Wages of Life

Sophoeun left her countryside home at the age of 16 for a factory work in Phnom Penh city to support her parents and 12 siblings. With the country's cheap labor cost, Cambodia has become a new manufacturing location for internationally recognized clothing brands, but tension started to rise between the workers and the government due to harsh working condition as well as the rising living cost. This resulted in a violent confrontation and Sophoeun's husband was seriously injured by police gunfire. Sophoeun now faces the dilemma between finding money to save her husband, and seeing her 16 years old sister leaving school for work. Wages of Life examines the cycle that Cambodian workers face in today's globalized world.