A young Cambodian girl rows a fishing boat at Mekong river in Phnom Penh, Cambodia.

Child labour behind Cambodia’s urbanisation

New Europe | 15 November 2016

Cambodia is going through a rapid urbanisation with new buildings sprawling across its big cities, driven by the growing population in urban areas.

According to the United Nation’s World Urbanization Prospects, the capital Phnom Penh alone is expected to grow by 30.7 per cent between 2015 and 2025, from 1.7 million inhabitants to 2.3 million. As the cities become more crowded, construction expands, and so does the domestic consumption of bricks.

There’s just one problem: the workers. According to the International Labour Organization (ILO), the workers are mostly poor and landless and many of them are children under age 18.

“Brick production is one of their employment opportunities and, of course, it’s a booming sector. Construction is skyrocketing every year,” the national coordinator of ILO Cambodia, Tun Sophorn, was quoted as saying by Chanel News Asia.

“Most children at brick factories we’ve observed usually start working at the age of 14 to 15. Clearly, that’s child labour. It’s illegal,” he added.

Cambodian law prohibits any child under 18 years of age from engaging in hazardous labour. Employers can hire children as young as 15 but only to perform “light work” that does not harm their health or mental and physical development.

“The nature of work in the brick factories would appear to fit under the ILO definition of the worst forms of child labour,” said Simrin Singh, a senior specialist on child labour and forced labour at ILO’s Regional Office in Bangkok.

According to Channel News Asia, with rare inspections by government officials at such facilities, there is little concern about being caught.