Keeping Workers Safe

After 30 years of war, Cambodia is finally starting to get its economic legs. Although GDP grew 9.4 percent on average from 2000 to 2006, the economy remains narrowly focused on farming, tourism, and garment manufacturing, which is increasingly imperiled. This fragile economic engine hasn't created enough jobs for the nation's teeming youth population. The United Nations International Labor Organization says just 20 percent of Cambodians have formal employment, and one in three workers lives on less than a dollar a day. So they're going abroad to find work—as housekeepers, construction workers, factory laborers and fishermen. Cambodia has even officially embraced labor export as a source of much-needed employment. Thailand is the main destination, but Cambodia also sends workers to Malaysia and South Korea.

Do the benefits to Cambodians outweigh the costs and risks of going abroad? Many people—including labor organizers, civil society groups and even some government officials—think not, largely because of the potential for abuse. In recent years the Cambodian government has been making an effort to stem the largely illicit tide of workers who seek their fortunes beyond the frontier. Still, it's not clear how far this flurry of paperwork and diplomacy will go to reduce exploitation. Regulation, after all, is anathema to most employers. For instance, Sirichai, the Thai fishing company, has cited onerous regulations as a reason for bypassing the official system. For many poor Cambodians the choice between crossing the border legally, which aid workers say can cost $600 and take a month, and illegally, which can be done in a day for $50 or less, is not really a choice at all. And yet crossing illegally means that workers forgo the protection of the Cambodian Ministry of Labor, which keeps tabs on legal workers and compensates them if an employer fails to make salary payments.

Commerce Minister Cham Prasidh spoke with NEWSWEEK's Erika Kinetz about the pluses and minuses of migration and what he'd like to see Cambodia do to keep its sons and daughters safe—and working—at home. Excerpts:

NEWSWEEK: Labor export is an official pillar of the government's plan for economic growth. What do you think of this strategy?
Cham Prasidh: If you look to the Philippines, how many millions of dollars do they earn from the workers who went abroad? A lot. In Cambodia we think this is also a source for export. This is going to be a source of revenue for the country more and more. I have made some rough calculation that the workers we send abroad to Thailand, Malaysia, South Korea—all of them, around 300, 000 people—have been able to earn about 11 million dollars per month.

Is labor export a good strategy for Cambodia's long-term economic growth?
This is maybe a remedy for finding jobs for those who are unemployed. But the best remedy would be to create jobs in Cambodia. Despite all the efforts the government does, there is always the possibility of abuses of our workers' rights. Mostly Cambodians are unskilled when they go abroad, so the clash of cultures and the working conditions are sometimes awful. There have been cases in the past when we have not monitored properly. Workers go there first, they confiscate their passports, they force them to work like slaves. We don't want to see them abused. Sometimes you have not just the boss that is not good but sometimes even the police and authorities in those countries look down on our workers.

Even though the Philippines, which has been exporting workers since the 1970s, has a robust framework for monitoring and helping workers abroad, you still see a lot of abuse. Is it possible to keep people safe once they leave the country?
Monitoring them properly through our embassies is one of the most effective mechanisms. At the same time, training and putting a lot of pressure on the companies doing this business to monitor and report on a regular basis is also important.