Cambodia's ambassador to Thailand, Eat Sophea, has pledged her country's support for National Council for Peace and Order (NCPO) efforts to enforce regulations on Cambodian migrant workers.
Ms Eat paid a courtesy call to Supreme Commander Tanasak Patimapragorn at the Royal Thai Armed Forces headquarters yesterday.
The visit aimed to strengthen ties between Thailand and Cambodia, and create better understanding of the military's takeover.
Thailand has promised to take better care of Cambodian migrant workers working legally in the country and help them enjoy better living conditions in accordance with their human rights.
Thailand and Cambodia will cooperate to improve labour employment procedures to make them shorter and more efficient in preparation for the upcoming Asean Economic Community (AEC) and to encourage the sustainable development of the two countries, the pair said.
Meanwhile, a major job-placement agency operator has called for new registration for migrant workers as a way to solve problems with illegal migrant workers.
Chackrit Suwannasarn, executive of Silver and Gold Development Placement Co, yesterday said he had submitted his proposal to the NCPO.
Mr Chackrit said that the annual registration process for migrant workers has failed to solve problems and suggested they should be asked to register again.
While the registration process is underway, no arrests should be made, he said.
Since Cambodian migrant workers fled the country en masse over the past two weeks, the coup-makers had made little effort to tackle the problem, said Mr Chackrit.
The exodus followed rumours of a military crackdown on migrant workers. Since the rumours abated, many Cambodian workers have begun returning to the country.
He estimated that out of some 2 million migrants working in the country only 300,000 were working legally.
Many employers hire illegal migrant workers because the labour is cheap, he said. These employers pay officials for illegal migrant workers and refuse to follow proper procedures.
A poor database of migrant workers was also to blame for enabling their exploitation, particularly those in the fisheries sector, a seminar was told.
Pol Lt Col Montri Baothong, an investigative expert at the Crime Suppression Division's anti-human trafficking division, said the database of migrant workers has not been updated, making it hard for authorities to punish those who employ them illegally.
In the fisheries sector, records of fishing vessels' registration numbers were poor, and few details were available of the names of trawler operators, skippers or their crewmen, he told a seminar on human trafficking held by the Labour Ministry.
Many crew were found to be undocumented migrant workers, said Pol Lt Col Montri. Some workers could not read Thai or English. Some did not even know the names of their trawler operators and skippers, he said.
A better database was essential to tackle the problem of illegal migrant labour and human trafficking, he said.
Marja Paavilainen, chief technical officer at the International Labour Organisation, said workers most often abused were farm and domestic workers, and those in factories.
She called for strict law enforcement against those involved in forced labour and human trafficking.
Sompong Sakaew, director of the Labour Rights Promotion Network, called on authorities to take action against unscrupulous job-placement agencies and brokers for overcharging fees for migrant workers.