Ut Troeuk (L) signs a document with her thumbprint, requesting that the Cambodian rights group Adhoc help free her daughters who are in a Malaysian prison, Jan. 29, 2016. RFA
The family of two Cambodian women who were sent by a local employment agency licensed by the government to work in Malaysia has appealed to national police and a domestic rights group to help free the pair after Malaysian authorities jailed them for trying to escape from the company when they discovered that it intended to “sell” them.
The two women, whose names and ages were not provided to RFA’s Khmer Service, are from Mesang village, Romdeng commune, of Mesang district in southeastern Cambodia’s Prey Veng province. They were recruited last July by 168 Manpower Supply Co. Ltd., headquartered in the capital Phnom Penh, supposedly to work as fruit sellers in Malaysia.
The sisters expected the jobs to pay them salaries higher than they could earn at home so that they could better support their family.
But the two women and their family members have accused the company of claiming to send Cambodians to legally work in Malaysia, but instead trafficking them for sale.
“They were tricked by 168 Manpower Supply, which promised to send them to Malaysia to work as fruit sellers and receive high salaries,” said Ut Troeuk, the 63-year-old mother of the two women, who also lives in Mesang village.
The company did not ask her for any money to send her daughters to Malaysia for work, she said, but once they traveled through Thailand by bus and arrived at their destination with six other Cambodian women, they realized they had been
