Families slave to pay debts in Cambodia brick factories

By Lauren Crothers

SIEM REAP

Brick factories supplying materials to aid Cambodia’s construction boom are benefiting from the use of multi-generational “modern-day slaves” which sees children and adults paid a pittance in a never-ending cycle of debt bondage.

A report published Friday by local human rights organization Licadho said an investigation into 11 brick factories in Phnom Penh and another nearby province and interviews with scores of workers found that people are recruited with the promise of loans and housing, only to find themselves bound to that work for years because they are unable to make repayments.

As debts mount, “it can pass from one generation of a family to the next and the study found some families with three generations all working to pay off a debt that was originally taken on by a member of the oldest generation,” Licadho said in a statement that accompanied the report.

The study features several case studies.

One 37-year-old man worked in a brick factory for 18 years to try and pay off an old debt. He had borrowed the money to pay medical bills for one of his children. Today, he works in a different factory and although three of his five children go to school, they all spend the afternoons helping in the factory.

A girl of 10 who was interviewed says she earns 25 cents for every brick she loads into a truck, and that she sometimes skips school to work.

She, like many other children, is helping to pay off a debt accrued by her parents, which has grown to about $3,000.

According to the report, she “suffers from constant back pain, chest pains, struggles to breathe and is unable to sleep at night.”

Licadho called on the authorities to force factory owners to cancel the debts and enforce existing legislation that explicitly bans debt bondage and child labor.

Labor Ministry spokesman Heng Sour could not be reached Friday.