Thirty-Four Members of Parliament from across Asia, in a strong display of solidarity with migrant domestic workers, have signed a statement endorsing the recently-released Human Rights Watch Report on Cambodian Domestic Workers in Malaysia. The initiative to endorse this report was taken by members of the Asian Inter-Parliamentary Caucus on Labour Migration.
This endorsement of the Human Rights Watch report is among the first activities of the Caucus. Entitled “They Deceived Us at Every Step: Abuses against Cambodian domestic workers migrating to Malaysia,” the report describes the abuses and mistreatment of Cambodian domestic workers at all stages of the migration process. The report also highlights the dangers associated with the use of deployment bans undertaken by migrant sending countries, as such bans close opportunities for women to find work, which has the unintended consequence of encouraging undocumented migration flows that put women migrants further at risk. In addition, bans can result in receiving countries looking to other countries for their supply of labour. They often look to countries with fewer protections in place for their workers abroad, resulting in a race to the bottom in terms of labour and human rights standards.
The Caucus statement calls on all migrant sending and receiving countries to ratify ILO Convention 189: Decent Work for Domestic Workers, and to create national laws that comply with its provisions. The 34 MP endorsements include all 26 members of the Cambodian opposition.