John Bingham wrote: ↑Tue Jul 18, 2017 11:45 pm This is all bullshit where the OP is cherry-picking the worst, most exploitative situations and trying to make out it is the norm. If Cambodians only earned half of what a garment worker makes in Cambodia by going to work in Thailand, the word would spread pretty fast and they wouldn't bother going anymore. The reason Cambodians go to work in Thailand is because they get paid multiples of what they could get at home.

That is a good statement John. My lady's brother and his wife both work in Thailand picking fruit. I don't know how much they are paid. They do seem to have good money. And they have done this work for many years now. And on the other hand her other sister and her husband is working here in Cambodia, on one of the new hydro dams. He is a JCB driver. All of them earn more then being rice farmers, like they would be back at home.

AndyKK wrote: ↑Wed Jul 19, 2017 12:28 pm

John Bingham wrote: ↑Tue Jul 18, 2017 11:45 pm This is all bullshit where the OP is cherry-picking the worst, most exploitative situations and trying to make out it is the norm. If Cambodians only earned half of what a garment worker makes in Cambodia by going to work in Thailand, the word would spread pretty fast and they wouldn't bother going anymore. The reason Cambodians go to work in Thailand is because they get paid multiples of what they could get at home.

That is a good statement John. My lady's brother and his wife both work in Thailand picking fruit. I don't know how much they are paid. They do seem to have good money. And they have done this work for many years now. And on the other hand her other sister and her husband is working here in Cambodia, on one of the new hydro dams. He is a JCB driver. All of them earn more then being rice farmers, like they would be back at home.

Um yeah, they're call migrant​ workers. They migrate because they can't find jobs that pay enough locally, even though they get paid in general less than a Thai would​ get, usually undocumented so they have them over a barrel.
Do you know if the fruit pickers work legally with all the required documents?

Plus, most factories don't employ men in bulk like they do women. Especially if they're unskilled. I'm guessing you all​ think the Phnom Penh Post are either smucks whose editor doesn't check his reporters, or that they knowingly print fake news?

Should the govermnent be making so much, as criticised in the reports and suggested by Phucket?

More on how it all works.

As region cracks down on migrants, agencies provide costly, illegal passport service

http://m.phnompenhpost.com/national/reg ... rt-service

"19 Jul, 2017 Leonie Kijewski
Amid crackdowns on undocumented migrants in Malaysia and Thailand, demand for passports among Cambodian migrants has seen large spikes in recent weeks, with many making the costly journey to Phnom Penh to get their paperwork in order.

However, several Cambodia-based travel agencies told The Post that they could, defying official policies, make passports for Cambodian citizens abroad – if the citizens had the wherewithal to pay around $600, or six times the official amount.

Though the agents stopped short of using the word “bribe” to describe their payments to Passport Department officials, by taking advantage of the “unofficial process”, the agencies fill in for a service that advocates say should be readily available at Cambodian embassies overseas – with one official insisting that it technically is, for workers and students.

But apparent confusion over that policy, along with what some have characterised as a lack of political will, leaves often low-paid migrant workers in the unenviable position of having to choose between paying to return home, or paying exorbitant fees from abroad to obtain the essential documents.

One travel agency employee, speaking on conditions of anonymity, said that while her agency took $115 to $235 to facilitate normal and express passports, respectively, for customers inside Cambodia. Her agency asks $590 from customers abroad, with $570 going to the Passport Department directly.

Officially, passports cannot be made from abroad, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The documents cost $100 for a normal passport and $200 for a one-day expedited passport at the department’s offices in Phnom Penh.

However, the travel agency employee said migrants could send a photo of themselves, their old passport, a copy of an ID card, their family book and a copy of the passport of another Cambodian guarantor who confirms the person is abroad.

“The Messenger brings all of those documents to the Passport Department, then leaves the documents with the police there. The police process everything,” she said.

And if, for example, the person did not have the family book, “we can still do it”, she said.

As those applying from abroad cannot give their thumbprints, the department “may reload it from the previous thumbprint of the passport owner when they made the old passport”, the employee added.

Thus, the new passport would have the same information as the old one, except for the updated photo.

She gave the example of a student in Canada who was unable to return. “His old passport nearly expired. He had an exam and couldn’t come home – so we did it for him,” she said.

The deputy director of the Passport Department, Sok Sophorn, denied the claims. “I don’t know about this service … I don’t know how they do it,” he said.




Sophorn maintained that there was one possibility of getting a new passport when abroad, namely going to the embassy, which would send a diplomatic note to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which in turn would submit a request to the Interior Ministry to issue a new passport.

This was only applicable, he said, for “migrant workers or students if they are busy and cannot go back”, and only the older five-year version of the passport could be issued. “For the new [10-year] one, we need the person to come back, as we need their finger prints.”

Foreign Ministry spokesman Chum Sounry said he had never heard of this procedure. “For the moment, Cambodians have to go back [to Cambodia to get a passport],” he said.
...

More from the same article. I would imagine it's as confusing to the locals as to the boratey when it comes to work permits and visas and real costs. There is so much contradictory information about. Just look how long the work permit threads are on the forums. We need prakases! And even then...

Foreign Ministry spokesman Chum Sounry said he had never heard of this procedure. “For the moment, Cambodians have to go back [to Cambodia to get a passport],” he said.

Despite the denials from the Passport Department and Foreign Ministry, Cambodian migrants in Malaysia told The Post earlier this month that they had to pay agencies fees of more than $800 to obtain new passports abroad, with multiple Cambodian agencies giving similar accounts.

Oeung Hong, the general manager of the RTR agency in Phnom Penh, also said migrants could get passports made from abroad through his company. “For $600, we can do it,” he said.

Of this, about $590 went to the passport department. “This is an unofficial process,” he said.

He said the Interior Ministry checked “the background of the passport owner” to confirm that the person was unable to travel back.

Another agency also confirmed that they offered the service – again for $600. An employee said it would take three weeks to process the passports, and that they would bring all documents – copy of ID card, photo and old passport – to the Interior Ministry.

It remains unclear whether passports can be bought without an old passport.Preap Kol, Transparency International executive director, said the Interior Ministry “should promptly conduct an investigation to find out if there is any misconduct or corruption as being alleged”.

“If any misconduct or corruption is found, the punishment shall be made according to the laws,” he said.

Moeun Tola, of labour rights group Central, said that such high passport fees forced migrants into illegality. “If true, that is the main root cause that puts migrants into the undocumented status. If you can’t afford $600, you have to stay illegally,” he said.

In the first two weeks of July, 79 Cambodian undocumented migrants were arrested in Malaysia in a crackdown by the Malaysian government, according to a Foreign Ministry statement.

Officials at the Cambodian Embassy there said yesterday that they did not have updated figures, but noted that about 30 Cambodians were seeking shelter at the embassy. The officials directed all other questions to the Foreign Ministry before hanging up.

Tola said the embassy indicated it didn’t have the resources to repatriate arrested undocumented workers because the Cambodian government allocated no resources.

“It’s not even about mass repatriation – also for individual cases they always approach the [International Organisation for Migration]. But IOM doesn’t fund unless they’re victims of human trafficking.”

The IOM could not be reached for comment yesterday. If passport and recruitment fees weren’t reduced, he said, migrants would continue to be pushed into undocumented status.

“That’s a big failure of the Cambodian government.”

Additional reporting by Touch Sokha

phuketrichard wrote: ↑Wed Jul 19, 2017 7:11 pm this has some realy wrong info; someone should call the post an dtalk with their reporter.

This was only applicable, he said, for “migrant workers or students if they are busy and cannot go back”, and only the older five-year version of the passport could be issued. “For the new [10-year] one, we need the person to come back, as we need their finger prints.”

the previous passports were good for ONLY 3 years with 2 2 year extensions available

There were NEVER any 5 year passports.


and as i said new 10 year one they need return to Cambodia as that is the ONLY place u can issue a Cambodian passport.

anyone else gf.wife have an old passport? check and see if its 3 or 5 years

Foreign Ministry spokesman Chum Sounry said he had never heard of this procedure. “For the moment, Cambodians have to go back [to Cambodia to get a passport],” he said.

100% correct

The old passports, when I first got here, were valid for three years. The new 10 year passport is biometric and the 5 year one is for kids according to the below article.
It seems, unsurprisingly, there is a lot of confusion around this by Cambodian citizens. They'll tell you black is white in a lot of businesses here if they think they can make a buck out of it, so it doesn't surprise me in the least.

The E Cambodian passport is issued to citizens of the Cambodia for international travel.

Since July 17 2014, the Cambodian government introduced the new biometric passport, which is now valid for 10 years.[1]

Languages
The data page/information page is printed in Khmer, English, and French.

Fees
The application fee for a Cambodian passport is the highest among all Asian countries and one of the highest in the world. Since the launch of the new biometric passport in 2014, the application fee has been lowered to US$100 for a 10-year passport, and $80 for a 5-year passport (only issued to children aged 5 and below).[2]

Previously, the machine readable passport cost $135 with a validity of only three years (extendable twice for every two years), and the processing time ranged from 55 days to more than two months (although expedited services were available, and the fee could rise to $300 for three-day processing). In comparison, a Vietnamese passport with 10-year validity costs only $15 and the processing time is only two weeks. The current processing fee for the 10-year passport, however, has decreased 65 percent compared to the old machine-readable passport.[3]

Required Documents
Processing a Cambodian passport requires the applicant to produce 2 other documents as a proof of citizenship as well as residency.

Below are the 2 requirements:

Valid Cambodian identity card.
Proof of residency (any one of below): a. Family Record Book, or b. Resident Book, or c. Proof of residency letter.
Just a side note here, the proof of residency letter can be produced by district officers around your area as long as you are able to provide enough evidence of your residency.

Visa requirements
In 2016, Cambodian citizens had visa-free or visa on arrival access to 50 countries and territories, ranking the Cambodian passport 87th in the world according to the Visa Restrictions Index.

See also
Visa requirements for Cambodian citizens
List of passports
References
http://www.everyday.com.kh/en/article/27188.html
http://www.camsinchew.com/node/37331 有效期10年‧申辦費100美元‧新版本護照啟用
http://www.camsinchew.com/node/33857 方便人民出國‧護照費將降至100美元

.
https://www.revolvy.com/topic/Cambodian%20passport

Cambodia introduces new passport with ten-year validity

Wednesday, July 16, 2014 - 11:44:00 AM

PHNOM PENH (The Cambodia Herald) -- Cambodia on Tuesday announced that it would introduce new E-Passport with ten-year validity to make it more convenient for the Cambodian people.

We started to issue new E-Passport from July 15 , said Ke Sovath, deputy director of Department of Identification's department of passport.

He said the E-Passport is of 10-year validity and costs USD 100. Children under five years are also required to make their passports, which cost USD 80 and have five-year validity.

Sovath said that it would take one month to issue a passport after the application.

http://www.everyday.com.kh/en/article/27188.html

More background info.

Passports pledged anew

"21 Jan, 2014 May Titthara

Migrant workers and students who have won scholarships abroad will now pay only a small tax fee for passports, according to a government sub-decree enacted this month that seeks to reprise a similar effort from 2008 widely perceived to have been ineffective.

The latest sub-decree, signed by Prime Minister HE late last month, says that for workers and students, the government will deliver standard Cambodian passports no fewer than 20 days after receiving the application, and will shoulder $100 of the usually $120 fee, leaving applicants to pay just $24 – $20 for a tax stamp and $4 for a photo.

“[Payment for] the … passports given to Cambodian workers and students … is the responsibility of the government,” reads a copy of the sub-decree in last month’s Royal Book. “All ministers and directors of the institutions concerned have to implement this sub-decree from January 1, 2014.”

HE signed an almost identical sub-decree in November 2008, telling a meeting of business leaders at the time that the cost for a “photo is $4, and the $20 for stamps is the responsibility of the applicants”.

The measure, however, was derided as largely ignored, and rights groups regularly reported workers paying officials much more than even the standard $120 fee.

Passport police official Pheng Sunheng yesterday denied that passport officials accepted more than the $24 fee, and attributed the phenomenon to third-party passport brokers.

“Regarding workers’ complaints [about paying] $270 or $300, that is the way they apply through the companies, not through our agents,” he said.

But an official at the Passport Office, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said yesterday that there was a sliding scale of fees: $130 to $135 to receive a passport in about a month and a half; $200 to $250 to wait just a week; and $270 to $300 to wait even less.

“In fact, they can do it in one day, but if they work late, you have to spend more for officers and their cronies,” he said.

Moeun Tola of the Community Legal Education Center said that he was unsurprised by the new sub-decree, given that the government had consistently failed to implement the last one for five years. The current cost, he added, had priced most workers out of legal emigration.

“All of this [pricing] is just on the paper. Even the recruitment agencies say to me, ‘If we can get passports anywhere for $25, please help us do it,’” he said. “Due to current passport problems, workers are forced to [emigrate] and work illegally.”

Nonetheless, demand for Cambodian passports has gone up, from 160,000 applicants in 2012 to 210,000 in the first nine months of 2013 alone, according to passport police

http://m.phnompenhpost.com/national/pas ... edged-anew


I'm​ pretty sure the 2017 numbers for migrant workers alone are around 800,000 now.