Transnational migration and the involuntary return of undocumented migrants across the Cambodian–Thai border

ABSTRACT

Migration from Cambodia is a major livelihood strategy for rural communities, with most rural families having at least one, usually younger, member migrating in search of work. The pervasive nature of this phenomenon relates to Cambodia’s troubled political past, and the country’s political economy that structures choice and opportunity. Under-investment in the agrarian economy together with unequal access to credit and productive resources leaves many rural Cambodians with little option but to migrate to boost family income. Thailand is the number one destination for rural Cambodians. Most have an undocumented status, putting them at risk of arrest and deportation. The return of more than 200,000 migrants to Cambodia over a two-week period in 2014 was precipitated by the Thai military’s seizure of power and migrants’ fear of the consequences of political instability, given their still vivid historical memory of the Cambodian Khmer Rouge’s reign of terror during the 1970s. Interviews with Cambodian migrants and members of their families are examined within a wider political and economic context to gain insight into migrants’ motivations and decision-making. The expulsion of migrants from Thailand casts light on the compulsive nature of migration, despite the high risks and precarious conditions under which undocumented migration takes place.

KEYWORDS:

• family livelihoods
• border crossing
• gender
• generation
• circular migration
• involuntary return
• remittances
• violence

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank those who took the time to share their stories. Many of these stories recounted traumatic and painful experiences and we are grateful for their willingness to share these. The insights and authentic voices we heard would not have been possible without the dedication of the two community researchers who facilitated the interviews. We are deeply grateful to Il Oeur and Malibopha Chep for their skilful interview techniques and the empathy they displayed when interviewing participants. We thank Deborah Bryceson for her patience, persistence and encouragement, without which this paper would not have seen the light of day and Dorte Thorsen for reviewing several earlier iterations of the paper. We are grateful to the detailed and thought-provoking comments of the anonymous reviewer. This article is based on findings from the Migrating out of Poverty Research Programme Consortium, Project no. PO4913 funded by UK Aid. The views expressed here do not necessarily reflect the UK government’s official policies.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 This commune was chosen in light of the authors’ previous research and existing good working relationship with community researchers living in the commune.

2 All interviews were recorded and then transcribed into Khmer and English. Semi-structured in-depth interviews covered: reasons and motivation for deciding to migrate to Thailand, the role of networks in getting to Thailand and access to work, type of work and experience in Thailand, use of income earned, impacts of migration, consequences of abrupt departure during the June 2014 expulsion, and the future.

3 In-depth one-to-one interviews with one member of each migrant’s household were conducted. The interviews covered the family’s support for the out-migration of their family member, the benefits derived from migration, changing roles within the household due to migration and the expulsion’s impact. One family member was away at the time of the survey. One family member was the sister of two migrants; it was not possible to interview a family member of another migrant. Hence the total number of migrant relatives interviewed was 13.

4 A well-being and wealth-ranking exercise was conducted to classify all households as part of a previous research project. Migrant household wealth groups were identified from the previous work.

5 While the focus of this paper is on Cambodian migrants’ experience, migrants from Myanmar were also caught up in the expulsions and involuntary return (MMN 2015).

6 A significant factor for immobility of deeply indebted migrants in Bylander’s (2018) study.

7 See Huijsmans 2014 for a detailed description of the migration selection process in neighbouring Laos.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Department for International Development, UK Government [grant number 114334].