Update :
If you have information on human trafficking or if you suspect your neighbours maid is a victim of it please call 999.
Or check the website http://www.moha.gov.my/ for more info.
--------------------------------------------------------
Do you know where your neighbour's maid comes from?
Do you care if she was forcefully trafficked here?or if she was tricked into her thankless miserable job washing two cars twice a day inclusive of the floor mats,bathing and walking the family dog,gardening,cooking,babysitting,changing nappies,picking the other kids up from school,running the hawker stall,moping,cleaning,etc etc all in one day?
If you report an illegally employed maid will you be saving her or damning her?
Thousands of Cambodian families have been unable to locate their loved ones once they step on Malaysian shores.
Can we do anything about this?
Can you sleep easy knowing some of these girls have been kidnapped and held hostage in nice neighbourhoods doing the above chores from 5am to 1.30am?
Is there any difference we can make instead of closing one eye to cruel neighbours?
They have no one to turn to.The only person I know brave enough to fight for their rights here is Irene Fernandez who has done time behind bars for their cause.
I want to do something proactive and I will start by highlighting this issue which is not highlighted by any local paper yet due to the many restrictions in place to clamp their mouths shut.
In my forays overseas I have been asked this question."Why is Malaysia notorious for credit card fraud worldwide?"to which I had no answer.
But on the 29th of May I read the article below from the Bangkok Post on a flight back from the capital,after indulging my tastebuds in everything Thai and so much more.
This was an eye opener since I personally know of one "Maid Per Hour" illegal business operator staying in the Tanjong Bungah area who managed to upgrade from a medium sized apartment to a sprawling bungalow in the space of six months.
I don't usually poke my nose around so much but from what I understand,I know that he supplied maids by getting them via a complicated way that involved them travelling up to Penang via buses from many entry points around Malaysia.This part time maid venture has made him cash rich,really cash rich.
Reading the article below shocked me.
You come to your own conclusion after reading it.
----------------------------------------------------------
Cambodia's Recruitment Nightmare
Despite government denials,rights groups have uncovered evidence that licensed agencies are sending thousands of women and underaged girls to work as domestic servants in Malaysia, frequently under abusive conditions.
On the final day of her investigation earlier this month into firms recruiting Cambodian staff for foreign markets _ primarily girls and women destined for Malaysian households _ Human Rights Watch's Jyostna Poudayl noted she was "surprised" that not a single recruitment agency had been shut down.
She was also surprised to find that in Kuala Lumpur, where she began her one-month investigation, the Cambodian embassy did not even have a labour attache to handle the often desperate phone calls it receives from women and girls trapped in abusive households, their passports confiscated by their employers or the firms that placed them.
Ms Poudayl might have been less surprised had her investigation included more interviews with Cambodian and international detectives investigating the 34 recruiting firms licensed by the Labour and Vocational Training Ministry.
"There is no doubt that the Labour Ministry is receiving bribes from companies wanting to avoid scrutiny," a senior officer with Cambodia's national anti-trafficking police said on condition of anonymity. Payments are made in the office of a deputy director-general at the Labour Ministry who is one of the architects of Cambodia's overseas job placement strategy. During a lengthy interview with him at his office in mid-March, staff from recruiting agencies delivered bundles of bank notes to his staff in exchange for the certified applications required to send recruits overseas.
Besides accepting cash from firms, Labour Ministry officials also have financial interests in some of them, and this is creating "unfair competition" within the industry, an Association of Cambodia Recruiting Agencies (Acra) board member said on condition of anonymity.
Opposition MP and former minister of women's affairs Mu Sochua said she suspects that corruption may be rife at the Foreign Affairs Ministry as well, pointing to the unusual speed with which thousands of passports have been issued to women and girls bound for Malaysia.
Licensed companies have also subcontracted recruiting to multiple unlicensed firms, which have in some cases destroyed files, making it next to impossible to trace some of those who have "disappeared" in Malaysia, according to police.
"It's an investigative nightmare," said British detective Eric Meldrum, who is working with Cambodia's anti-trafficking police to investigate recruiting firms, through the Australian not-for-profit organisation Southeast Asia Investigations into Social and Humanitarian Activities (Sisha). "We have hundreds of family members who have not been heard from by their families since they were sent to Malaysia, and no one is looking for them."
"The sheer magnitude is unbelievable," Sisha founder, former Australian detective Steve Morrish, said. "If one Australian tourist went missing in Malaysia you'd have a national taskforce investigating," he said. "In the six years I have been in Cambodia this is the pinnacle of human trafficking, it's the most extreme exploitation."
The recruitment of underage girls has been a focal point for anti-trafficking groups. Legally, domestic servants must be 21 to work in Malaysia, but girls as young as 12 have been recruited.
The Labour Ministry deputy director-general admitted that his ministry makes no effort to verify the authenticity of birth certificates delivered by recruiting firms. But he insisted that their forging had been stamped out last year by the Interior Ministry.
Human Rights Watch, however, found new cases last month, as did the rural-based Sao Sary Foundation (SSF) and Sisha, which obtained the release of a 12-year-old girl from a training centre in April. All three organisations also found new cases in which women had had up to a decade shaved off their birth certificates so they could slip in under the 40-year-old age limit imposed by Malaysia.
Mr Meldrum and Mr Morrish also believe that criminal activity in the recruiting industry is vastly under-reported because the recruiting occurs in villages where outreach by Phnom Penh-based human rights organisations is scant, and high rates of illiteracy prevent families from filing complaints with authorities, some of whom are also working as agents for recruiting firms.
Rights groups and opposition MPs have also focused on the more than 90 training centres in and around Phnom Penh where girls and women are often detained in overcrowded and unhygienic buildings, some wrapped in razor wire. These prison-like centres have also provided the local media with a buffet of shocking stories to select from, including suspicious deaths and desperate attempts at escape.
In one high-profile case, Heng Hak, a 31-year-old mother of two, was left with broken bones in both legs after she became entangled in razor wire and fell while trying to climb down from a third-floor balcony. Mu Sochua said the woman wanted to return to her village to visit her children. But the Labour Ministry official had a different theory. "She was trying to sneak out to visit her boyfriend," he said.
Cases accumulated by rural NGOs and Sisha, however, have come primarily from distraught families whose daughters or wives have disappeared in Malaysia. They have also found corruption permeating local governments.
Some recruiting companies are paying commune councillors and village chiefs to identify the most impoverished households in a village _ those with single or crippled parents, those who are landless, or those who in debt to microfinance institutions and unable to feed their children, according to Martyna Gacek, a criminal lawyer working as a child protection officer at the SSF.
The recruiting agents offer immediate financial assistance, sacks of rice and promises of high-paying jobs in Malaysia.
Once they get to Malaysia, however, they have no rights under that country's labour laws because they are classified as "domestic servants" rather than employees, according to the pre-departure guides produced by the International Organisation of Migration (IOM) last year. The guidebooks are printed in English and Khmer, but despite the great care the IOM put into producing them, it has neglected to ensure that they are distributed, police and NGO staff say.
"What was striking was the lack of information among the migrant workers, and the level of deception. They have no idea what their rights are," Ms Poudayl explained the afternoon before she flew back to New York. She explained that the purpose of her report would be to "widen the discussion".
However, by the time it is published in September, several thousand more Cambodian women and girls will have joined the estimated 40,000 already in Malaysia. And, like the carefully researched and produced reports on the same issue that have preceded it since 2006, Human Rights Watch may fail to influence a government that includes officials at all levels who are profiting from a booming and lucrative industry.
The number of recruiting firms in Cambodia has more than doubled since Indonesia placed a temporary freeze in 2009 on sending new domestic helpers to Malaysia, following reports of extreme abuse there. But exactly who owns these firms remains murky. An Bunhak, president of Acra, said it was difficult to trace ownership of the companies because those named on the licences were often nominees. He also pointed the finger at Malaysian-owned firms as the worst offenders, accusing some of recruiting mentally ill women from villages. "All the Malaysians care about is quantity," he said.
All costs, from advance payments to families, HIV screening tests, food and accommodation in training centres, plane tickets, and bribes to forge birth certificates and expedite the processing of passports, are paid by the recruit. Sisha alleges that these costs are often inflated, and estimates that it takes about six months of domestic servitude to repay them.
Unlike Human Rights Watch, however, it is not interested in widening the discussion. "Recruiting companies are turning Cambodian women and girls into commodities and no one in government seems to care," Mr Meldrum said.
The detectives want arrests, and they are going after the company owners rather than the agents scouring the countryside.
So far, they have helped police gather evidence of alleged criminal activities by six of the licensed firms. These case files have been forwarded to Phnom Penh prosecutors, and include evidence of criminal activity by the country's oldest firm, Cambodia Labour Supply, as well as one owned by a member of Acra's board of directors.
But these files are sitting on a prosecutor's desk, and even if they move forward, they will have to navigate a court system that Cambodians themselves, according to a survey by Transparency International earlier this year, regard as the most corrupt institution in their country.
Still, Mr Morrish does not think the situation is hopeless. "The government is dancing around the issue, but the problem is very easily fixable," he says. "If the police, courts and government take a stern stance and enforce the laws in place they could fix this mess in three months."
But he adds a note of caution, saying this would also require a change in mindset to one in which the rule of law takes precedence over culture. It's unclear what he means by "culture", but Cambodia has had a recurring pattern of exploitative, corrupt and ultimately self-destructive governments, and there is increasing alarm here that the current government is stifling dissent when the challenges it faces requires a more sustainable approach.
If you have information on human trafficking or if you suspect your neighbours maid is a victim of it please call 999.
Or check the website http://www.moha.gov.my/ for more info.
--------------------------------------------------------
Do you know where your neighbour's maid comes from?
Do you care if she was forcefully trafficked here?or if she was tricked into her thankless miserable job washing two cars twice a day inclusive of the floor mats,bathing and walking the family dog,gardening,cooking,babysitting,changing nappies,picking the other kids up from school,running the hawker stall,moping,cleaning,etc etc all in one day?
If you report an illegally employed maid will you be saving her or damning her?
Thousands of Cambodian families have been unable to locate their loved ones once they step on Malaysian shores.
Can we do anything about this?
Can you sleep easy knowing some of these girls have been kidnapped and held hostage in nice neighbourhoods doing the above chores from 5am to 1.30am?
Is there any difference we can make instead of closing one eye to cruel neighbours?
They have no one to turn to.The only person I know brave enough to fight for their rights here is Irene Fernandez who has done time behind bars for their cause.
I want to do something proactive and I will start by highlighting this issue which is not highlighted by any local paper yet due to the many restrictions in place to clamp their mouths shut.
In my forays overseas I have been asked this question."Why is Malaysia notorious for credit card fraud worldwide?"to which I had no answer.
But on the 29th of May I read the article below from the Bangkok Post on a flight back from the capital,after indulging my tastebuds in everything Thai and so much more.
This was an eye opener since I personally know of one "Maid Per Hour" illegal business operator staying in the Tanjong Bungah area who managed to upgrade from a medium sized apartment to a sprawling bungalow in the space of six months.
I don't usually poke my nose around so much but from what I understand,I know that he supplied maids by getting them via a complicated way that involved them travelling up to Penang via buses from many entry points around Malaysia.This part time maid venture has made him cash rich,really cash rich.
Reading the article below shocked me.
You come to your own conclusion after reading it.
----------------------------------------------------------
Cambodia's Recruitment Nightmare
Despite government denials,rights groups have uncovered evidence that licensed agencies are sending thousands of women and underaged girls to work as domestic servants in Malaysia, frequently under abusive conditions.
On the final day of her investigation earlier this month into firms recruiting Cambodian staff for foreign markets _ primarily girls and women destined for Malaysian households _ Human Rights Watch's Jyostna Poudayl noted she was "surprised" that not a single recruitment agency had been shut down.
She was also surprised to find that in Kuala Lumpur, where she began her one-month investigation, the Cambodian embassy did not even have a labour attache to handle the often desperate phone calls it receives from women and girls trapped in abusive households, their passports confiscated by their employers or the firms that placed them.
Ms Poudayl might have been less surprised had her investigation included more interviews with Cambodian and international detectives investigating the 34 recruiting firms licensed by the Labour and Vocational Training Ministry.
"There is no doubt that the Labour Ministry is receiving bribes from companies wanting to avoid scrutiny," a senior officer with Cambodia's national anti-trafficking police said on condition of anonymity. Payments are made in the office of a deputy director-general at the Labour Ministry who is one of the architects of Cambodia's overseas job placement strategy. During a lengthy interview with him at his office in mid-March, staff from recruiting agencies delivered bundles of bank notes to his staff in exchange for the certified applications required to send recruits overseas.
Besides accepting cash from firms, Labour Ministry officials also have financial interests in some of them, and this is creating "unfair competition" within the industry, an Association of Cambodia Recruiting Agencies (Acra) board member said on condition of anonymity.
Opposition MP and former minister of women's affairs Mu Sochua said she suspects that corruption may be rife at the Foreign Affairs Ministry as well, pointing to the unusual speed with which thousands of passports have been issued to women and girls bound for Malaysia.
Licensed companies have also subcontracted recruiting to multiple unlicensed firms, which have in some cases destroyed files, making it next to impossible to trace some of those who have "disappeared" in Malaysia, according to police.
"It's an investigative nightmare," said British detective Eric Meldrum, who is working with Cambodia's anti-trafficking police to investigate recruiting firms, through the Australian not-for-profit organisation Southeast Asia Investigations into Social and Humanitarian Activities (Sisha). "We have hundreds of family members who have not been heard from by their families since they were sent to Malaysia, and no one is looking for them."
"The sheer magnitude is unbelievable," Sisha founder, former Australian detective Steve Morrish, said. "If one Australian tourist went missing in Malaysia you'd have a national taskforce investigating," he said. "In the six years I have been in Cambodia this is the pinnacle of human trafficking, it's the most extreme exploitation."
The recruitment of underage girls has been a focal point for anti-trafficking groups. Legally, domestic servants must be 21 to work in Malaysia, but girls as young as 12 have been recruited.
The Labour Ministry deputy director-general admitted that his ministry makes no effort to verify the authenticity of birth certificates delivered by recruiting firms. But he insisted that their forging had been stamped out last year by the Interior Ministry.
Human Rights Watch, however, found new cases last month, as did the rural-based Sao Sary Foundation (SSF) and Sisha, which obtained the release of a 12-year-old girl from a training centre in April. All three organisations also found new cases in which women had had up to a decade shaved off their birth certificates so they could slip in under the 40-year-old age limit imposed by Malaysia.
Mr Meldrum and Mr Morrish also believe that criminal activity in the recruiting industry is vastly under-reported because the recruiting occurs in villages where outreach by Phnom Penh-based human rights organisations is scant, and high rates of illiteracy prevent families from filing complaints with authorities, some of whom are also working as agents for recruiting firms.
Rights groups and opposition MPs have also focused on the more than 90 training centres in and around Phnom Penh where girls and women are often detained in overcrowded and unhygienic buildings, some wrapped in razor wire. These prison-like centres have also provided the local media with a buffet of shocking stories to select from, including suspicious deaths and desperate attempts at escape.
In one high-profile case, Heng Hak, a 31-year-old mother of two, was left with broken bones in both legs after she became entangled in razor wire and fell while trying to climb down from a third-floor balcony. Mu Sochua said the woman wanted to return to her village to visit her children. But the Labour Ministry official had a different theory. "She was trying to sneak out to visit her boyfriend," he said.
Cases accumulated by rural NGOs and Sisha, however, have come primarily from distraught families whose daughters or wives have disappeared in Malaysia. They have also found corruption permeating local governments.
Some recruiting companies are paying commune councillors and village chiefs to identify the most impoverished households in a village _ those with single or crippled parents, those who are landless, or those who in debt to microfinance institutions and unable to feed their children, according to Martyna Gacek, a criminal lawyer working as a child protection officer at the SSF.
The recruiting agents offer immediate financial assistance, sacks of rice and promises of high-paying jobs in Malaysia.
Once they get to Malaysia, however, they have no rights under that country's labour laws because they are classified as "domestic servants" rather than employees, according to the pre-departure guides produced by the International Organisation of Migration (IOM) last year. The guidebooks are printed in English and Khmer, but despite the great care the IOM put into producing them, it has neglected to ensure that they are distributed, police and NGO staff say.
"What was striking was the lack of information among the migrant workers, and the level of deception. They have no idea what their rights are," Ms Poudayl explained the afternoon before she flew back to New York. She explained that the purpose of her report would be to "widen the discussion".
However, by the time it is published in September, several thousand more Cambodian women and girls will have joined the estimated 40,000 already in Malaysia. And, like the carefully researched and produced reports on the same issue that have preceded it since 2006, Human Rights Watch may fail to influence a government that includes officials at all levels who are profiting from a booming and lucrative industry.
The number of recruiting firms in Cambodia has more than doubled since Indonesia placed a temporary freeze in 2009 on sending new domestic helpers to Malaysia, following reports of extreme abuse there. But exactly who owns these firms remains murky. An Bunhak, president of Acra, said it was difficult to trace ownership of the companies because those named on the licences were often nominees. He also pointed the finger at Malaysian-owned firms as the worst offenders, accusing some of recruiting mentally ill women from villages. "All the Malaysians care about is quantity," he said.
All costs, from advance payments to families, HIV screening tests, food and accommodation in training centres, plane tickets, and bribes to forge birth certificates and expedite the processing of passports, are paid by the recruit. Sisha alleges that these costs are often inflated, and estimates that it takes about six months of domestic servitude to repay them.
Unlike Human Rights Watch, however, it is not interested in widening the discussion. "Recruiting companies are turning Cambodian women and girls into commodities and no one in government seems to care," Mr Meldrum said.
The detectives want arrests, and they are going after the company owners rather than the agents scouring the countryside.
So far, they have helped police gather evidence of alleged criminal activities by six of the licensed firms. These case files have been forwarded to Phnom Penh prosecutors, and include evidence of criminal activity by the country's oldest firm, Cambodia Labour Supply, as well as one owned by a member of Acra's board of directors.
But these files are sitting on a prosecutor's desk, and even if they move forward, they will have to navigate a court system that Cambodians themselves, according to a survey by Transparency International earlier this year, regard as the most corrupt institution in their country.
Still, Mr Morrish does not think the situation is hopeless. "The government is dancing around the issue, but the problem is very easily fixable," he says. "If the police, courts and government take a stern stance and enforce the laws in place they could fix this mess in three months."
But he adds a note of caution, saying this would also require a change in mindset to one in which the rule of law takes precedence over culture. It's unclear what he means by "culture", but Cambodia has had a recurring pattern of exploitative, corrupt and ultimately self-destructive governments, and there is increasing alarm here that the current government is stifling dissent when the challenges it faces requires a more sustainable approach.
