By Alex Consiglio and Khy Sovuthy
The Cambodia Daily
When Roeun Hen would try to take a break from his 20-hour shift trawling Indonesian waters for fish, his Thai captain would pummel him, kicking and punching the 29-year-old until he returned to work.
After two years of the abuse, and without receiving the pay he had been promised, Mr. Hen made a dash for freedom when the boat docked at the remote Indonesian island of Benjina.
“I fled from the boat alone,” Mr. Hen said Thursday, noting that 10 other Cambodians had been forced to work on the boat with him. “I could not endure working on the boat anymore.”
Mr. Hen is among at least 58 Cambodians who were rescued from Benjina last Friday—along with hundreds of other slave laborers mostly from Burma—by the Indonesian government following an exposé by The Associated Press.
Speaking Thursday from the island city of Tual, where the Indonesian government is now caring for more than 300 freed fishermen with the help of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), Mr. Hen said he had been tricked into working on the boat.
In 2009, Mr. Hen said he paid a broker in Poipet City, which borders Thailand, to smuggle him across the border for a well-paying job. The broker took him to a fishing boat, he said, where the Thai captain paid the broker and told Mr. Hen he would earn about $180 per month fishing Thai waters.
But the boat left Thailand’s Indonesia’s Maluku Islands, where Benjina operated as the hub for forced labor used on boats that fished Indonesia’s waters and transported the catch back to Thailand.
By Alex Consiglio and Phorn Bopha
The Cambodia Daily
In June, after about a quarter million migrant workers returned from their jobs in Thailand fearing the military junta’s crackdown on illegal labor, Cambodia’s government announced it had slashed the cost of emigration, and would charge workers only $49 to legally return to work across the border.
But Srey Pech, a recruitment agency manager, is charging migrant workers up to $600 to help them find work in Thailand.
Ms. Pech, who claims to be the manager of a B.S.R.O. Best Manpower franchise, one of the private recruitment agencies enlisted by the government to implement its policy, is raking in hundreds of dollars from workers looking to obtain passports, visas and transportation into Thailand, where a job hopefully awaits them.
“I’m not really sure where the money goes,” said Ms. Pech, sitting outside her home, which also acts as her office, in Phnom Penh’s Choam Chao commune. “It’s up to my boss. I cannot really talk much because we are using the other company’s name.”
A border police officer yells while photographed at a crossing in Banteay Meanchey province on the Stung Bot river that operates next to a border police station. (Alex Consiglio/The Cambodia Daily)
By Phorn Bopha and Alex Consiglio
The Cambodia Daily
POIPET CITY, Banteay Meanchey province – When So Khim, a 24-year-old from an impoverished rice-farming family in Pursat province, decided recently that he wanted to find a job in Thailand, he did not even consider applying for a passport to cross the border legally.
Instead, he paid a broker $15 and joined a group of 90 other villagers from across the country, all as desperate as he was to work in Thailand. Together they trekked through dense forest last week and snuck across the border in Banteay Meanchey province’s Malai district.
“When we got into Thailand, about 10 Thai soldiers were waiting on the other side,” Mr. Khim said. “They shot three times in the air and told us not to move.”
Phon Srim practices sewing during a tailoring class at Kompong Cham’s provincial vocational training center on Tuesday. (Alex Consiglio/The Cambodia Daily)
By Phorn Bopha and Alex Consiglio
The Cambodia Daily
PREY CHHOR DISTRICT, Kompong Cham/STONG DISTRICT, Kompong Thom – Chhe Noy, a migrant worker who arrived back in her village in Kompong Cham province from Thailand this week, can’t stop stroking her 8-year-old daughter’s hair. Every few minutes, she plants a kiss on the girl’s cheek.
“I missed her so much,” said Ms. Noy, 29, who left Mien commune for Thailand in May 2013. “That’s why I keep kissing her. But soon I will go back to Thailand. I need to make money for her.”
Over 150,000 Cambodian migrant workers like Ms. Noy have fled Thailand in the past week after reports of a crackdown on illegal laborers by the military junta. The Cambodian government is urging them to seek schooling at its vocational training centers and find work in Cambodia, but many are still planning to head back to Thailand at the first opportunity.
Interior Minister Sar Kheng said on Tuesday that the returning workers should help the Cambodian economy.
“Maybe they have some experience from Thailand, so the Ministry of Labor made press releases to train them for a short time,” he said in a speech at a graduation ceremony. “They can work hard and find [jobs] in the labor market because now the labor market lacks workers, so we open up the chance for them, and they can help build the economy in Cambodia.”
But Ms. Noy, who entered Thailand illegally and was making about $9.50 per day there as a bricklayer, nearly double what she could make here, said the government’s training centers are not a viable option for her.
