Cambodia's recently-enacted sub-decree on migrant labor is a "dismal failure" for workers and should be scrapped in favor of a new law, according to an analysis by LICAHDO.

LICADHO has documented horrific abuses in the industry over the past two years, including the use of debt bondage, deaths inside pre-departure training centers, the recruitment of underage workers, illegal detention of workers, the facilitation of forged documents, and the failure to pay salaries. None of these areas are addressed in the new law. Worker protections, meanwhile, are vague, limited in scope, and in many cases less stringent than the 1997 law it superseded, Sub-Decree 57.

The Sub-Decree on "the Management of the Sending of Cambodian Workers Abroad through Private Recruitment Agencies," also known as Sub-Decree 190, has been touted by the government as a way to regulate the country's burgeoning labor recruitment agency industry. More than 30 agencies are officially registered with the Ministry of Labor; most recruit Cambodian women to work as domestic laborers in Malaysia.

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