Khmer Maids Overseas: Employment or Exploitation?

26 July 2011

Op-Ed by MP

The reported death of a 15 year old Khmer maid working in Malaysia as a consequence of alleged abuse by her employer engenders in many a sense of deep sorrow for a young life lost in unimaginable circumstances, but also a justified feeling of outrage and suspicion that yet again this incident could have been prevented.  As one blogger wrote:

. .  “Poor girl she was so young to face such as life. I wish we all could feel her pain, her hardship and her sorrow. How much she missed her home, friends and family. She was lonely in a far away country for fainted hope.

She was a part of our blood; a part of our love and a part of our life, but the nation just simply abandon(s) her. She was only 15 years old. What sort of country we have!

(A) Nation is a family and a family is about love and care. If we don't have all of these qualities we are simply a nation without soul.

A true leader is a true fatherhood of man.

True Khmer”

It was pointed out to me a while back that one of the main reasons why Malaysia agreed to a visa-free arrangement with Cambodia is because young women could be more easily smuggled over to Malaysia to feed the flesh market there. I'm not sure if the predominantly Muslim country finds it difficult to recruit local women as 'maids' or prostitutes (diplomatically referred to as "sex workers" nowadays), but there have been persistent reports of similar nature where maids from other countries, particularly, the Philippines, have been subjected to all manners of physical abuses from their so-called employers throughout the middle-eastern countries like Kuwait, Saudi Arabia etc. where women are still heavily disadvantaged by both common laws and cultural norms. In some of the more orthodox Muslim countries like Iran or Afghanistan, women could be stoned to death for alleged adultery or conversing with men at certain public venues who are not from their immediate kin group.

Economic hardship within the home community or country is a reality that drives impoverished young women into dangerous traps set up by human-traffickers and middlemen. These women are often illiterate or semi-literate having grown up on farms and in rural villages throughout Cambodia. Their guardians and elders are usually subsistence farmers themselves with little incentive or means by which to prepare their children for a secure future as they enter adulthood. The father (the ‘breadwinner’) maybe a war veteran, is sick, disabled or in financial debt, so a grown daughter (even at 15 or younger) is often the family's only saleable asset. However, even where there are no pressing economic demands at home, many of these rural women are frequently lured into taking steps they believe would benefit them and their families. This is mainly owing to personal expectations that are engendered in most youths as well as their limited awareness or naivety vis a vis the outside world, which can be anywhere beyond the familiar confines of the native village itself.

The 'government' or home authorities, being parent to their citizens can also be said to be curiously naive or careless in this regard by failing to take necessary measures to prevent this kind of tragedy from occurring. I think Opposition parliamentarians had raised this issue before, but like most other social/national issues they had raised over the years, it's been frustrating for them to get any meaningful response or unequivocal answers and commitments from their ruling counterparts. One recalls that embarrassing episode where the Speaker/Chair - what's his name, Nguon Nhel or Nguyen something? - sought to prevent MP Son Chhay from airing his questions before the National Assembly or putting them to the Labour Minister who sat there like a mute?

I think out of consideration for the safety and security of these vulnerable young people (particularly, women), they should be halted altogether from being exported overseas as 'labourers' until such a time when both the host and home authorities are thoroughly prepared to institute initiatives or to set up frameworks that could offer basic preventative safeguard against such prejudice and violent abuse. Where the necessity arises for people to seek employment overseas, home authorities and agents must be required by law to provide applicants preliminary inductions geared towards making them fully informed of all the potential loopholes and risks of life abroad, terms of employment contract (including any entitlement to periodic leave to visit family back home), legal responsibilities of agents (their clients must be monitored regularly by them and gathered reports forwarded to police, family members/kin or relevant authorities to ensure they are safe and sound in their new environment), risk of isolation,  as well as who to contact for support or counsel whilst they are away from home.

Do Khmers have enough pride when it comes to do what is right for their own kind? After all, one is not asking for 'South Korea or Singapore in 20 years' time', just some simple preventative steps that require no great leap forward in imagination or effort.