The Korea Occupational Safety & Health Agency (Kosha) signed an agreement on Tuesday with the Ministry of Labour and Vocational Training to continue collaborations to strengthen Cambodian migrant workers’ safety and health until 2022.
The signing ceremony was witnessed by the ministry’s secretary of state Huy Han Song and Kosha deputy head Lee Chul-woo in Siem Reap province.
Leng Tong, the director of the ministry’s Department of Occupational Safety and Health (OSH), told The Post on Wednesday that the collaborative project will continue until 2022 after its implementation in 2010.
“Since the signing of a memorandum of understanding, Korea had sent specialists in construction safety to train us. They had sent two specialists a year. Korea had also sent officials from our side to their country to learn [technical skills].
“In addition, Korea had provided us with other learning materials which were all covered by them. Each course was worth tens of thousands of dollars,” he said.
Tong said the aim of the collaboration was to support and strengthen Cambodia’s capacities in the labour sector. It also contributes to the promotion of employees’ safety and health in the two countries.
He said within the nine-year collaboration, Korea had helped Cambodia by training nearly 100 Cambodian OSH officials in Korea. Korea had also flown in OSH officials to the Kingdom to train thousands of Cambodians.
“Overall, as our country starts growing, we are paying attention to OSH. With the growing economy, especially with the growth in the construction and industrial sectors, on-the-job accidents are inevitable. So, we pay attention to protecting our workers from accidents,” Tong stressed.
The two countries will conduct a feasibility study towards the creation of a law on occupational safety and health that will allow Cambodia to implement the project more effectively and widely, Tong said.
Collective Union of Movement of Workers (CUMW) president Pav Sina praised the initiative to strengthen OSH in the country. He also expressed his wish to see the two institutions pay greater attention to issues on the working environment and standards set by factories and enterprises.
“Having looked into the issues, we have seen many accidents such as mass fainting and the collapse of infrastructure, along with other mishaps, that have led to a series of injuries and deaths.
“All of these . . . if we don’t pay attention to them, will continue to cause on-the-job accidents and negatively affect workers. Factory and enterprise owners can also incur losses when workers meet with accidents,” he said.
