Following several protests to demand unpaid wages, some 500 workers from the bankrupt Kbal Koah Garment Co received part of their December salaries over the past two days after the factory’s property was sold for $130,000.

Unionist Keo Chenda said more than 80 percent of Kbal Koah’s workers had received their pay. “Most of the workers came to get their [salary], even though they only got $100 each,” she said. “Some of them [were owed] $160 or $180. And some of the workers did not accept it. They demanded their full wages for December.”

The owner of Kbal Koah, located in Phnom Penh’s Chbar Ampov district, also owns Top World Garment Cambodia Ltd in neighbouring Kandal’s Kien Svay district. He disappeared after the factories were believed to have gone bankrupt.

An order filed last month is pending at the Phnom Penh court to resolve the salary issue for Top World workers. Khin Van, chief of administration for the factories who arranged the sale, would only say that “this is the solution the workers needed”.