Population
Migration
Over 4,400 Myanmar refugees flee to Thailand to escape fighting
Over 4,400 people from Myanmar have fled into the country since Thursday last week to escape clashes between government soldiers and an armed ethnic minority group, the Thai military said Wednesday. As the fighting between Myanmar’s ruling military and the Karen National Union intensifies in south-eastern ...
Kyodo News
Cambodia’s law leaves domestic workers unseen and unprotected
It has been ten years since Cambodia first imposed a ban on sending Khmer domestic workers to Malaysia following dozens of reports of abuse by Malaysian employers, including overwork, sexual harassment and verbal and physical assault. Since then, the Cambodian government has taken several steps to ...
DOLPHIE BOU AND ANJU MARY PAUL
Thailand plans to reopen borders to foreign workers amid shortage
Thailand plans to reopen its borders to workers from neighbouring Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos, a government official said on Tuesday (Nov 9), in a bid to ease a labour shortage that is hurting its export and tourism-dependent economy. Pairote Chotikasathien, from the Ministry of Labor, said ...
Reuters/aj
Outbreak fears as Mekong Delta struggles with returning migrant workers
With the Mekong Delta laboring under large quarantining burdens as migrants return from the southeast region in the thousands, officials fear outbreaks if the localities’ capabilities are stretched. An Giang Province, for instance, had more than 15,000 migrant workers return on motorbikes over the past three ...
Cuu Long, Ngoc Tai
Climate change could trigger internal migration of 216 mln people - World Bank
Without immediate action to combat climate change, rising sea levels, water scarcity and declining crop productivity could force 216 million people to migrate within their own countries by 2050, the World Bank said in a new report on Monday. The report, Groundswell 2.0, modeled the impacts ...
Reporting by Andrea Shalal; Editing by Daniel Wallis
Myanmar COVID vaccination rollout leaves Rohingya waiting
Authorities in Myanmar currently have no plan to include minority Rohingya Muslims living in densely-packed camps as they begin vaccinating priority groups against COVID-19 in western Rakhine State, the junta-appointed local administrator said. Hundreds of thousands of Rohingya fled to Bangladesh during military operations in 2017 ...
Reuters
Thailand Migrant Workers Sign Contracts They Don’t Understand, Undercutting Efforts to Stop Abuses
Migrant workers from Cambodia and Myanmar are being asked to sign contracts they cannot read in order to work in Thailand’s fishing fleet, a new study has found, undercutting efforts to expunge abuses from a sector worth billions of dollars to the Southeast Asian country. Thailand ...
Vijitra Duangdee
OPINION: A year since the transient worker Covid crisis: Lessons for Southeast Asia
April marked the one-year anniversary since most countries in the world went into some form of lockdown to curb the spread of Covid-19. The pandemic first and foremost has exposed gaps in current labour practices towards low-skilled transient (migrant) workers across Southeast Asia, particularly in Singapore, ...
FANZURA BANU AND SHEE SIEW YING
UK Home Office charters its first ever deportation flight to Vietnam
Charities and human rights campaigners have expressed alarm at a decision by the Home Office to charter its first ever deportation flight to Vietnam. The Guardian has learned that the flight is due to take off on Wednesday, though it is unclear why the government has decided ...
Diane Taylor
Labor Rights Groups Urge Cambodian Government to Assist Illegal Migrant Workers in Thailand
Cambodian labor rights officials on Friday called on their government to address challenges undocumented migrant workers in Thailand face obtaining legal employment on the eve of a registration deadline that could see tens of thousands deported or imprisoned after months being idled by coronavirus restrictions. Thailand’s ...
RFA’s Khmer Service. Translation by Samean Yun. Written in English by Joshua Lipes.