VOA Khmer
Washington
08/02/2007
Human Rights organizations expressed disbeliefs Thursday after USAID (United States Agency for International Development) announced its plan to reduce funding for anti-human trafficking NGOs in Cambodia, from $4.5 million to $2 million U.S. dollars.
The Cambodia Daily has quoted U.S. Embassy spokesman Jeff Daigle as saying, “the USAID will now focus less directly on combating human trafficking and more on government issues, anti-corruption, and strengthening the rule of law.”
In a press conference Thursday, Assistant Secretary of State Ellen Sauerbrey says that USAID is looking to increase its funds to Tier 3 countries, since they do not have the appropriate means to combat human trafficking. In 2006, Cambodia's efforts in combating sex trafficking paid off and the country was then placed on Tier 2.
Meanwhile, NGO Licadho's director Pung Chhiv Kek says that the cut might reflect USAID unhappiness with Cambodia’s efforts, because the government only charged perpetrators without power, money, and authority.
The Cambodia Daily has quoted U.S. Embassy spokesman Jeff Daigle as saying, “the USAID will now focus less directly on combating human trafficking and more on government issues, anti-corruption, and strengthening the rule of law.”
In a press conference Thursday, Assistant Secretary of State Ellen Sauerbrey says that USAID is looking to increase its funds to Tier 3 countries, since they do not have the appropriate means to combat human trafficking. In 2006, Cambodia's efforts in combating sex trafficking paid off and the country was then placed on Tier 2.
Meanwhile, NGO Licadho's director Pung Chhiv Kek says that the cut might reflect USAID unhappiness with Cambodia’s efforts, because the government only charged perpetrators without power, money, and authority.
Good idea!
ReplyDeleteThe Cambodian Government should deal more with human trafficking because it is happened in its own country and involve mostly its own people and neighboring Vietnam. The shift from the U.S. Government to concentrate and work closely to help improve Cambodia's main problems, corruption and social policy, can be more effective and helpful to Cambodia. Therefore, the U.S Government should spend less funding on human trafficking and have the Cambodian Govenment, which have more knowledge in its own country deal with it. The U.S needs to put more spending and emphasis on helping the Govenment and People of Cambodia to establish an orderly society with strong and fair rules of law. This is one way to strong society.
It is true that excessive
ReplyDeletecorruption can caused poverty.
At a certain point, investors will
pull out, and people will lacked
jobs and become poor. And that is
not the case in Cambodia. Yes,
we do have corruption, but how bad
it is. Well, it is certainly aint
no New Zealand, AU, or Singapore.
It is bad, but not bad enough to
drive everyone out of the country.
And the fact that more company is
still comming in, prove it. About
a year ago I estimated our
corruption to be around 10% with
a margin of error of about 5% or
so. And it it desirable to drive
this down to less than 3% or so.
And most of the corruptions
are perpetrated by low level
officials. They are our hungry
ticks and fleas such as polices,
firemen, sodiers, Airports or ports
workers, ..., but they are doing
it because they are desperate
for more money to send they kids to
college or whatever. Hence, we all
need to work together to bring in
jobs into cambodia until it is up
to our eye browses. From that point
on, we will see better days for
Cambodia.
Also, I am not saying that we
shouldn't fight corruption, but
if the job condition is not
improving, we are likely to fight
a losing battle; thus we need to
do both concurrently, not
sequentially.