ADHOC organized a public forum on Safe Migration on 09 February 2015 at Team Chas viilage, Kom Pong Svay commune, Kom Svay district, Kom Pong Thom Province. Support was provided by the Australian Embassy, with opening and welcome remarks from Ms. Chea Porn, Deputy Head of Kom Pong Svay District and Ms. Chhan Sokunthea, Head of the Women’s & Children’s Rights and ADR sections of ADHOC. There were 55 participates that included local authority and victims of migration abuse. 80% of participants were female.
Ms. Chhan Sokunthea said that ADHOC is working to defend human rights by recording complaints from victims and their families, as well as assisting victims through intervention and investigation of migrant-workers who were trafficked or suffered any kind of human rights abuse in China, Malaysia, Thailand, Korea, Indonesia, and other Asian countries.
At the same time of migrant workers, some of them are safe migration to work in difference countries, but some are not and they were trafficked or abused and cheated by brokers or companies. There are many forms of abuse. Offenders often include the migrant worker’s employer or “house owner”, and the company or brokers through which the migrant sought employment. Abuse often includes being forced to work for long hours, work without salary or without the compensation agreed upon in the contract, or being forced to extend the employment contract, and sometimes involves complete loss of contact with their family. ADHOC organized this public forum in order to provide a safe environment for all victims and participants here to share their ideas, recommendations or requests, while also promoting better understanding through the forum.
Ms. Chea Porn requested that all participate share their thoughts on the difficulty of migration and hoped that the forum was a place to learn and get sufficient information before others decide to work outside the country.
A former-victim of migrant abuse in Malaysia said that she worked long hours, day and night, normally getting up at 4 am in the morning and working until 12 midnight, and that she did not have enough food to eat. The victim also suffered numerous assaults of attempted rape by the house owner and their relatives, and the perpetrators threatened her, saying that she would be killed if she told anyone. In addition, she did not get the salary stipulated in the contract, her family had to pay money back to the brokers after she fled and came home, leaving her contract early. On her journey back home, when she saw police, she had to hide in a car, because if she were arrested, she would have been left in prison. There were some victims who were cheated by brokers that sold them for $7000 per person to a house owner as their slave.
