Garment and footwear factories in Cambodia are becoming compliant. More factories are holding regular evacuation drills, have unlocked emergency exits and can boast of no worker discrimination. The number of confirmed cases of child labor has also dropped from 65 in 2013 to 28 in 2014 and 16 in 2015.

One area of high non-compliance is the use of fixed-term contracts for workers, which weren’t being transferred to undetermined duration employment contracts after two years of employment. This is because it gives factories labor flexibility to get rid of workers or to downsize their staff. The high rates of non-compliance can be attributed to the low investment in the sector because investors aren’t exactly in Cambodia for development of its garment sector.

Certain such as light levels in factories, are judged not in compliance because the technical criteria are too high. While an increase of some compliance levels is a positive signal for the garment industry and its workers, there is also a need for further improvement in common areas of non-compliance.

The top 10 areas of non-compliance – those with upwards of 60 per cent of factories failing to meet the goals set – remain largely unchanged. Those include requirements such as the selection of shop stewards, a functioning HIV/AIDS committee and medical examinations for workers prior to hiring.