The Cambodian government is failing to provide support to hundreds of thousands of migrant workers with microfinance debts who returned from Thailand because of hostilities in mid-2025, Human Rights Watch said today.
Even before the border conflict between Cambodia and Thailand, from July 24-28, Cambodian officials encouraged migrant workers in Thailand to return home because of rising tensions, and more than 900,000 have done so. The government's promises of jobs and other support have not materialized for most though, and many are under pressure to repay microfinance loans they took before seeking work in Thailand. The government should assist returned migrant workers to find jobs in Cambodia and adopt measures to provide meaningful debt relief to them and other Cambodians.
"The Cambodian government has an obligation to assist the migrant workers its officials encouraged to return from Thailand because of discrimination and recent hostilities," said Bryony Lau, deputy Asia director at Human Rights Watch. "The government should ensure that predatory microfinance institutions are not putting improper pressure on returned migrants and other marginalized Cambodians who are struggling to feed their families."
Human Rights Watch interviewed 56 former migrant workers in Cambodia's Banteay Meanchey province who returned from Thailand between May and September.
The Cambodian government has long failed to ensure the rights to an adequate standard of living, education, and health care, compelling many families to obtain predatory microfinance loans. The return of hundreds of thousands of Cambodian migrant workers because of hostilities with Thailand and the promises of support from the Cambodian government have made their already tenuous situation even more difficult, Human Rights Watch said.
In May, tensions escalated at the Thai-Cambodia border. On June 14, Cambodian Senate President Hun Sen called on all Cambodians working in Thailand to return home to avoid expulsion or mistreatment in Thailand, calling it a "real and inevitable risk." Prime Minister Hun Manet, Hun Sen's son, said the government was prepared to facilitate repatriation, with the Ministry of Labor and Vocational Training pledging more than 70,000 jobs for returned migrants and the Ministry of Economy and Finance ready to offer a "range of economic and social intervention packages aimed at improving their daily lives."
On June 23, Thailand ordered the closure of all land crossings with Cambodia, except for migrant workers returning to Cambodia.
Migrant workers told Human Rights Watch that they returned to Cambodia due to discrimination and harassment in Thailand, as well as the Cambodian government's promises of employment and social assistance. But many said that once back in Cambodia, they have been skipping meals and forgoing medical care to make repayments on microfinance loans they incurred before going abroad. In 2023, the average Cambodian household held more debt than they spent for the year.
A 17-year-old who had worked for two years in Thailand said she had dropped out of school and migrated to help her mother repay a microfinance loan. She said that after fighting between Thailand and Cambodia began, her Thai employers would regularly verbally harass her: "I would cry every day because of the bad treatment at work."
Despite government promises, returned migrant workers said that there were very few jobs available once they got back home. Some travelled to find work in the capital, Phnom Penh, hundreds of kilometers away from their homes in provinces along the Thai-Cambodia border, but few reportedly found employment.
A 32-year-old woman who tried to get a job at a Cambodian garment factory after returning from Thailand said she did not have the necessary experience. "I took a three-day skills test, and I didn't pass because I didn't have the skills to work and sew the garments," she said. "They want skilled workers, and we don't have the skills."
Many returned migrants have loans from banks and microfinance institutions (MFIs). For years, Cambodian banks and MFIs have engaged in predatory lending, causing a household debt crisis, and pressure to repay debts often contributes to the decision to migrate to Thailand for work. Cambodia has the most microcredit debt per capita anywhere in the world.
A 2019 report from the International Organization for Migration (IOM) identified microfinance debt as a growing driver of migration from Cambodia, and Cambodia's microfinance sector has grown rapidly since then. The Cambodian Development Resource Institute (CDRI) reported that one-third of returned migrant workers are from households that hold formal loans ranging from US$5,000 to US$8,000, several times larger than Cambodia's annual median per-capita income.
A 41-year-old woman who had lived in Thailand for 10 years working in construction in Bangkok said that she now had to balance repaying her loans with paying for health care and her children's education. "We have to decide between food, making MFI payments, and whether our kids can still afford to go to school," she said. Her household used to have three people working in Thailand but now all have returned, and the family has cut back to two meals a day. She said that if they miss their monthly loan repayment of more than $100, they will lose the land they pledged as collateral for the loan.
Under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, to which Cambodia is a party, governments are obligated to take steps, to the maximum of their available resources, to progressively realize the human right to an adequate standard of living. This includes the obligation to protect people from conduct by third parties, such as predatory microfinance institutions, that would prevent the fulfillment of this right. Under the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, private companies also have responsibilities to respect human rights and to identify, prevent, mitigate, and account for practices that have harmed people.
The Cambodian government should take prompt action to uphold the rights of returned migrant workers, including by following through on its pledges to assist them in finding employment. The government should also implement more effective measures to protect all Cambodians, including returned migrant workers, from predatory debt collection practices and the potential human rights harms of debt servicing.
This could include the restructuring of loans for returned migrant workers and others affected by the Thai-Cambodia border conflict, who face extreme economic hardship. The government needs to enforce penalties for aggressive debt collection practices and ensure that all microfinance institutions and lenders follow ethical standards for loan recovery.
The government also needs to address the broader situation that compels many families in Cambodia to take on considerable debt, including by removing barriers to health care and free education. The Cambodian government should allocate appropriate resources to both sectors and set budgetary spending targets aligned with international benchmarks.
"The situation is dire for these returned migrant workers, who are rapidly eroding their savings to survive and pay off their debts," Lau said. "Cambodian authorities need to act swiftly to protect Cambodians from microfinance lenders and financial institutions and support workers who returned from Thailand at their urging."
Fear of Violence, Discrimination Drove Migrant Workers to Return
Many migrant workers told Human Rights Watch that they returned to Cambodia because they experienced or feared discrimination in Thailand, or feared violence, as tensions rose at the border.
A woman, 44, who had worked in Thailand for more than 20 years, said that after the border conflict began on July 24, everyday life in Thailand became more difficult. She recalled being told, "Why don't you go back to Cambodia and pick up the bones of the dead Cambodians?"
"My husband and I could not handle the discrimination, so we returned," she said. "People in the market didn't want to sell us food because we are Cambodian. Every time we went to work, we felt this discrimination."
A man, 30, who had worked in Thailand for 10 years reported witnessing violence against Cambodian migrant workers. "A group of Thai men, around 50, were on foot and motorbikes looking for Khmer to attack," he said. "One of the people in my village was also beaten and chased [until] I was about 10 meters away. The couple wanted help but there were so many Thais beating them, no one dared to help."
Thai media reported several assaults on Cambodian workers, as well as social media posts of a Thai ultra-royalist activist talking about Cambodian workers who were ungrateful and taking jobs from Thai citizens.
Returned migrants said that Thai police and authorities also discriminated against Cambodian workers. A woman, 37, who worked in construction in Bangkok said that Thai police would ask migrant workers, "Do you want to go home to Cambodia, or do you all want to go to prison together?"
A man, 18, who also worked in construction in the Thai capital, recalled Thai police going door-to-door to check visas and passports of Cambodian migrant workers, asking for money or detaining people who could not pay. Some migrant workers reported being required to pay bribes to Thai police or soldiers when they crossed back into Cambodia.
The border between Cambodia and Thailand has remained shut, and many workers fear a return to Thailand would mean further discrimination or even violence from Thai authorities or employers. Thai media reported that about 300 Cambodian migrant workers were arrested between mid-June and September for attempting to cross into Thailand without permission. Other Cambodian migrant workers have reported staying in Thailand despite the situation due to the economic pressures stemming from loans, including bank and microfinance loans from Cambodian financial institutions.
After border tensions again increased in early November, Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul on November 10 announced the suspension of a policy that allows about 100,000 migrant workers from Cambodia to stay in Thailand for an additional year after their work permits expire. This has left the legal status of Cambodian migrant workers remaining in Thailand in limbo.
Promises of Jobs Unmet
Some migrant workers said that Cambodian government promises of jobs and social assistance also encouraged them to return home. On June 14, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet posted on his Facebook page that the government was ready to handle a mass repatriation of workers, and specifically mentioned that the Ministry of Labor and Vocational Training would help find jobs for returned migrants due to a shortage of tens of thousands of workers in the country.
Upon returning to Cambodia, many migrants found that there were few jobs available, and those that did exist were either too far from their homes or a poor match for their skills. A woman, 53, returned to Cambodia due to fears of violence and because she read news reports that the Cambodian government had jobs for returning migrant workers. "But when we returned, there were no jobs for us," she said.
A man, 28, said that getting hired at a garment factory in Cambodia was difficult because the jobs were far away, and returned migrant workers often lacked any connections that could help them secure employment. Others reported that the costs of transportation and housing in Phnom Penh and the length of time it would most likely take to find a job would make it too expensive for many returned migrants to seek employment in the capital.
The CDRI reported that the Ministry of Labor and Vocational Training claimed there were 190,000 jobs available for returned migrant workers. Even if true, with more than 900,000 migrant workers returning, more than 700,000 workers would not be covered.
The CDRI further noted a mismatch between the available jobs and returned workers, with the majority of migrants returning to border provinces, such as Banteay Meanchey and Battambang, while most of the available jobs were in Phnom Penh. In addition, more than half of returned migrant workers had been working in construction or agriculture in Thailand, while most of the available jobs in Cambodia were in other sectors.
In October, a group of local civil society organizations called on the government to address these issues through improved social security, especially unemployment benefits, large-scale and gender-sensitive employment programs, and debt relief, among other measures.
International human rights law provides everyone the right to social security, including during periods of unemployment. Currently, nobody who is unemployed in Cambodia has access to social security, based on the International Labour Organization's data.
Debt Pressures
As Human Rights Watch has previously reported, Cambodian households often take out loans from paying supplementary school fees to affording out-of-pocket payments for essential medicines, and other human rights. But when household income must be diverted to service debt, it can also limit the fulfillment of rights like health, education, and an adequate standard of living, which includes the rights to food, housing, and water.
Like other Cambodians living in rural areas or in poverty, many returned migrant workers are in significant debt to microfinance institutions for loans they took out years ago.
While the Cambodian government has adopted laws and policies to regulate MFIs, they remain largely unenforced, allowing predatory lending and collection practices to persist.
In correspondence with Human Rights Watch from July, the National Bank of Cambodia, which has the authority to sanction and suspend or revoke licenses of MFIs, did not provide any instances in which it had penalized or sanctioned MFIs for any violation of consumer protection or regulatory laws or policies. Rather, the government has repeatedly demonstrated a preference for voluntary measures and self-regulation.
On July 30, the National Bank of Cambodia issued new guidelines to financial institutions that "encouraged" them to enact unspecified "relief" for returned migrant workers. None of the people interviewed identified any meaningful relief measures by microfinance institutions or banks.
A woman, 18, who was until recently working at an agricultural factory in Thailand said she moved abroad after dropping out of school in grade 9 because her family had to sell the motorbike that she was using to ride to school to repay their microfinance loans. She said that since returning to Cambodia in July, she eats about half as much meat as she used to at each meal and is worried about not being able to pay for treatment for her mother's medical condition.
A woman, 35, who used to work on a farm in Thailand before the fighting began, took a microfinance loan to build a home, but now struggles to juggle repayments along with food and medical costs. "I have to cut down on my food a lot ... we are replacing meat and protein with more rice now," she said. "Credit officers come to my home to pressure me to make payments.… I am afraid they will take my land. We are afraid of the MFIs more than we are of the police."
A woman, 47, who has both microfinance debt and informal loans, expressed fears about repaying her debts: "I'm willing to go without eating to pay back my loans out of fear of losing my land that my home is on."
These pressures have led returned migrant workers to take on more debt to make ends meet and avoid forced land sales, a common practice of credit officers who pressure borrowers to sell their land without using the legal foreclosure method when they are unable to repay their loans. A man, 55, with a microfinance loan who had pledged his land as collateral, said: "When I am late on repayments, I walk around my village looking to borrow money from people out of fear of losing my land and my home on it ... I worry every day about my microfinance loan repayments; I worry all the time. Whatever I have I will sell, because I am worried about them taking my land."
Healthcare costs put over-indebted households under further financial strain, with 61 percent of all healthcare costs in Cambodia covered out-of-pocket, by far the highest percentage in the region and among the highest in the world.
A woman, 33, who had recently returned after working in Thailand for four years, said that she initially left Cambodia because she could not earn enough to repay a microfinance loan, which she needed partly to pay for treating her mother's chronic illness.
"When we are late, credit officers will come and harass us to make payments, and we would avoid staying home to not have them pressure us," she said. "There have been maybe three or four families in my village who have lost land because they didn't pay MFI loans. The families who lost land had to go work in Thailand, but now we don't know where they are, because they have nothing to come back to."
Two former construction workers in Bangkok-a 30-year-old man and a 40-year-old woman-had each taken out microfinance loans to cover healthcare expenses for family members, using land that their houses are on as collateral. They said they ate less than they did before returning from Thailand because they were worried about losing their land. "I repay because I'm worried that they [credit officers] will take my land away," the woman said. "I see on Facebook that people have lost their land, so I stress about it."
The Cambodian Government's Inadequate Response
There are few options available for returned migrant workers who cannot find work and are burdened with heavy microfinance debt.
The Cambodian government should take prompt action to uphold the rights of returned migrant workers, including by following through on its pledges to assist them in finding employment. The government should also take additional measures to implement more effective consumer protection measures to protect all Cambodians, including returned migrant workers, from predatory debt collection practices and the potential human rights harms of debt servicing. This could include the restructuring of loans for returned migrant workers and others affected by the Thai-Cambodia border conflict, who face extreme economic hardship. The government needs to prohibit and enforce penalties for aggressive debt collection practices and ensure that all microfinance institutions and lenders follow ethical standards for loan recovery.
The government also needs to address the broader situation that compels many families in Cambodia to take on considerable debt, including by removing barriers to health care and free education. The Cambodian government should allocate appropriate resources to both sectors and set budgetary spending targets aligned with international benchmarks.
