Cambodia is scrambling to print hundreds of thousands of passports for migrants working in Thailand before a March 31 Thai government deadline, local media said.
In this June 30 file photo, migrant workers and employers show off new identification cards obtained at a one-stop service centre. Now these workers will need passports, but Cambodia is woefully behind in printing them. (Bangkok Post photo)
The Phnom Penh Post reported Wednesday that Cambodia's Interior Ministry has printed only 37,000 passports for 681,571 undocumented Khmer workers who registered at Thai one-stop service centres last year. Cambodia figures, however, show only about 200,000 of those will need passports.
The government has set a March 31 deadline for all illegal, undocumented workers to obtain proper passports and paperwork. But the newspaper quoted Khmer officials saying Thailand has only forwarded it a list of 60,000 migrants to print passports for. And, so far, the Interior Ministry has managed to print less than 40% of those.
The push for legalisation followed June's mass exodus of Cambodian migrant workers from Thailand. About 200,000 fled the border, but most have returned, Cambodia says.
Once printed, passports will be sent back to Thailand to be distributed at the same one-stop centres where workers registered.
According to figures released this week by the Cambodian Foreign Ministry, 700,000 Cambodians work in Thailand, of which more than 420,000 have already obtained legal documentation.