"Ministry takes action against brick factory for employing minor", 13 March 2019

The Labour Ministry has taken action against a brick factory in Kandal province after a nine-year-old labourer lost her arm as she was operating a brick-making machine.

..., the Labour Ministry said upon hearing about the incident, ministry officials from the inspection department, along with National Social Security Fund and Kandal provincial labour officials, were deployed to inspect the site of the accident and take action against the factory.

“We fined the brick factory through Article 369 of the Labour Law and filed a complaint against its owner for using child labour,” it said, ...

Ath Thorn, president of the Cambodian Labour Confederation, ... said he supports the ministry’s action against the brick factory.

Mr Thorn said the ministry should inspect all brick factories to ensure that children are not employed...

Provincial police chief Major General Eav Chamroeun, who visited the victim in hospital, said her family was given about $1,500. He said the victim lost her right arm as she was making bricks on Saturday morning...

A Licadho report ... said many children working in the brick manufacturing industry do so to help their parents, who are poor and often in debt bondage with brick factory owners.

The report said the practices of debt bondage and child labour “are closely related and together are responsible for trapping multiple generations of families in a repeating cycle of poverty and servitude”...