[PHNOM PENH POST]
Cambodia has supported an “historic” international convention that has
earned praise from rights groups for setting the first global standards
for domestic work.
The treaty passed overwhelmingly on Friday at a meeting of International Labour Organisation member states in Geneva.
The
convention calls on all ILO member states to provide protection for an
estimated 53 to 100 million people, mostly women and girls, who work in
private homes around the world.
Reasonable working hours, a
minimum wage and time off were some of the standards adopted, the ILO
said in a statement on Friday. Such measures would have to be ratified
by parliament before they could be legally binding.
An Bunhak,
director of the Cambodian Recruitment Agencies, said it was too early
for Cambodia to ratify the treaty, claiming such a move would “destroy
the harmony” between employers and domestic workers.
He said
households employing domestic workers “consider them as a member of the
family” and often provided support for education or vocational training.
“Our culture is different,” he said.
If domestic workers were
brought under the labour law, he warned, such benefits could cease and
wages would not be sufficient to support education and living expenses
in cities such as Phnom Penh.
Moeun Tola, head of the labour
programme at the Community Legal Education Centre, said it was “very
seldom” that domestic workers in Cambodia, many of whom were children,
actually attended school.
Moreover, employers paid them “based on
their favour”, rather than a contractual obligation, leaving the door
open for abuse, he said.
A number of recent allegations that
Cambodian domestic workers in Malaysia have been abused by both their
employers and the recruitment firms that train them have highlighted a
gap in worker protections.
An Bunhak said Cambodia should urge
Malaysia – which expressed opposition to a legally binding agreement and
abstained from the vote in Geneva – to ratify the convention.
An estimated 30,000 Cambodians are employed as domestic workers in Malaysia.
Eni
Lestari, chair of the International Migrants’ Alliance, said a refusal
by Cambodia to ratify the convention might become an obstacle if it
asked Malaysia to do so or adopt a bilateral agreement with adequate
protections for Cambodian domestic workers.
Officials at the Ministry of Labour could not be reached for comment yesterday.
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