When Sam Sok took a US$6-a-day (S$8.15) job as a construction labourer in Sihanoukville she knew it could be dangerous, but the deaths of 28 workers in a building collapse – with her nephew among the missing – have laid bare the risks many like her face to earn a living.
She left her eight-year-old son with neighbours more than 100km, one of thousands pushed by poverty seeking to cash in on the once sleepy seaside town’s Chinese-funded construction boom.
The work is mostly unregulated, low paid, often dangerous – and sometimes deadly.
