Thai authorities have informed Cambodian authorities of a plan to suspend the entry and exit of goods into Rong Kluea market near the Cambodian border starting this weekend, citing Covid-19 precautions as the disease spreads in Thailand.
A Thai chicken factory has agreed to demands related to overtime and allowing migrant workers to leave its compound to buy food following last week’s protest by hundreds of Cambodian laborers, the factory’s management and a labor group said.
About 500 Cambodian migrant workers at a food production factory in Thailand’s Chon Buri province protested on Wednesday, saying that they cannot continue under the economic pressure levied by the company for the past three months.
Workers say debt and a lack of jobs in Cambodia are pushing them to consider crossing the closed border amid labor shortages in Thailand, despite the pandemic. Programs to get Cambodian workers back in Thailand are in the works, but concerns remain over conditions and safety.
Thailand plans to allow a group of 500 Cambodian workers to return to work legally in Thailand for the first time since borders were closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic, officials said on Tuesday.
Cambodian authorities told the U.N. that the visa of Wanchalearm Satsaksit, a missing Thai dissident living in exile in Phnom Penh, had expired almost three years ago when questioned about his alleged abduction from outside his apartment by armed men in June.
The U.N. Committee on Enforced Disappearances has called on Cambodia to “urgently search” for a Thai pro-democracy activist who went missing nearly three weeks ago in a suspected abduction outside his Phnom Penh condominium complex.
A Thai pro-democracy activist living in exile in Phnom Penh was abducted by a group of armed men on Thursday evening while just outside his apartment, Human Rights Watch said in a statement.
More than half of surveyed families in a Banteay Meanchey village said the need to repay microfinance loans compelled some in their households to migrate to Thailand for work, which researchers say is part of a longtime, well-documented trend of debt-driven migration.
CNRP supporters in Thailand said since Friday that they were remaining at the ready to march across the border into Cambodia if and when party leaders give the go-ahead.
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