Informal migration for labor

After facing abuse and battery at the hands of their employer, Myanmar domestic workers in Singapore are confronted with a difficult choice: stay and press charges, in often lengthy investigations that rehash their pain, or return home and relinquish any opportunity for recompense. Ma Ei Phyu ...

Hundreds of protesters demonstrated outside Thailand’s embassy in Yangon on 25 December after two Myanmar migrants were sentenced to death by a Thai court for murdering two British backpackers, in a verdict that has sparked anger in their homeland.   Zaw Lin and Win Zaw Tun were found ...

They are mired in debt bondage, their pay slips are slashed by hidden fees and fabricated taxes, and they’re forced to work excessive hours in slave-like conditions absent of breaks and without the guarantee of overtime pay. This is the lot of migrant workers who ...

Thailand is preparing to take migrant workers from three other ASEAN nations under memorandums of understanding (MoUs) for the upcoming ASEAN Economic Community. Labour Minister General Sirichai Dithakul met on 22 December with delegates from Vietnam, Myanmar and Cambodia to discuss the MOUs. Thailand has already signed MoUs with Myanmar and ...

Thai authorities have detained 43 Lao women, some of whom appear underage, for illegally entering the country to work in the sex trade just two days after the Lao parliament passed an anti-human trafficking law to ensure protection for victims and punishments for perpetrators. Passed on ...

The Myanmar government’s labour recruitment offices are failing, leaving workers to scrounge for jobs through informal networks rife with opportunistic brokers, according to a new report. In the absence of a functioning, official employment system, the vast majority of over 7000 workers interviewed – 72 percent ...

Pervasive human trafficking has helped turn Thailand into one of the world’s biggest shrimp providers. Despite repeated promises by businesses and government to clean up the country’s US$7 billion seafood export industry, an Associated Press investigation has found shrimp peeled by modern-day slaves is reaching ...

Cambodia has signed a long-anticipated agreement to resume the legal flow of domestic workers to Malaysia, putting an end to a ban introduced more than four years ago amid reports of serious migrant abuses, which had led to multiple deaths. A statement released on 10 December evening ...

The Immigration Bureau plans to fine and blacklist foreigners who overstay their visas from March or April next year. Bureau chief Pol Lt Gen Nathathorn Prausoontorn said on 9 December that Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha had approved the bureau’s proposal on Nov 27 to fine and ban ...

A migrant rights network has appealed to the Myanmar and Thai governments to reach a solution on a worker registration standoff, and to take steps to alleviate the exploitation of workers by brokers. The call comes as the two sides prepare to meet in Thailand on ...