Cambodia's garment sector reels after 'horror year'

This picture taken on Dec 12, 2019 shows garment factory workers heading to various vehicles to head home after leaving work in Kampong Speu province of Cambodia. - AFP

KANDAL PROVINCE, Cambodia (Reuters): L on Vanna has been working around the clock for months but she doesn't sew clothes anymore -- she guards the machines in the abandoned garment factory in Cambodia where she once worked.

Vanna believes the sewing machines are her only hope for saving her home and land, which she put up as collateral for a loan to feed herself and her ailing parents after the new coronavirus pandemic shuttered the factory in March.

"Those machines are my money; they are my life," Vanna said, pledging to hold them hostage until she receives about US$2,000 in wages and bonuses owed since bosses shut the factory, some 50km south of the capital, Phnom Penh, unannounced.

"We only know how to sew clothes," she said, sat among half a dozen former workers who guard the factory around the clock, and in August chased away men sent by the factory owners to retrieve the machines.

"But we see no hope in the industry, only shut downs and sackings, so we can't give up."

Cambodia's $7 billion garment sector -- the country's largest employer with 800,000, mostly female, workers -- was dealt a double blow this year by the coronavirus pandemic and by European Union (EU) tariffs imposed over human rights abuses.

Some Cambodian exports lost duty-free access to the EU in August as the bloc signalled its discontent over the Southeast Asian country's crackdown on opposition, civil society and the media.

Hard-won labour rights have also been rolled back this year in the garment industry, workers' advocates say, as the virus has fuelled 'union-busting' at factories and poorer wages and conditions for those still in a job.

Cambodia has rolled out some assistance for laid off garment workers, but workers and advocates say it has been insufficient and difficult to access.

Labour ministry spokesman Heng Suor told the Thomson Reuters Foundation that the process of applying for financial support was "not hard at all... as long as the factory files for suspension properly".