteed a lower minimum wage than other labourers. Often working more than 12 hours a day, domestic workers earn a monthly minimum wage of HK$4,630, plus meals provided by employers or a food allowance of HK$1,173, for a total of about $5,800 per month. For other workers, the statutory minimum wage is set at HK$37.50 per hour, equivalent to HK$6,000 per month for a 40-hour work week.

Eventually, following protests outside Hong Kong’s Central Government Complex and additional pressure from the Philippine and Indonesian governments, the Hong Kong government scrapped the mandatory vaccination plan on 4 May. The mandatory testing requirements, however, remained in place for a second round after just three domestic workers tested positive out of the more than 340,000 who gave samples in the first round.

Trafficked to Morocco

Despite the discriminatory policies she faces in Hong Kong, Ibrahim enjoys freedoms that migrant domestic workers in other parts of the work do not. For instance, laws in Hong Kong and Taiwan allow domestic workers to form unions, whereas Singapore and Saudi Arabia forbid it. She can speak Cantonese and English, so she understands her employment contract and local laws. If she were to experience abuse, she could call her union with her own phone and seek assistance.

Setia*, a 45-year-old domestic worker from Indonesia, had no contract and no phone when she set out from her village for work in Morocco in June 2020. There were signs early on that her recruiter was a trafficker. She gave Setia a fake ID and told her to pack light, bring no phone and only a small amount of money. 

Her sister had warned her about these red flags, but Setia was confident. She spoke some Arabic and had previously worked as a domestic worker in Brunei for six years, which had allowed her to put her daughter through school. Now, she needed the work to pay for her daughter to enroll in university. Plus, she told her sister, she trusted the recruiter.

“I told [my sister] she didn’t have to worry because everything is being taken care of,” Setia says. She referred to the recruiter as “Hajjah”, a title reserved for Muslims who have completed a pilgrimage to Mecca.

Reality started dawning on Setia once she landed in Singapore for a layover. She was alone, and she grew uneasy. She would have flown back to Jakarta, but she only had IDR 30,000 (US$2) in her pocket. She realised the recruiter’s instruction not to bring a lot of cash was meant to prevent her from getting back home on her own. 

“I felt so stupid being tricked like that. That’s why I don’t want my daughter to be uneducated like me. She has to be a smart woman,” Setia says.

Once she arrived in Morocco on a tourist visa, she immediately complained to her employers about the apparent illegality of her work arrangement. The employers showed her a contract they had signed. She also saw a signature that was supposed to be her own, which someone else had falsified. The employers, she says, paid US$3,000 to bring her from Indonesia. Instead of being paid US$350 per month as her recruiter had promised, her employers paid her US$230.

“It’s a good thing I was brave enough to confront [my employers]… but what about those who are inexperienced and intimidated by [their employers]? Where would they end up?”

Setia, domestic worker

Setia’s case is not an isolated incident, according to Marni Sulastri, a project coordinator at Kabar Bumi, an association of Indonesian migrant workers and their families. During the pandemic, Sulastri has worked on four trafficking cases to countries in the Middle East and North Africa, including Setia’s. Before the pandemic, the number of cases averaged about a dozen each year. 

To help repatriate trafficked domestic labourers, Kabar Bumi interviews their family, contacts the survivor to establish the timeline of events and then reports the case to the Indonesian government to seek assistance with repatriation. 

“It’s a good thing I was brave enough to confront [my employers],” Setia says. She eventually managed to borrow a phone from her employer and contact her daughter, who then contacted Kabar Bumi for help. In November 2020, she finally returned home, after the Indonesian embassy in Morocco intervened in her case. 

“But what about those who are inexperienced and intimidated by [their employers]? Where would they end up?” she says.

In December, Sulastri was assisting an Indonesian woman trafficked to Syria to work in her employer’s home. Before Kabar Bumi managed to get her out, they lost contact. In January, the Washington Post reported that dozens of Filipina women were stuck in Syria after being trafficked there.

In a move aimed to protect migrant domestic workers, Indonesia has banned them from working in 19 countries in the Middle East and North Africa, including Morocco, since 2015. As Setia’s case illustrates, the ban has failed to stop traffickers, and prompted them to circumvent restrictions. In October, Indonesia’s National Commission on Human Rights said the 2015 ban should be lifted, citing  a number of cases of domestic workers being trafficked to the Middle East and North Africa through illegal agencies, with some facing violence from brokers when they tried to return home. The commission and advocacy groups like the International Domestic Workers Federation have also said the ban impedes domestic workers’ right to migrate and work. Advocates have called on the Indonesian government to ratify and apply relevant International Labour Organization conventions on domestic workers and labour migration. 

The Philippines is the only country in Southeast Asia to have ratified the ILO’s 2011 Domestic Workers Convention, which sets minimum labour standards on working hours, wages, working conditions and social security, and offers workers protection from abuse by employers and recruitment agents. It affirms domestic workers’ rights to freedom of association and collective bargaining.

“It’s a business “

Without prior experience and support from NGOs like Setia received, and without the strong voices of trade unions like those in Hong Kong, many Vietnamese domestic workers in Saudi Arabia have been subjected to slave-like conditions for years. The lack of available repatriation flights during the pandemic has made the already distant chance of escaping even more remote.

Guest workers in the Middle East are largely governed by the kafala system, which requires employers to act as migrant workers’ sponsors. Saudi Arabia has some of the most restrictive kafala rules for domestic workers, which prevent them from leaving the country or changing jobs without their sponsor’s permission.

These rules make it especially difficult for domestic workers suffering from abuse to escape from their employers. Employers commonly keep their employees’ passports, and some workers are even denied access to a phone. For abuse cases among the approximately 1 million Filipino migrant workers in Saudi Arabia, Migrante International, a global alliance of overseas Filipino workers, takes matters up with their government by calling for repatriation assistance. 

“Most of the campaigns and demands are directed at the Philippine government because they have diplomatic agreements with the host government,” chairperson Joanna Concepcion says. 

“It’s a business… [agencies’] priority will always be the profit they make from recruiting migrant workers”

Joanna Concepcion, chairperson, Migrante International

But in Vietnam, where civil society activism is tightly restricted, far fewer resources are available. On paper, recruitment agencies are supposed to protect the workers they send overseas. However, evidence from Vietnam and other countries that send many migrant workers abroad consistently shows that recruitment agents tend to support employers and exploit workers. 

“It’s a business,” Concepcion says of recruitment agencies. “Their priority will always be the profit they make from recruiting migrant workers, and that’s been proven through their actions.”

In Saudi Arabia, stuck with an employer who would not let her leave and unable to secure a flight back home to Vietnam, conditions grew worse for Lan. In February, her employer locked her out of the house for four days without food after she had asked for a day off because she wasn’t feeling well, she tells New Naratif. 

With the ostensible aim of monitoring unscrupulous recruitment agencies, Vietnam has implemented a system of fines. Between 2007 and 2015, the Ministry of Labour revoked the licences of 46 companies and levied administrative fines on 76 agents, totalling just over 300 million dong (US$13,000)—an average of less than US$175 per agent, according to a government report from last year.

These measures do little to deter agents from perpetuating a cycle of abuse, according to human rights lawyer Tran Thu Nam, who in 2017 helped repatriate a domestic worker from Saudi Arabia who had suffered long working hours and physical and mental abuse by her employer. 

“The Department of Overseas Labour only cares about levying fines without offering any remedial measures,” he says, noting that Vietnamese workers overseas are not part of Vietnam’s General Confederation of Labour, a national trade union.

Nam no longer does the pro bono work for migrant domestic workers. After that first successful case, he was overwhelmed with requests from workers, who bombarded him with images of their injuries. 

“It was too traumatic. I don’t have the strength to support them all,” he says.

The Department of Overseas Labour does oversee a fund whose contributors include both workers and recruitment agencies. One of the fund’s purposes is to cover repatriation costs for workers suffering from abuse. However, a 2020 report by the Ministry of Labour revealed that the fund does not cover many risks workers face, including those relating to epidemics, wars and recessions. The fund only pays out up to 5 million dong (US$220) to repatriate a worker suffering from occupational injuries—an amount deemed by the ministry as “too low”.

Given the lack of government protections, many desperate Vietnamese domestic workers turn to Facebook for help getting home. New posts appear in groups for Vietnamese workers living in Saudi Arabia almost every week. This is where H’Thai Ayun and the other eight women stuck at the Riyadh deportation centre posted their viral video.

Lan took to Facebook on several occasions to feel less alone. In June, she logged on with an anonymous account and posted: “Hi everyone! Has anyone here ever had to drink water from the bathroom? For me, this is the fifth time already. Wondering when [we] will get a flight back home.” 

Eventually, she decided she’d had enough from that employer, and she refused to work. Only after the employer found a replacement worker in July was Lan allowed to officially quit the job. Her agent promised she’d travel home on a repatriation flight in early September and convinced her to work for another family until then. 

“They sold me again,” she tells New Naratif.

“[This employer] is better, but I get little sleep,” she says, adding that she works from 6 a.m. to midnight every day. 

Unlike the women stuck at the deportation centre, Lan still has the strength to work long hours, which at least earns her money that she can send home. But she regrets coming to Saudi Arabia and yearns to return home to see her family and rest.

She repeatedly insists that neither her real name nor her agent’s can be revealed in the media. 

“Otherwise, the agent will never let me go home.”

*A pseudonym has been used due to the person’s fear of reprisals.

Additional reporting by Eka Nickmatulhuda

This story was produced with support from the Asia Pacific Forum on Women, Law and Development’s Media Fellowship.

This article was originally published in New Naratif and produced as a part of the SEAFORE ASEAN Masterclass project, with support from IWPR

The post Under-Protected Abroad, Domestic Workers Find Ways to Resist appeared first on Southeast Asia Globe.

Her critical decision led to her arrest by the Royal Malaysia Police. “I truly apologise if I committed a violation. I have nothing else to eat, which is why I had to go out and look for money. They eventually understood. I was told to go back home, stay there, and not go out of the house,” said Tiny as she recalled her arrest to Tempo in early December. 

Ever since the pandemic hit every corner of the world, including Malaysia, Tiny faced a bleak destiny. As the pandemic devastated the country, the Malaysian government decided to hit the brakes and impose a national lockdown.

The Malaysian government at one time banned people from working. Tiny and her husband were restrained at their house in Puchong, the major town in the Petaling district in Selangor. The couple from East Nusa Tenggara (NTT) no longer were able to make money and were forced to stop sending money back to their only offspring back at their hometown. 

“I never wired money back to Indonesia until this moment, which lasted from the first period of the pandemic,” said Tiny. For food, she and her husband were limited to depending on assistance from her employer, Indonesian government, and Church donations. 

The gripping situation loosened in early 2021 as in February, Tiny worked as a cleaning service who gets paid 64 ringgit or Rp218 thousand for every order she takes. But just a couple of months later in the middle of 2021, the government imposed another lockdown caused by the spread of the Delta variant. She found herself unemployed again. 

Amongst the difficult times, thoughts of returning home crossed their minds but was abruptly shut down after considering the cost of doing so amounting to 1,800 ringgits or roughly Rp6 million each. “How can we afford to buy the tickets? We could only weep from here as a family member passed away due to Covid-19 back home,” she said. Both are depending on better fortune ahead. 

Stories from people like Tiny make the tip of the iceberg about Indonesian migrant workers residing in foreign countries. Data provided by the Protection of Indonesian Migrant Workers Agency as of November 2021 reveals most complaints come from migrant workers from Malaysia. From January to November 2021, there have been 367 complaints from workers in Malaysia out of the total 1,553 complaints filed from each and every placement country. 

Based on the types of complaints that were filed, most of them are migrant workers who ask to be transported back home, comprising 486 complaints. Other top five reasons include unpaid wages, deaths in a foreign country, human trafficking, and work-related fraud. 

The Human Trafficking Watch (HTW) acknowledges problems related to employment and human trafficking continues to threaten these migrant workers till this day. HTW representative in Malaysia, Dewi Kholifah, said most of the complaints come from the construction sector and domestic workers. 

She said many of the Indonesian workers who filed complaints to HTW are unaware of what to do if they are faced with employment and violence. “Many who come here are oblivious of what a KBRI (Indonesian embassy) is and where they are located. Some are not even able to write down their own names,” said Dewi. 

Migrant workers are enticed to sign undisclosed contracts offered by shady agents, which eventually leads them to work without proper pay

This situation is often taken advantage of by criminal syndicates. Dewi often stumbles upon complaints from legitimate migrant workers but are not in possession of their own passports as the crucial document is kept by either their employer or agent.

There are cases where migrant workers are enticed to sign undisclosed contracts offered by shady agents, which eventually leads them to work without proper pay. “Even though they are legally recruited, here’s where problems emerge. This is what we need to pay attention to and urge the government to provide Indonesian migrant workers with sufficient protection,” said Dewi. 

Migrant Care representative in Malaysia, Alex Ong said pandemic restrictions have mainly targeted people without legal documents, as these people depend on daily jobs to make a living and the mobility restriction imposed by the government left them unemployed and do not have means for income to buy food, pay rent, and other daily expenses. 

During this difficult time, the social workers, even the Indonesian Embassy, found it difficult to reach the migrant workers spread across a large area. “Even if we mobilise to the streets and bring them something, what can we do? We could only see them suffer. This is a major challenge and it is the first time we faced such a situation,” said Ong. 

Alex recalled that his organisation was only able to act after obtaining a legal permit from the Indonesian Embassy, which was approved by local authorities. The most catastrophic situation he witnessed is when he encountered over a dozen Indonesians living in a dump site and were constrained to eating food in the trash to survive. Because of this, he said food assistance became their main focus in saving these Indonesian migrant workers. 

Apart from food supply, Alex revealed cases of exploitation and physical abuse committed by the employers, which continues to happen to this day. During this situation, Migrant Care headquarters located in a condominium was not able to accommodate people. According to him, on a normal day the Migrant Care office would often be used as a shelter for Indonesian migrant workers who need protection. 

Head of the Indonesian Migrant Workers Protection Agency (BP2MI) Benny Rhamdani said the government is finding it difficult to protect the migrant workers due to the abundance of workers entering placement countries without adhering to the established procedures. Citing their data, there are only 4.3 million Indonesians working as migrant workers, meanwhile, the World Bank suggests there are 9 million Indonesian migrant workers.

“If we recite the World Bank data, there are 4.7 million of our workers who are unregistered and I am one thousand percent sure that 90 percent of them are victims of human trafficking that are committed by syndicates,” he said. 

Benny insists that those unofficially working as migrant workers remain outside of the government’s radar and are unable to track their origins and identity, where they are currently working, and what their specific jobs are, as these records are basically nonexistent. He said the government is restricted to taking action after the workers themselves file complaints when an incident occurs. 

“Which is why we are massively campaigning for safe migration and urging people against working overseas illegally,” said Benny.

Foreign Affairs Ministry’s Director of Protection for Citizens Judha Nugraha acknowledged that the pandemic has unfortunately helped spark issues related to undocumented migrant workers no longer having sources of income, which leads to logistical problems. 

To address this pressing issue, Nugraha said representatives in Malaysia have distributed government assistance in the form of basic need packages in 2020. This program continues to live on in 2021. “We have allocated Rp64 billion to representative offices around the globe, and most of them have been distributed to Malaysia,” Nugraha said.

In protecting the migrant workers and expanding the government’s reach in handling this issue, he said the government continues to involve each and every stakeholder starting from the workers themselves, community members, mass organisations, up to local authorities. 

Meanwhile, Rijal Al Huda from the Consular Affairs Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia (KBRI) in Malaysia, said the pandemic has highly increased the number of possible conflicts between migrant workers and their employers. “Many of the employers were affected and had no more income. This increases the potential for abuse,” said Huda, Malaysia Kini reported. 

Upon protecting the migrant workers, Rijal said the Indonesian embassy and Consulate General (KJRI) have actually provided a hotline, even though he admits that it was only effective for the second pandemic year. The government and stakeholders were still looking for a proper system to implement in the first year of the pandemic. However, entering the second year, the Indonesian Embassy and Consulate General have partnered better alongside the Malaysian Royal Police.

One of the partnerships, he explained, is the distribution of social assistance packages. The second year of the pandemic saw the KBRI distribute 145 – 150 thousand packages to Indonesian migrant workers in need. “Covid-19 is proven to be troublesome for the documented, let alone the undocumented. Many of their employers were suddenly not able to afford paying even the legal workers,” said Huda. 

This report was first published in interactif and is part of the SEAFORE ASEAN Masterclass Project and supported by IWPR.

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“The workers had requested the boss for many days to fix the electricity but the boss dismissed the requests,” said Rin Saro, a Cambodian monk and labour rights activist in South Korea.

The workers eventually sought warmer shelter with friends, except for 31-year-old Cambodian Nuon Sokkheng, who stayed behind despite the minus 18 degree Celsius (minus 0.4 Fahrenheit) weather on 20 December. 

She died alone in her sleep. 

Following an investigation sparked by a public outcry, South Korean authorities and the Cambodian ambassador to South Korea said the cause of death was cirrhosis of the liver. Human rights activists from both countries who spoke with co-workers claim Sokkheng’s living and working conditions directly contributed to her death.

The case drew attention to the difficult circumstances facing migrant workers under South Korea’s Employment Permit System (EPS). The programme registers agricultural, industrial and construction labourers from more than a dozen Asian countries, including many who reportedly live in greenhouses and shipping containers while working long hours for abusive bosses.

A government survey found about 70% of migrant workers in the agriculture and fishing industries stay in provisional shelters provided by employers. Within weeks of Sokkheng’s death, the government banned vinyl greenhouses and makeshift structures to house workers. But labour activists and Cambodian migrant workers told the Globe the reforms are far from sufficient.

“Lots of similar cases have happened before,” Saro said. “[Sokkheng’s] death has made a massive impact for all the Cambodian migrants in Korea. This is the 21st century and it needs to be changed.”  

Cambodians account for about 50,000 of up to 250,000 EPS migrant workers in South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea. The EPS system allows Cambodians to send home $700 to $1,000 monthly, generating about $500 million in annual remittance before Covid-19 struck, according to Long Dimanche, Cambodia’s ambassador to South Korea in 2020. He said the majority of Cambodia’s population is under 35 years old, offering a large number of labourers who can benefit the economy through funds sent home.

South Korea began importing foreign labour in large numbers – between 100,000 and 160,000 annually from 1992 to 1996, according to one study – before opening diplomatic relations with Cambodia in 1997. As part of its attempts to increase immigration to offset a shrinking population, South Korea signed an agreement this year to receive more Cambodian workers.

The opportunity can be life changing, offering migrants up to 20 times what they might earn for the same job in Cambodia. But getting to South Korea through EPS is a competitive, difficult process requiring proficiency in the Korean language even before consideration. Workers like Sokkheng also may not be aware of their vulnerabilities.

“They know only the positive sides, such as high salary, but the dark side of living there they barely know,” said Pov Sophark, a Cambodian monk and activist who works closely with South Korea’s Ministry of Labour and said there are 10,000 applicants annually for 4,000 to 5,000 EPS jobs available to Cambodians.

According to Saro, 19 other Cambodian workers died in South Korea in 2020, mostly men and all under 40, He believes poor nutrition, sleep deprivation and overwork contributed to many of the deaths, even if they were classified differently.

“Almost all the death cases are identified as heart attacks, according to the medical documents,” said Saro, who has conducted cremations for Cambodians, including Sokkheng.

They know only the positive sides, such as high salary, but the dark side of living there they barely know

Dimanche disputed Saro’s death toll, telling the Globe that tens of thousands of Cambodians besides EPS workers live in Korea. 

“All the data of the people who died doesn’t mean they are all migrants. Some died of the accident, some died of suicide, some died because of the natural causes,” he said. “The number of 19 people who died is not entirely migrants, so I don’t think the number is accurate.”

Migrant worker deaths under ill-defined circumstances are not uncommon, though. A December 2020 Reuters report found 522 Thais had died in South Korea since 2015, nearly half due to unknown causes.

Sokkheng’s sister in Cambodia was surprised to learn of the cirrhosis ruling, explaining that Sokkheng checked in daily and “never complained about her health once. Then there’s [a Facebook] post saying she died from liver disease, I just don’t understand.”

Sokkheng’s co-workers initially spoke with human rights activists, but soon went silent. None responded to interview requests.

The conditions in which Sokkheng lived before her fatal misfortune mirror those encountered by other Cambodians seeking higher earnings abroad.

“I heard about the high salary [in Korea], because in Cambodia, we have to spend more years studying in order to get that high salary,” said Sreyleak Ngea, who followed her four siblings when she moved to South Korea five years ago.

Sreyleak studied Korean through a $100 course and waited a year for her application to be approved. She also needed cultural training, a health check and a plane trip she funded with a $3,000 bank loan. Workers from Cambodia, where the average annual income is around $1,500, can go into debt while paying thousands of dollars for classes, health insurance and travel.

Sreyleak said she quickly found the reality was a harsh departure from the promises of her contract. Her accommodation was a shipping container shared with two other Cambodians, where she estimated the temperatures ranged from 35 to minus 15 degrees Celsius (95 to 5 Fahrenheit). The farm also used a dormitory bathroom to grow fertilizer with processed waste, causing a terrible stink. 

She toiled from 6:30am until 7:30pm picking perilla leaves, commonly used in Korean cuisine, with only two days off per month and a half-hour for lunch. Overtime pay never materialised.

While South Korea law mandates eight-hour work shifts and rest days, Article 63 of the Labour Standards Act excludes farming and fishing workers. Agricultural employers control hours worked and must pay overtime, but migrants are commonly cheated out of hundreds or even thousands of dollars, Amnesty International reported in 2014.

Most low-skill agriculture jobs are held by migrants who typically work 50 hours more per month than their contracts specify. But even when violations are reported, legal sanctions occur in only 1% of cases.

Migrants seeking a new post must obtain a release from their employers and are penalised for changing jobs unless they can prove there was abuse. Without a job change, the E-9 ‘non-professional employment’ visa expires after four years and ten months.

I don’t even have time to go to the restroom so I have to pee in the same place I pick

“I possess an E-9 visa, which means I don’t have [many] rights to do a lot of things and am often neglected by the employers,” said Sreyleak, who believes agricultural employees are paid less than industrial workers to boost profits.

“If I don’t work hard, I won’t receive the money,” Sreyleak said. “I tried to boost my productivity, so in winter my hands got swollen and I even cried while working. It’s exhausting working here, it’s like working in the rice field back home.”

Sreyleak said her boss required daily production of at least 16 boxes of 1,000 perilla leaves tied in packs of ten, a time consuming process.

“Sometimes I can finish up to 24 boxes a day, but inhumanly. I don’t even have time to go to the restroom so I have to pee in the same place I pick,” Sreyleak said, explaining that she endured because she could send home at least $1,000 monthly while keeping only a couple hundred for herself.

“I wanted to come back and give up on everything every time,” she said. “But my friends and my family have always been supportive and encouraged me to work harder.”

Sreyleak eventually discovered resources to help her escape the exhausting conditions. Ichan Kim, known among Cambodian workers as ‘Lok Kru’ (teacher), is a long-time South Korean labour rights activist who speaks some Khmer. The former documentary filmmaker founded Earthian Station, a NGO providing workers rights seminars and counseling. 

Aided by Kim and with nine months left on her original contract, Sreyleak switched from picking perilla to working in a mushroom factory. She also realised her boss was not counting all her boxes and she is owed $6,000 plus a bonus her employer refused to pay. She is suing for the unpaid wages.

Sreyleak said she was “blackmailed” to return to Cambodia under the threat of legal action. But she no longer fears expulsion “because I know my rights now and what [my employer] did was wrong.”

“Migrant workers now can fight back [against] exploitation or abuse from their employers,” Sreyleak said. “And after the Sokkheng case, the Korean government stopped turning blind eyes on us, which gives us more courage to fight back against the employers.”

The post Death in a greenhouse appeared first on Southeast Asia Globe.

Hong is a documented Cambodian worker living on the site, which will sometime next year be home to a pharmaceutical plant wedged between the Sirat Expressway and the Maha Vajiralongkorn Thanyaburi Hospital in Bangkok’s satellite city of Rangsit. But since June 28, construction has been halted as Hong and 68 other Cambodian workers have been placed under lockdown as part of Bangkok’s sweeping push to halt the spread of Covid-19.

“There’s not much to eat anymore. And we don’t have enough money to buy food,” Hong told the Globe this week. “It feels like we’re trapped. We want food and we want money, and to work once again. We’re hoping the situation gets better so that we can move.”

Emerging in April, Thailand is currently undergoing its worst outbreak yet of Covid-19, with health officials recording about 20,000 new infections daily. As of August 13, the Ministry of Health has counted more than 863,189 total cases with 7,126 deaths.

The soaring caseload has led to extended lockdown measures that have stranded Cambodian migrant workers like Hong in limbo, often leaving them in subpar housing without means of supporting themselves. Though no longer under a hard lockdown at their worksite, Hong and his coworkers are now stuck in Thailand with suspended work, dependent on food and supplies from the outside, including from non-governmental organisations that provide services to migrants.

On July 4, the Thai government announced it will allow some construction projects to resume in the capital, though the future pharmaceutical plant in Rangsit is not one of them. For now, amidst ever-changing but mostly unsuccessful regulations intended to contain the outbreak, thousands of migrant workers are finding themselves stuck with no end in sight. 

Hong has the necessary documents to work in Thailand, a fact he says makes his burden that much lighter.

“We are registered as official migrants,” Hong said of his fellow countrymen on the work crew. “We do receive food supplies from government, local authority and NGOs here and there, but it is not consistent nor enough to get by the day.”

But many are less fortunate, said Saroeun Se, a consultant for labour rights group Solidarity Center, based in the eastern Thai province of Rayong. 

“The experience for undocumented workers is worse,” he said. “In the case of factory closures, the employers paid [documented migrants] 75% of their salary, but that’s not the case for the undocumented workers.” 

According to estimates by the Cambodian Center for Alliance of Labor and Human Rights (CENTRAL), of the some 2 million Cambodian migrants in Thailand, as many as 20% are undocumented. In normal times, this means they’re officially unable to work in the country and must live outside its social programmes. In current circumstances, it means even worse access to support and health services. 

Solidarity Center, along with CENTRAL and the Thai migrant rights group the Labor Protection Network (LPN), have been providing support to the Cambodian workers in Thailand, as has the Cambodian embassy there. Still, Saroeun told the Globe that more needs to be done.

“They should have helped the undocumented workers in time like this because their employers nor factory give them the proper support,” he said. “The support from the Cambodian embassy [in Thailand] is also not wide-ranging enough and is a little bit messy now.” 

The Thai government announced that as of August 2 some construction sites can resume work under “bubble and seal” measures, in which labourers may need to live in their places of work, or travel only between their dormitories and workplaces.

For those who were already living in their workplaces, such as migrants like Hong in the construction sector, this isn’t much of a change on its own. Workers at the future pharmaceutical plant in Rangsit say they have enough freedom to move around and purchase supplies, but can’t relocate in Thailand or return home as Cambodia tightens its borders. 

An IOM Covid-19 rapid needs survey of 15 Bangkok-area construction camps conducted in early July surveyed 1,953 construction workers, 573 of whom were Cambodian migrants. Of that total pool of workers, the survey projected 92% had been out of work since the lockdown on June 28, and that 77% were in need of “urgent food assistance”.

Since the closure of building sites in June, there has been government support in terms of food. But workers like Rathana, who lives on the same site as Hong, told the Globe that wasn’t enough.

“We could not leave the area and the provided food support was also inconsistent. Therefore, I have reached out to CENTRAL asking for food and other necessary supplies,” Rathana said. He’s not alone – the labour organisation reports constant calls for food and supplies, with requests from more than 5,200 other workers in various parts of Thailand in recent weeks.

We are aware of the reports of employers in Thailand trying to push migrants to return to their country of origin

As conditions look bleak in Thailand, many Cambodians, documented and undocumented, have chosen to return home. But while a stream of migrants crossed back over the border earlier this year, restrictions in Cambodia, imposed in late-July but which ended on August 12, temporarily shut the flow in an effort to keep out the more-infectious Delta variant of Covid-19 now driving the outbreak in Thailand.

Cambodian authorities had already been screening returnees for Covid-19 and mandating them to 14-day quarantines upon arrival. Still, the increasing prevalence of Delta infections at the border prompted those stricter lockdown orders for the seven Cambodian provinces along the demarcation, including the closure of border checkpoints.

Though shipments of goods and other special cases could still pass through, almost everyone else – including migrants – were shut out for that two-week period. 

“With the closure of borders between Cambodia and Thailand, migrant workers are stranded at the border needing support for food, shelter and health services,” Kristin Parco, chief of mission at the International Organization for Migration (IOM) for Cambodia, told the Globe prior to the borders reopening on August 13. 

Still, those restrictions on travel didn’t completely stem the rise in cases. On August 7, areas around the Thai-Cambodian border at Sa Kaeo province found 213 new cases, of which 32 were Cambodian workers who had returned from Thailand. As Thai worksites closed abruptly, Parco said, some employers found their Cambodian workers unnecessary and took them to the border themselves.

“We are aware of the reports of employers in Thailand trying to push migrants to return to their country of origin,” Parco said. 

“In the Thai news article, the words ‘dump’ and ‘drop off’ were used interchangeably … Thai authorities were requesting employers who want to drop off migrant workers to return back to Cambodia to do so at immigration checkpoints, not in border provinces.”  

Access to health services for migrant workers has become even more essential during the escalating Thai outbreak of Covid-19, which is fueled by the Delta variant. In this respect, the gap between documented and undocumented workers once again becomes stark. 

Parco explained undocumented migrant workers in Thailand have limited access to testing and treatment, as they do not have proper papers to access healthcare or social protection. 

“While there are some channels through which regular migrants can access vaccines, irregular migrants can only access vaccines through alternative vaccine channels administered by the Thai Red Cross – the policy on this is still unclear,” Parco said.

“Only regular migrant workers in formal employment are eligible to access the Royal Thai Government’s social protection measures. Large numbers of irregular migrants do not have health insurance or access to social protection schemes.”

Besides the virus risks, undocumented workers also face greater job insecurity, poorer incomes and the risk of sudden wage reductions, as they don’t enjoy the same protections enforced by the government for legal workers. And while there was once an avenue for migrant workers to go from informal to formal, now even that process has been suspended. 

“The Thai government formerly asked for the undocumented migrants worker to register online to received a Non-Thai Nationality Card and work permits,” said Ling Sophon, a CENTRAL labour rights officer overseeing migrant workers in Thailand. “However, the Thai government has decided to postpone this process until Aug 2022.”

Nin Bros is a documented Cambodian migrant labourer who had worked for two years in a factory in Chonburi province, 100km southeast of Bangkok. When Globe spoke with him by phone last week, the 38-year-old had recently returned to Cambodia, where he had just recovered from Covid-19 following a July outbreak at his workplace.

“At first two workers tested positive and then a few weeks later, more workers were also infected with Covid-19. That’s when our employer called for a medical professional to examine us,” he said. “After the results were out, the employer transported all Thai workers from the area, leaving us Cambodians and a few from Myanmar in the building. Later they locked us in the room, without any care.”  

“They never informed us about anything, they only said that they will close down the factory for a week and told us to stay in our own rooms. A few days later, those who tested positive were locked inside without being informed beforehand.” 

Living on the top of the five-storey building, home to about 150 Cambodian workers with no healthcare available, Bros was anxious about his condition. Bros, his wife and two children were stuck in the small room relying on inconsistent meals provided by Cambodian overseers from the factory.

Unable to bear the situation anymore, he asked a Cambodian manager whether he was able to leave and return to the Kingdom. 

“We asked our employers for help but they never cared about us, they said they would help us but we never saw any action from them. They only forced us to stay in our room, yet not giving any medical supplies or solutions to us,” said Bros’ wife Sol. 

Bros and his wife, along with other Cambodian workers who lived in the same building and also tested positive for Covid-19, eventually left the factory during lockdown and decided to cross the border anyway and seek treatment in Banteay Meanchey province. Now recovered, they are quarantining at his home in Kampot for 14 days. 

“Some migrants have escaped from the camp or their workplace, because they couldn’t bear living with the inconsistent food supply nor proper medical help,” said CENTRAL’s Sophon.  

But not all have the means to escape their situation in Thailand like Bros and Sol. A delay in owed salaries keeps many migrant construction workers on edge – for those who want to move away, this factor forces them to stay put. 

“The company has said that they will pay, but each request has been met with ‘soon’ for the past three months, with no update,” Hong told the Globe of the situation at his own site. 

“No one has anything to do outside. Organisations and embassies have been quiet since late July.”

This article is produced as part of a grant from the Solidarity Center, made possible with funding from USAID, to support the publication of stories about issues impacting workers in Cambodia. Find out more here.

The post Cambodian migrant workers struggle to survive in locked-down Thailand appeared first on Southeast Asia Globe.