Cambodia's Household Employees Lack Legal Protection

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Cambodia's Household Employees Lack Legal Protection

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Long read:
Cambodia’s law leaves domestic workers unseen and unprotected
Household employees are a vital sector of the workforce, but a lack of legal protection leaves them vulnerable to mistreatment
Dolphie Bou and Anju Mary Paul
December 3, 2021

It has been ten years since Cambodia first imposed a ban on sending Khmer domestic workers to Malaysia following dozens of reports of abuse by Malaysian employers, including overwork, sexual harassment and verbal and physical assault.

Since then, the Cambodian government has taken several steps to ensure the safety of domestic workers abroad. These include adopting Sub-Decree 190, which regulates recruitment agencies and provides complaint mechanisms to protect workers from exploitation, enacting new ministerial regulations and signing Memoranda of Understanding with key receiving countries.

While these legal protections are crucial to safeguarding the rights of Cambodian domestic workers in other countries, it is difficult to ignore the lack of similar protections for employees in the same industry within Cambodia.

Current employment laws and guidelines do not fully protect Cambodian domestic workers by failing to limit their hours, guarantee paid leave, provide social security benefits or even recognise these jobs as a distinct work sector in national labour laws.

This lack of legislative coverage affects a significant number of people. There are more than 240,000 domestic workers in Cambodia, according to a 2017 International Labour Organisation (ILO) estimate. For many middle-class families in Phnom Penh, for example, having at least one domestic worker is not uncommon.

Nor is it unusual for these domestic workers, usually female, to have begun their employment in childhood after poverty forced them to give up formal education to provide for their families. Most reside in their employers’ homes and many have stories of slave-like conditions under which they are forced to labour.

Each year on International Domestic Workers’ Day, local organisations like the Independent Democracy of Informal Economy (IDEA) amplify demands by domestic workers for more government protection. With the Covid-19 pandemic holding the world firmly in its grip, these calls have become more desperate as domestic workers are left with no choice but to remain in abusive work environments to make ends meet.

The root of the problem lies in the failure by the Cambodian government and society at large to recognise domestic work as employment like any other. The low social status of domestic workers in Cambodian society is obvious.

The nation’s labour law, which ensures protection for most workers in the country, explicitly excludes domestic workers from most of its provisions, apart from those pertaining to forced labour, occupational accidents and freedom of association.

Efforts to ameliorate this problem only began in May 2018 when the Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training issued a ministerial regulation, Prakas No. 235 on the Working Conditions for Domestic Workers, which specifies an employment contract between a domestic worker and employer should include protections for weekly time off and details of wage payment and dispute resolution.

Though a good first step, the regulation’s key shortcoming is its lack of minimum requirements for working conditions, as the labour law provides, or details of the consequences for violating the rules.

The nation’s labour law, which ensures protection for most workers in the country, explicitly excludes domestic workers

A 2013 ILO study on the living and working conditions of domestic workers in Cambodia sheds light on the daily struggles these workers face because of their exclusion from the labour law. The study involving 550 domestic workers found almost half of the respondents began work before 6am and ended between 6 and 8pm.

These hours far exceed normal working shifts permitted for other employment categories, which the law limits to no more than eight hours per day and 48 hours per week. But more than 90% of domestic workers in the survey reported they work seven days weekly.

Another survey conducted by the Centre for Policy Studies in 2017 suggests domestic work also is often poorly compensated. Among the 600 workers interviewed, 60% made less than $50 (about 200,000 KHR) per month, with many saying they were forced to work overtime. Amongst those who worked overtime, 18% said they were never compensated for the extra labour.
Full article: https://southeastasiaglobe.com/cambodia ... protected/
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