Cambodia stops its citizens from working as maids in Malaysia

PHNOM PENH (Reuters): Cambodia has banned its citizens from going to work in Malaysia as maids, its prime minister said on Friday, following a series of horrific reports of beatings and rapes.

The order follows a similar ban imposed by Indonesia on its citizens from taking new jobs as domestic workers in Malaysia, where maids are common in middle class households, thanks in part to a large migrant labour pool.

“I would like to congratulate the prime minister for the suspension,” Cambodia opposition lawmaker Mu Sochua of the Sam Rainsy Party told Reuters after the decision by Prime Minister Hun Sen.

Cambodia's Community Legal Education Center, which is working with abused domestic workers, said there had been reports of three maids who were killed in Malaysia, and two were raped and kept in isolation, their passports held from them.

An Bunhak, president of the Association of Cambodian Recruiting Agencies, said it would uphold the order from the government to stop sending people to work as maids in Malaysia.

“The Ministry of Labour is enforcing what the prime minister has said,” An Bunhak said, adding that about 50,000 maids have sought work in Malaysia since 2009.

Cambodian recruitment agencies also this year decided not to send maids to Kuwait after complaints by human rights groups of abuse by employers there.