VOD, Oct 30, 2020
In eastern Thailand, it’s peak fruit-picking season, so across the border in Battambang’s Kamrieng district, brokers are shuttling Cambodian workers to Thai plantations every day, says Thea Sothun, 25.
Like other migrant workers who spoke to reporters in recent weeks, Sothun denies he currently undertakes the illegal crossings.
But the lure of jobs makes him consider it, he says. And the hundreds of Cambodians who have been arrested by Thai authorities since Covid-19 closed borders support his claim that it is still happening daily.
News reports have recorded more than 500 border arrests of Cambodians from March to October, most of them in Thailand and some in Cambodia.
And in June alone, Thai police arrested nearly 2,500 foreign workers, about 40 percent of whom were Cambodian workers, according to Ana Engblom, chief technical officer for the International Labor Organization’s migrant worker rights project in Asean.
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In full: https://vodenglish.news/risking-closed-borders-migrant-workers-seek-work-in-thailand-to-pay-debts/
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