With plans in the works to speed up the process to lift a long-standing ban on Cambodian maids working in Malaysia, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs announced yesterday that it had repatriated five Cambodian women from Malaysia.

According to the statement, four of the women, aged 19 to 25, used a Cambodia-based recruitment agency to gain employment as maids in Malaysia in November. The fifth, a 29-year-old native of Kampong Cham province, went to Malaysia to work as a maid in February 2016.

The five women went to the Cambodian Embassy on May 2 for help in returning home. The ministry statement added that on May 3, a Kampong Speu couple and their 2-year-old child were repatriated from Malaysia, where they had worked illegally on a rubber plantation for the past five years.

In 2011, Cambodia banned travelling to Malaysia for domestic work amid reports of abuse contributing to the deaths of multiple Cambodian migrants.

Neither the Ministry of Foreign Affairs nor the Ministry of Labour could be reached for comment.