Parents of four girls sent to work as maids in Malaysia filed a complaint with Adhoc yesterday in Preah Vihear province saying they had not heard from their daughters for anywhere from two to nearly five years.

Prak Leat, 41, said her daughter had left for work in Malaysia in 2008 with the Philimore company when she was 15 years old and she had received no information about her since.

“Since my daughter left, I have not received any information about her or any of her salary,” Prak Leat said yesterday.

“It is now nearly five years, and we are helpless to find them in Malaysia, so we went to Adhoc for help.”

Prak Leat added that the brokers who recruited girls from the village had demanded families sell their property to pay for training expenses.

Prak Leat avoided selling her land, but said the other three families had been left with nothing.

Previous requests from Prak Leat to Philimore were fruitless.

“I used to go to the company in Phnom Penh to ask, but they told me my daughter had run away from the house where she lived,” Prak Leat said, adding that the company had promised her it would continue searching for her daughter and would assume responsibility if her daughter was dead.

Adhoc investigator Hou Mabonny said that the other three female workers were sent to Malaysia via T&P Company and they had not been heard from in more than two years.

Both T&P Company and Philimore have had their operations suspended since a ban against sending Cambodian domestic workers to Malaysia was put in place in October last year.

Adhoc coordinator Lor Chan said that Adhoc would prepare necessary documentation and pass on the complaint to relevant ministries.

Lor Chan added that although labour recruitment companies were shut down, the company owners must still be responsible for maids already sent to Malaysia.

To contact the reporter on this story: Phak Seangly at [email protected]