CAMBODIA – Implementation of an ASEAN declaration on migration “very poor”
17 May 2010 11:48 pm

Task Force on ASEAN's
migrant workers recently described Cambodia's implementation of a
regional declaration on migration as "very poor".

Task Force on ASEAN's
migrant workers recently described Cambodia's implementation of a
regional declaration on migration as "very poor".

Speaking on the
second day of a conference on migration held in the Phnom Penh, Sinapan
Samydorai said Cambodia was just one of several ASEAN member states
that had made inadequate progress implementing non-binding obligations
contained within the ASEAN Declaration on the Protection and Promotion
of Rights of Migrant Workers, which is designed to ensure that basic
rights of legal migrant workers are respected.

"The Cambodian
experience is not just the migrant workers' issue, but also all the
other [International Labour Organisation] agreements they have signed,
the implementation has been very poor, very ineffective," he said after
his presentation.

The ASEAN declaration on migration calls on
origin countries such as Cambodia to, among other things, "eliminate
recruitment malpractices" and "ensure access to employment and
livelihood opportunities, so that migration occurs out of choice".

In
a briefing paper for his presentation, Samydorai said about 13.5
million migrant workers from ASEAN member countries were scattered
across the globe.
He added hat ASEAN should adopt a legally binding measure to
protect migrant workers, but Bruno Maltoni, a project coordinator at
the International Organisation on Migration, said the enforcement of
such a declaration across international borders would be "impossible".

Source: Phnom
Penh post.