"Cambodia Fails to Meet “Minimum Standards” for Combating Human Trafficking, US Gov’t Reports", 16 June 2023

For the second year in a row, Cambodia failed to meet the “minimum standards” for combating human trafficking and was “not making significant efforts to do so,” the US government reported on Thursday.

The US State Department’s latest Trafficking in Persons (TIP) report kept Cambodia ranked as a Tier 3 country — the lowest ranking possible — meaning the government had not made “serious and sustained” efforts to eliminate human trafficking and hold perpetrators accountable.

The report highlighted the online scam industry’s prevalence in Cambodia, estimating that more than 10,000 victims are held inside scam compounds in the country.

Interior Ministry spokesperson Khieu Sopheak said that Cambodia is not concerned by the TIP report’s findings. The Interior Ministry oversees the National Police and has been the Ministry tasked with leading Cambodia’s anti-trafficking efforts.

… The TIP report notes that “increasingly, PRC-based organized crime syndicates posing as labor brokers use social media to recruit East African and Asian workers with English proficiency or technical backgrounds for promising lucrative jobs supposedly in Cambodia, Thailand, Laos, and elsewhere in the region.”

… Trafficking victims were also subjected to physical abuse, sexual violence and confinement in these compounds, the report said.

… Vice Chairperson of the Interior Ministry’s National Committee for Counter Trafficking (NCCT) Chou Bun Eng said the US “does not have shame” and had not recognized Cambodia’s efforts to crackdown on human trafficking and scam operations over the past year…