• Cambodia/ Malaysia: Domestic Workers Face Abuse
    Oct 31, 2011
    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.
  • Cambodia: Overhaul Protections for Migrant Domestic Workers
    Oct 14, 2011
    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.
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Reports

Children

  • An abhorrent trail of abuse
    Jan 24, 2012
    At least nine Cambodian women died last year while performing domestic work in Malaysia. And the grim reality is that, without strong action by the Cambodian and Malaysian governments to rein in exploitative recruitment and employment practices, more lives will be lost in 2012.
  • Cambodia/ Malaysia: Domestic Workers Face Abuse
    Oct 31, 2011
    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.
  • Cambodia: Overhaul Protections for Migrant Domestic Workers
    Oct 14, 2011
    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.
  • Sharing Greece's asylum shame
    Sep 29, 2011
    The EU’s border agency should not be sending migrants to camps deemed abusive by Europe’s top human-rights court.
  • Cambodia: New Regulation Short-Changes Domestic Workers
    Aug 30, 2011
    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.
  • The Hidden Victims of Human Trafficking
    Jun 29, 2011
    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.
  • ILO: New Landmark Treaty to Protect Domestic Workers
    Jun 16, 2011
    The adoption by the International Labor Organization (ILO) on June 16, 2011, of a new, groundbreaking treaty to extend key labor protections to domestic workers will protect millions of people who have been without guarantees of their basic rights. Governments, trade unions, and employers' organizations that make up the ILO overwhelmingly voted to adopt the ILO Convention on Decent Work for Domestic Workers, which establishes the first global standards for the estimated 50 to 100 million domestic workers worldwide, the vast majority of whom are women and girls.
  • ILO: Adopt New Treaty to Combat Child Labor
    Jun 9, 2011
    Governments, trade unions, and employers' organizations should combat child labor by adopting a new international treaty on the rights of domestic workers.
  • With a Migrant Crisis Looming, the EU Should Learn from its Past Mistakes
    Apr 6, 2011
    I was not prepared to document torture and severe abuses when I started researching the human rights situation for migrants in Europe. After all, I was working on Western Europe, the developed world with a rule of law, independent judiciaries, functioning social services, and oversight bodies.
  • EU must stop returning migrants to Ukraine
    Jan 15, 2011
    In recent years we have all discovered that law-based, civilized societies have used torture against terrorism suspects. Still, when I went to Ukraine in June to investigate the treatment of migrants, I did not expect to find torture.
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