Do the benefits to Cambodians outweigh the costs and risks of going abroad? Many people—including labor organizers, civil society groups and even some government officials—think not, largely because of the potential for abuse. In recent years the Cambodian government has been making an effort to stem the largely illicit tide of workers who seek their fortunes beyond the frontier. Still, it’s not clear how far this flurry of paperwork and diplomacy will go to reduce exploitation. Regulation, after all, is anathema to most employers. For instance, Sirichai, the Thai fishing company, has cited onerous regulations as a reason for bypassing the official system. For many poor Cambodians the choice between crossing the border legally, which aid workers say can cost $600 and take a month, and illegally, which can be done in a day for $50 or less, is not really a choice at all. And yet crossing illegally means that workers forgo the protection of the Cambodian Ministry of Labor, which keeps tabs on legal workers and compensates them if an employer fails to make salary payments.
Commerce Minister Cham Prasidh spoke with NEWSWEEK’s Erika Kinetz about the pluses and minuses of migration and what he’d like to see Cambodia do to keep its sons and daughters safe—and working—at home. Excerpts:
NEWSWEEK: Labor export is an official pillar of the government’s plan for economic growth. What do you think of this strategy? Cham Prasidh: If you look to the Philippines, how many millions of dollars do they earn from the workers who went abroad? A lot. In Cambodia we think this is also a source for export. This is going to be a source of revenue for the country more and more. I have made some rough calculation that the workers we send abroad to Thailand, Malaysia, South Korea—all of them, around 300, 000 people—have been able to earn about 11 million dollars per month.
Is labor export a good strategy for Cambodia’s long-term economic growth? This is maybe a remedy for finding jobs for those who are unemployed. But the best remedy would be to create jobs in Cambodia. Despite all the efforts the government does, there is always the possibility of abuses of our workers’ rights. Mostly Cambodians are unskilled when they go abroad, so the clash of cultures and the working conditions are sometimes awful. There have been cases in the past when we have not monitored properly. Workers go there first, they confiscate their passports, they force them to work like slaves. We don’t want to see them abused. Sometimes you have not just the boss that is not good but sometimes even the police and authorities in those countries look down on our workers.
Even though the Philippines, which has been exporting workers since the 1970s, has a robust framework for monitoring and helping workers abroad, you still see a lot of abuse. Is it possible to keep people safe once they leave the country? Monitoring them properly through our embassies is one of the most effective mechanisms. At the same time, training and putting a lot of pressure on the companies doing this business to monitor and report on a regular basis is also important.
Does Cambodia have the resources to do this kind of monitoring? Do you have labor attachés at your foreign embassies? We do not. But the economic counselor or trade attaché is doing this job.
Although the transfer of skills is supposed to be one of the advantages of labor migration, Cambodians generally find low-skilled jobs overseas. When you talk about housemaids, you have no skills transfer at all. The skills are already made in Cambodia before you go. Apart from this, maybe you get some knowledge about language. That’s it. That’s why my own feeling is that we don’t encourage people to go abroad and work as housemaids and servants but rather to work in factories. Then they get skills back. We can get investors to do the same thing in Cambodia later on, and these people, when they return, they can serve in factories in Cambodia.
If labor export is not the best strategy for Cambodia’s long-term growth, what is? Creating jobs here. Diversification of our economy.
How? We have now one of the most liberal investment frameworks. We have a very receptive government. We have done a lot of bold reforms in trade facilitation. What is needed now is that people have to come to Cambodia to explore opportunities to do business. There are a lot of things people are not aware of. For example, the fact that Cambodia is a least-developed country and we enjoy access to most developed countries’ markets duty-free. Neighboring countries they don’t have. This is a big bonus for those who are investing in Cambodia. The awareness of those opportunities is very limited.
Cambodia is the only country in the region that has declining productivity. Some worry Cambodia is creating only low-value jobs and carving out a niche for itself in the global economy as a source of cheap labor. What does Cambodia need to do to create not just jobs but good jobs? We started with a minimum wage of only $25 [per month]. We increased year by year to $50 per month. But still it’s cheaper compared to standards in the region. That’s why people can continue to come and invest in industries that use extensively labor, but not capital. This is a niche for Cambodia as an alternative resource to countries like China and India, but of course to compete with these giants is not easy.
Is migrating for jobs worth the risk for Cambodians? People have problems because they go through illegal channels. We have a lot of publicity on TV and radio that says you go through authorized companies that are licensed by the government. That is safer for them. We show the risk of going through your own channel, and risking everything, even to be beaten or whatever and disappearing forever. People have to reflect on that.
