A movie portraying the difficulties of Cambodian migrant workers in Thailand will be shown for the first time Wednesday at the French Cultural Center.
Produced by health NGOs PATH and Family Health International/IMPACT, it was filmed last year in Prey Veng province and Thailand’s Rayong province. In the movie, a young Cambodian man returns to Prey Veng and tells others that he made a lot of money in the Thai fishing industry. Inspired, another villager goes to Thailand to find work.
The two eventually meet again as workers on the same boat, but now the first young man is dying of AIDS. The Thai captain of the boat shows little concern and works his crew at all hours of the day. Another scene shows a veteran of work in Thailand convincing a young Prey Veng villager not to join the crew of a Thai fishing boat.
Most workers on Thai fishing boats are poor men from Burma or Cambodia. In Rayong province, most Cambodians working in the fishing industry are from Prey Veng. CPP parliamentarian Men Sam An and Prey Veng provincial Governor Choung Siv Vuth will attend the film’s opening and will participate in a panel discussion on “Migration and HIV/AIDS.”
The film will be shown in Prey Veng town and in 130 villages elsewhere in the province in the next few weeks, PATH official Hou Samith said. A request to show the movie on television has not yet been approved by the Ministry of Culture, Hou Samith said.
