Industry Update/National Response
- Travel Restriction: Travel restriction (ban) placed on Preah Sihanouk Province by the government due to Cambodia’s community COVID-19 transmission event until further notice
- 26 March 2021: Training for factory medical staff to vaccinate garment workers began on March 26. MoLVT is working with the Garment Manufacturers Association in Cambodia (GMAC) to coordinate the training.
- 25 March 2021: the government announced that unemployed workers in the garment, textile, footwear and travel goods sector will continue to receive $40 from the government and $30 from suspended factories per month for another three months, from April to June 2021.
- 14 March 2021: According to the Health Ministry report yesterday, there has a been over 1,000 confirmed case in Cambodia. At the same time, COVID-19 vaccines and many improved facilities are being rolled out in Cambodia
- 04 March 2021: A factory in Phnom Penh has been shut down, 716 workers screened (all were negative) and 40 are still under quarantined
- 14 February 2021: The Ministry of Labour, since the pandemic began, the government has provided a monthly allowance of $40 to 340,032 garment and tourism workers, totaling $23 million. It said soft skill training was organised for a total of 66,607 workers from 107 factories.
- 09 February 2021: Since December 21, 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic in Thailand had a sudden spike to several hundred cases a day, Cambodian migrant workers resulted into COVID-19 migrant workers cluster in Cambodia increased to 88.
Factory Service Update
- 14 March 2021: BFC will temporarily be conducting virtual advisory, training, and assessment. BFC is suspending onsite factory-level services until April 09th, 2021.
- An updated Factory Pricing and training catalogs have been updated on the site.
- BFC launched the Factory Ambassadors’ Induction Program on 16 June, attended by 150 participants representing 92 factories. The purpose of the programme is to: build the capacity of enterprise compliance staff, to establish a counterpart at the enterprise level for BFC advisors to facilitate meetings virtually, and to continue building sustainable factory-level services.
- Advisory services are being delivered virtually with a focus on distributing World Health Organisation materials on COVID-19 prevention and raising awareness of COVID-19 with the joint worker-management committee members
- To address physical distancing challenges during workers’ commute in collective transportation, posters and flyers on COVID-19 preventive measures for collective transportation drivers and garment workers have been produced in collaboration with WHO and Ministry of Health, as well as Solidarity Center, GIZ and brand partners. These will be disseminated to factories.
Additional Better Work Activities
- 24 February 2021: BFC partnered with care to host a learning summit to share new tools, good practices, and evidence of what works to prevent gender-based violence and harassment in the garment industry.
- Over 100 factories have received posters and banners to promote best practices for ensuring safety and health among garment workers and drivers of public transportation and to promote BFC’s Worker Safety number.
- BFC has launched a COVID-19 Worker Safety hotline that uses Interactive Voice Response (IVR) technology – an automated system to which workers can call to learn about COVID-19 prevention and get information for their daily work and life. The hotline has been featured in local media and promoted among factories, brands, tripartite partners, and other agencies.
- Better Factories Cambodia is liaising with all stakeholders to limit the impact on workers and businesses and identify a collective approach to support the industry.
