Chea Sokunthea, 22, with her parents in Bek Peang village, Kampong Cham province, on August 20, 2019 (Sun Narin/VOA Khmer

Sun Narin
VOA Khmer
10 September 2019

“I feel excited because I never expected having a chance to go there,”

BEK PEANG VILLAGE, Kampong Cham province – Chea Sokunthea and Dorn Sreyneang were excited in August at the prospect of travelling abroad – their first time outside of Cambodia. The cousins joined the more than 1.2 million Cambodians living overseas as migrant workers, most of whom left the country for better economic prospects.

While Chea Sokunthea will have to stand all day sorting and packaging eggs, Dorn Sreyneang will use farm machinery to grow potatoes and radishes. But it will be better than working at the garment factory, they told VOA Khmer.

While numbers vary for the exact number of migrant workers overseas, the Cambodian Labor Ministry in 2018 reported that around 1.23 million Cambodians worked abroad. The neighboring country of Thailand was the premier destination for migrant workers, totaling more than 90 percent or 1.14 million workers.

With their families taking on additional debt, the cousins will have to remit money to help repay the loans – a common occurrence for overseas workers, who remitted $1.4 billion back home last year.

Seng Nory, a 58-year-old resident of the village, first sent two of her daughters to work at a vegetable farm in Japan. With the improving financial prospects, two other children are now keen to work in Japan when they finish school.

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