Vuth, 35, at his home in Banteay Meanchey province, showing a wound he says he received when a Thai co-worker attacked him in July. Photo: Roun Ry/HaRDStories
- By Phoung Vantha and Nicha Wachpanich
- Published
- 9 min read
For years, they worked side by side without problems. Then border fighting erupted, and Cambodian workers in Thailand began hearing a new question: “When are you going home?” As attacks followed, some Thai employers and citizens pushed back.
Vuth extends his hand to show the knife wound, still healing 20 days after a Thai co-worker attacked him at a construction site north of Bangkok. “I was not on my guard because I thought he would just walk past as usual,” the 35-year-old Cambodian said. He hadn’t noticed the man was holding a knife.
Vuth and his wife Sovanna, both pseudonyms, had worked as construction workers in Thailand for over a decade without problems. But when nationalist tensions flared in July, migrant workers like them found themselves on the frontline of a conflict they had nothing to do with.
Armed clashes erupted along the Thailand-Cambodia border in late July, killing at least 40 soldiers and civilians on both sides and displacing hundreds of thousands. The violence didn’t stay at the border. Hundreds of thousands Cambodian workers fled Thailand in the weeks that followed, the largest exodus in the country’s history.
A US-brokered ceasefire signed in October collapsed recently after a Thai soldier was injured by a landmine. Thailand suspended the peace deal, and renewed gunfire has killed at least one civilian.
The conflict particularly hit Cambodian migrant workers in Thailand, many of whom work in lower-income jobs like construction and farming and are often not fully documented under Thai labour and migration laws. Radio Free Asia reported 16 cases of Cambodian workers being attacked by groups claiming to follow patriotic calls to defend the nation.
“When are you going back?”
Vuth and his wife met at a construction site in Thailand and married in 2013. Both residents of Banteay Meanchey, a northwestern province of Cambodia bordering Thailand, they have three children who live with their grandparents while their father and mother work abroad.
The couple went to Thailand in 2012 in search of employment as construction workers because their families were poor and they saw it as their only option, Vuth explained. They went through a broker without passports or proper documents, they did get passports later but the documents eventually expired. Despite the risks, they believed they had better opportunities in Thailand.
For more than a decade, that calculation proved correct. But as border tensions intensified, Vuth noticed Thai workers asking Cambodian colleagues, “When are you going back to your country?” He tried to ignore it.
Then came the evening of 29 July. Vuth and Sovanna invited a friend for dinner at their housing compound in Pathum Thani province. While the three prepared their meal, a drunk Thai colleague approached them, kicked Vuth and his friend to the ground, and stabbed Vuth three times when he tried to defend the friend, according to his account.
“My wife was crying, begging them not to do this,” Vuth said. “We then ran into a room and locked the door.”
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The couple fled Thailand that night, crossing the border hours later. They arrived home in Banteay Meanchey province with no money and no remaining salary from their employer.
HaRDstories could not independently verify his account, though reporters observed his wounds. His employer could not be reached for comment.
The fear that drove Vuth and Sovanna home spread through Cambodian worker communities across Thailand. “Workers feel unsafe and then their family members call on them to come home,” explained Khun Tharo, programme manager at the Cambodian labour rights group CENTRAL. “The number of worker returnees has reached the highest number in Cambodia’s history.”
By August, more than 900,000 Cambodian workers had fled Thailand, according to the Cambodia’s Labour Ministry. Before the conflict, Thailand counted 498,660 Cambodian workers in December 2024, whilst Cambodia claimed more than 1.2 million. The discrepancy likely reflects the prevalence of undocumented workers who cross the border through personal networks or brokers.
Thai employers push back
Vuth said he can’t afford to take his case to the police. But other cases prompted action. Thanachat Jitsakul, a Thai building contractor whose Cambodian staff member was similarly attacked, is filing a case with Thai police.
Sat Chel, a 42-year-old Cambodian worker, was walking to a convenience store one evening in July when he was surrounded by about 20 Thai youths in Keeb Mu, a residential neighbourhood in eastern Bangkok well-known for daily labourers. Asked if he was Thai or Cambodian, Sat Chel had not even responded when one of the men threw a heavy punch into his face.
The next day, Minburi police found eight Thai youths who admitted to committing the violence. Police did not charge the group but instead ordered them to apologise and give flower bouquets to the injured Cambodian. Chel had reportedly already left Thailand, so his former employer Thanachat received the bouquet.
“This conflict is a problem between the states and a few leaders. Common folks should not have to bear the consequences,” Thanachat. “These Cambodians didn’t cause the issue, but are just trying to make a living.”
Believing that nationalism shouldn’t grant licence to hurt others, Thanachat will appeal the case and pursue justice through the courts with authorisation from Sat Chel, who after returning to Cambodia got a new construction job in Kandal province – earning nearly half what he made in Thailand.
Thanachat’s effort to push back against violence has been supported by a collective of Thai employers, the Group of Entrepreneurs with Foreign Workers (GEFW). Shortly after the July conflict broke out, the group sent out guidelines in Thai and Khmer so Thai business owners could reassure their Cambodian workers of their safety whilst condemning those who use violence against them.
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Nirubon Pongpayorm, GEFW founder whose paper factory employs 50 workers from different countries, said the violence came from nationalists, not employers. “They have spent time with Cambodian workers and understand what they are like. This is mostly done by a few nationalists with social media platforms to amplify the division.”
Whilst Cambodia’s Labour Ministry urged Thai authorities to ensure migrant workers’ safety, dignity and equitable treatment, Thai authorities initially denied in July that Cambodian workers had been attacked, despite police reports such as the case in Bangkok’s Minburi district documenting multiple incidents. However, the Thai public also pushed back against violence. In July, a Thai man in Bangkok who slapped a Cambodian worker and a Burmese worker, the latter mistaken for Cambodian, was forced to apologise after widespread criticism from Thai citizens online.
No jobs waiting at home
Back in Cambodia, Vuth is looking for a job that will allow him to provide for his family, but it is not easy.
CENTRAL carried out a survey of over 700 migrants who returned to rural provinces along the Cambodia-Thai border. Although the Cambodian government promised roughly 200,000 available positions, there is not enough work for everyone and the advertised jobs are in apparel manufacturing, which returnees like Vuth, who work in construction or agriculture, lack skills in.
Sovanna got a job as a food stall vendor within two weeks of returning to Cambodia, but she quit less than two weeks later. On that job, she was working from early morning until midnight with no days off.
“I had worked for ten days when I quit, and my boss, who was paying me 175 USD a month, gave me 50 USD to take home,” she said.
Today Vuth and Sovanna need to find work in Cambodia because, among other reasons, they have a microfinance loan to repay. They have three years left, their monthly payments being 800,000 riel (200 USD). “They agreed to postpone the repayment when I requested it, but I will have to repay twice as much in the upcoming months,” Sovanna said.
“If we’re looking at the nation’s employment rate, a small annual growth of 2.5 percent, we find that it did not correspond with the high number of returnees,” said Tharo from CENTRAL. “If they remain jobless without urgent support, they risk returning to Thailand for employment. This will expose them to labour exploitation and illegal border crossings facilitated by brokers.”
A few months after the mass migration, some Cambodian workers have reportedly been crossing back to Thailand for work. Whilst the Cambodian workers are desperate for salaries, Thai employers are struggling to run their businesses without them, mostly at construction sites, sugar cane plantations and longan farms.
A survey of 180 Thai business owners in August by GEFW found that 76 percent of Thai employers face labour shortages from the Cambodian workers’ exodus. The Thai cabinet approved allowing migrant workers to extend their stay another year to ease the shortage. But recently, amid renewed border tensions, Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul suspended the approval, affecting about 100,000 Cambodian workers.
Thailand is now sourcing workers from refugee camps on the Myanmar border and other countries, though the transition has been difficult for industries reliant on experienced Cambodian labour.
Until the leaders stop
While workers and employers from both countries may have mutual interests, the path forward remains fraught. The US-brokered peace deal signed in October collapsed within weeks, with fresh fighting erupting along the border.
Raymond Hyma, a Canadian researcher from Monash University who studies conflicts in the region, said the recurring cycle reflects deeper failures. “A lot of times nationalism is framed as positive, feeling proud of your country, feeling patriotic,” he said. “But we have to be careful because nationalism has also contributed to some of the most dangerous and deadly conflicts in history.”
The current conflict differs from the 2008 border flare-up in one crucial way, Hyma said: social media. “Now you have a whole virtual battlefield where people are engaging in conflict. Instead of bullets, they’re using words,” he said. Those words, amplified online, translate into real-world violence against vulnerable workers.
But for Thanachat, the Thai employer still pursuing justice for his Cambodian worker, the solution is straightforward. “I think it’s a matter of governance by just a few people in the country,” he said. “It’s like wars in the past. The people who create problems are just a few people. When those people stop, the conflict ends.”
Edited by Danielle Keeton-Olsen & Fabian Drahmoune
Phoung Vantha is a Cambodian journalist based in Phnom Penh. He is a freelance reporter who covers human rights, social issues, and environmental topics.
Nicha Wachpanich is a Bangkok-based journalist covering stories from a rights-based and human-interest perspective. She previously worked with a local environmental news agency under Thai Society of Environmental Journalists.
