Cambodia’s Labour Ministry seeks pact with Lebanon on maids as more seek work abroad

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The following was quoted from extensive comments provided to journalists:

The ministry’s strategy was met with mixed reviews by economists and labour rights activists, who raised questions about the economic benefits and risk of abuse in migrant work.

Nicholas Harrigan, a senior lecturer in sociology at Australia’s Macquarie University who studies migration, said it is “far from clear” whether pushing migrant work is a viable development strategy.

Migrant work can offer people the opportunity to temporarily escape rural poverty, but most of the benefits are extracted by middlemen, Harrigan said, such as governments and recruiters.

“In general, increases in migrant workers tend to provide benefits to a few powerful political actors,” Harrigan said in an email.

Destination countries, meanwhile, are also increasingly limiting the amount of time that migrant labourers stay, Harrigan noted. In Singapore, for example, the longest visa that a low-wage migrant worker can obtain is two years.

These trends mean that migrant labourers are increasingly treated like “rented property” instead of future citizens, according to Harrigan.

“[Governments] don’t need to worry about education, aged care, health care, or the next generation – and the migrant workers are basically disposable,” he said.