Cambodia is not doing enough to protect women planning to work abroad as maids, a leading human rights group said today, amid growing concern over abuses in the recruitment industry.

New regulation on labour migration fails to address myriad problems in the sector including debt bondage and illegal use of underage domestic workers, Human Rights Watch said.

"The Cambodian government is well aware that recruitment agencies subject prospective workers, including children, to months-long confinement in overcrowded training centres, charge exorbitant recruitment fees, and harass them about repaying loans," said HRW's children's rights research fellow Jyotsna Poudyal.

"It is appalling that the new regulation fails even to mention these practices, which contribute to even graver abuses, including forced labour and trafficking."

Oum Mean, secretary of state at the Ministry of Labour, told AFP those were "old issues" and that the new sub-decree, adopted earlier this month, had "everything needed" to protect Cambodian workers.

He denied that prospective maids were held against their will at training centres and said underage workers slipped through the net after "giving a fake age" to recruiters.

Earlier this year, local rights groups said a woman broke both her legs after falling from a balcony in an attempt to escape a training facility in the Cambodian capital.

54 maids rescued by Tenaganita

Dozens more have complained of having their passports confiscated upon arrival in Malaysia, the country that takes in the vast majority of Cambodian maids.

They also said they had to work without pay and were physically or sexually assaulted by employers.

Malaysia-based rights group Tenaganita said at a press conference in Phnom Penh last week it had rescued 54 Cambodian maids from abusive employers so far this year.

Rights groups estimate more than 50,000 Cambodian women are employed as domestic workers in Malaysia, while a far smaller number has also sought employment in Qatar and Kuwait.

- AFP