CALL FOR PROPOSALS - Strengthening returnee women’s groups, voice and referral pathways, particularly in Prey Veng, Cambodia

The ILO invites civil society organizations – including women’s organizations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and community-based organizations – to submit applications to receive technical assistance and financial support to strengthen returnee women’s groups, and to amplify their voices and access to services, in Prey Veng province, Cambodia. Deadline for applications is 5pm Bangkok time, 11 November 2026.

1. Purpose of this Call

The 2025 Cambodia–Thailand border crisis led to hundreds of thousands of unplanned returns to Cambodia, deepening existing problems. Average household debt among returnees is around USD 5,500, and in Prey Veng required loan repayments (about USD 220 a month) are far above post-return income (about USD 64). Women returnees are the most disadvantaged: they face a depressed local labour market (about 20–30 per cent re-employment, against 40–50 per cent for men), gender norms that confine them to unpaid care and low-margin informal trade, and are more likely to consider migrating again, often through irregular and riskier channels.

Public and civil society reintegration services are under-resourced and concentrated in a few locations, and communes lack budgets, registries and protocols. Returnee women depend heavily on civil society organizations, Migrant Worker Resource Centers (MRCs) and women’s networks for support. Women’s mutual support and peer networks are becoming established in Prey Veng, one of Cambodia’s main provinces of origin, but face significant challenges. This call seeks to strengthen and expand these groups, so that returnee women have solidarity, information and a collective voice in decisions that affect them.

Technical and financial assistance to successful proposals will be provided through the ILO’s Ensuring Decent Work and Reducing Vulnerabilities for Women and Children in the Context of Labour Migration in Southeast Asia (PROTECT) project, supported by the European Union. The overall objective of the PROTECT project is to protect the rights of women migrant workers and migrant children in Southeast Asia. The project’s specific objectives are to strengthen national legislation, policies and regional frameworks for the protection of migrant workers, children and other vulnerable groups in line with international standards; to improve national and regional prevention and protection mechanisms to reduce rights’ violations against migrant women, children and other vulnerable groups, including victims of trafficking and smuggled migrants; and to increase the access of at-risk groups, women migrant workers and children to information, social and legal services, counselling and association to prevent abuse, exploitation, harassment, violence, and trafficking in human beings.

2. What types of activities may be proposed?

1) Should directly benefit returnee women migrant workers and women who are considering

migrating again, as well as women’s groups and peer networks working with them. Activities

should be in Phnom Penh (objective 1) and Prey Veng province (objectives 2 and 3). Proposals may be tailored to target specific communities or districts. Following the principle of leave no one behind, proposals should actively include women with disabilities, older women and women of diverse sexual orientation, gender identity and expression, and sex characteristics (SOGIESC), and may include women who migrated irregularly. Interventions must take a gender-responsive, women’s empowerment approach.

2) Proposals should contribute to all three of the following objectives. The activities listed are

examples; applicants are encouraged to propose their own approach.

Objective 1 : Strengthen women’s groups as peer-led structures that provide solidarity, a

safe space for self-expression and leadership, through feminist participatory action

research (FPAR)

• Mapping women’s groups and peer networks working with returnee women, and a

participatory assessment of their needs across Cambodia, but focusing on Prey Veng and

Phnom Penh.

• FPAR training for women leaders and members (around 25 women), ideally in Phnom

Penh, and mentoring as they research issues they choose – such as debt, social security,

re-migration, care or access to services – and use the findings for collective action and

self-advocacy

• Peer-led solidarity sessions, and group sustainability plans linking groups to commune

structures, MRCs and savings groups.

Objective 2 : Expand returnee women’s groups in Prey Veng

• Mobilizing returnee women (at least 25) into new or existing groups, with outreach to

women who are often left out.

• Thematic sessions for groups, such as on managing credit, savings and money after return;

psychosocial wellbeing, gender-based violence, legal rights and recovering unpaid wages;

and safe migration and local training and job options.

• Community outreach, through peer supporters / peer support circles, in Prey Veng

province, information sharing and counselling for returnee and prospective migrant

women and their families (around 100 women)

Objective 3 : Amplify returnee women’s voices in local structures in Prey Veng

• Regular spaces where returnee women, commune officials and local leaders share

experience and solve problems together.

• Advocacy for a commune-level safe migration and reintegration information points, run

with the Commune Committee for Women and Children (CCWC)

• Strengthened referrals to Provincial Departments of Labour and Vocational Training and

of Women’s Affairs, the National Employment Agency, legal aid providers and other

services

• Women-led dialogues with local authorities on reintegration, debt and the costs of

migration, awareness campaigns, and a short practical guide for local authorities on

supporting returnee women

3) As part of implementation, organizations may also identify some interventions that will

improve their own capacities, knowledge and skills in direct relation to improved support for

returnee women.

Proposed activities should be practical, implementable, and achievable by 30 August 2027

(approximately 9 months).

3. Who is eligible to apply?

Women’s organizations, NGOs and community-based organizations working with women migrant workers, returnees or women’s groups in Cambodia are all eligible to submit a proposal.

Eligible applicants must:

• Be a registered organization

• Have a bank account in the name of the organization

• Have financial management skills and systems in place

• Have experience working with women migrant workers, returnees or women’s groups,

ideally using participatory, women-led approaches; experienced in utilising FPAR or PAR

methodologies

• Have a presence or partners in Prey Veng and Phnom Penh, and working relationships

with local authorities

• Have a safeguarding policy, or commit to adopting one before an agreement is signed

Women-led organizations, and partnerships between emerging migrant women’s groups and more established NGOs or trade unions, are particularly encouraged. Unregistered community-based organizations may wish to apply in partnership with registered and experienced NGOs.

4. What kind of support does the PROTECT project offer?

The ILO will deliver two types of support to successful applicants:

• Technical assistance may include technical inputs in line with International Labour

Standards, and technical inputs to support the trainings on FPAR, rights-based counselling

and the ILO Client Card, case management and referral, safe migration, labour rights,

violence and harassment in the world of work, safeguarding, report writing and financial

reporting, or any other identified capacity building needs, as agreed with and relevant to

the results to be achieved by the implementing partner.

• Financial support for the implementation of the proposed intervention until 30 August

2027.

5. How to prepare a proposal

Applicants must prepare SEPARATE narrative and budget proposals. DO