Labor - Open Development Mekong

ASEAN strengthens cooperation on protection of migrant workers

Jakarta (VNA) – The 16th Meeting of the ASEAN Committee on the Implementation of the ASEAN Declaration on the Protection and Promotion of the Rights of Migrant Workers (16th ACMW Meeting) has been held recently in Jakarta via videoconference. The event was hosted and chaired by Indonesia’s Ministry of Manpower as the ACMW Chair 2023-2024. […]

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Malaysia deports 114 Muslim Myanmar nationals, including children, their lawyer says

Malaysia has deported 114 Muslim Myanmar nationals who will be persecuted by the ruling military when they return, although they are not Rohingya, their lawyer said Thursday. Amnesty International Malaysia said Kuala Lumpur returned the Myanmar nationals to their strife-torn country, despite condemning the Burmese junta’s violence against its own people. Lim Wei Jet, a […]

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Talk but no action? Cambodian workers in Thailand see a lot of room for improvement

Thai-Cambodian discussions at the recent ASEAN summit put labour issues on the table. Despite the pleasant chat, migrant workers in Thailand have yet to see what, if any, measures the authorities will adopt to help address their problems. In a bilateral meeting on the sideline of the 40th and 41st ASEAN Summits on 10 November […]

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Cambodia’s modern slavery nightmare: the human trafficking crisis overlooked by authorities

t 3.28am on 29 June 2021, Xu Mingjian crept out of a dorm room inside a gated compound in Sihanoukville, Cambodia, and made his way to the second floor, where his friend, another victim of trafficking, was waiting. The two had hatched a desperate plan to escape the modern slavery nightmare they’d been in since Xu […]

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Severance pay remains a struggle for Southeast Asian workers

Garment workers at Thailand’s Brilliant Alliance factory were granted leave, only to learn their employer had shut down when they returned to their worksite in early March 2021. “Everyone was abandoned and never went back to work, there was nothing from the company about compensation,” said Jitnawatcharee Panad, a union leader who worked at Brilliant […]

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US Adds Vietnam, Cambodia, Brunei to Human Trafficking Blacklist

Human trafficking worsened considerably in Southeast Asia in 2021, with the United States government adding Vietnam, Cambodia, and Brunei to its trafficking in persons blacklist and downgrading Indonesia. In this year’s Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report, released on Tuesday, the U.S. State Department scrutinized 188 nations’ efforts to halt human trafficking and punish those responsible. The […]

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Myanmar state of affairs worsening, ETI warns businesses

In a position statement, the ETI points to a Commission of Inquiry into the decline of workers’ rights in Myanmar established by the International Labour Organization (ILO) in March, noting such a move is the ILO’s highest-level investigative procedure which is generally set up when a member state is accused of committing persistent and serious violations and has […]

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As road accidents rise, garment workers face a dangerous commute

Early on the morning of 12 February while heading to her shift at the garment factory in Kampong Speu province, Soth Vy was the last of about 40 workers to climb onto the standing platform of the truck that came to her village. She enjoyed the cool breeze as she stood at the back in […]

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OPINION: Thai agriculture needs reform from ground up

Thailand’s government badly wants the middle-income country to achieve advanced economy status. But it will fail unless it raises agricultural productivity and upskills rural workers for jobs in more productive sectors. This will demand hitherto unseen political commitment. For decades, political leaders have paid lip service to raising farm productivity and indeed, the country became […]

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Striking casino workers stand against crackdown

Chhim Sithar knew she would be arrested when she arrived at the site of a protest organised by employees of the NagaWorld casino. Police violently grabbed and arrested the union leader when she attempted to join the demonstration by striking workers in Phnom Penh on 4 January. Video of the altercation, showing Sithar trying to […]

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