The Cambodian and Malaysian governments’ failure to regulate recruiters and employers leaves Cambodian migrant domestic workers exposed to a wide range of abuses. Tens of thousands of Cambodian women and girls who migrate to Malaysia have little protection against forced confinement in training centers, heavy debt burdens, and exploitative working conditions.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen’s proposed ban on sending domestic workers to Malaysia should be accompanied by a major overhaul in protections for these workers. On October 14, 2011, Hun Sen promised an opposition lawmaker, Mu Sochua, to halt migration in the wake of repeated complaints of abuse during recruitment in Cambodia and employment in Malaysia.

Cambodia’s revised regulation on labor migration, approved by Prime Minister Hun Sen on August 17, 2011, falls far short of minimum protections needed to safeguard migrant domestic workers. The regulation omits or only has vague protections for workers and does not adequately address such problems as debt bondage, illegal recruitment of underage workers, and forced confinement by recruitment agencies in Cambodia.

Being forced into domestic servitude is one of the most common forms of human trafficking. Yet it remains one of the most invisible, including meager media coverage and law enforcement efforts. On June 27, the US State Department released its Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report, an annual ranking of how well -- or how badly -- countries around the world are doing to fight modern forms of slavery. The report is a sobering litany of horrific abuses, including against domestic workers, and the faltering efforts of many governments to stop these crimes.