Cambodia Remains Source of Trafficking, US Says

Prum Vannak Anan, 34, spent three years aboard a fishing vessel after he was lured there with promises of work. Photo: by VOA Khmer

Wednesday, 20 June 2012
Sok Khemara, VOA Khmer | Washington, DC

“Cambodia is a source, transit and destination country for men, women and children who are subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking.”

Cambodia remains a source of human trafficking, the US State Department said in an annual report, keeping the country as a “Tier 2” country that “does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking.”

“However, it is making significant efforts to do so,” according to the annual Trafficking in Persons report, released Tuesday.

Cambodia continues to prosecute sex trafficking cases, the report said, citing the convictions of 20 trafficking offenders in 2011. But it has done so at a much slower pace, with 36 prosecutions the year before.

US Trafficking in Persons Report 2012: Cambodia

Source: http://www.state.gov/j/tip/rls/tiprpt/2012/192366.htm

CAMBODIA (Tier 2)

Cambodia is a source, transit, and destination country for men, women, and children who are subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking. Cambodian men, women, and children migrate to countries within the region – primarily Thailand and Malaysia – for work, and many are subsequently subjected to sex trafficking, domestic servitude, debt bondage, or forced labor within the fishing, construction, and agricultural industries. Vietnamese women and children, many of whom are victims of debt bondage, are transported to Cambodia and forced into commercial sex. The United Nations Inter-Agency Project on Human Trafficking reported that 149 Cambodian victims of human trafficking were repatriated from Thailand in 2011, and the Ministry of Social Affairs, Veterans, and Youth Rehabilitation (MOSAVY) reported receiving 106 victims of trafficking from Thailand. During the year, more than 100 male Cambodian victims of forced labor on Thai-flagged fishing boats were repatriated after escaping from their traffickers, or being rescued during Indonesian raids. The men reported being deceived by Thai fishing boat owners about the expected length of service and the amount of their payment. Some Cambodian men also reported severe abuses by Thai captains and being forced to remain aboard the vessels for up to two years.

The inability to understand obligations, read contracts, or pay processing fees rendered some Cambodian migrant workers vulnerable to forced labor and debt bondage, especially in Malaysia. Such workers have reported employers in destination countries withholding copies of employment contracts and confiscating passports. Recruitment agencies have reportedly engaged in the falsification of legal identification and age verification documents to allow for the illegal recruitment of children. Within Cambodia, parents sometimes sell their children into conditions of forced labor, including domestic servitude, and send them to beg on the streets in Thailand. Cambodian children are also transported to Vietnam for the purpose of forced labor. The Svay Pak brothel area outside Phnom Penh, where children are exploited in the sex trade, continues to operate despite numerous attempts by police to close it down. According to the ILO, children are involved in other manifestations of the worst forms of child labor including work in agriculture, brick-making, street vending, and begging; these children are particularly vulnerable to trafficking.

Cambodia Rapped for Poor Anti-Trafficking Efforts

Cambodia remains a Tier 2 country, putting it in a category above China, which is on a “watch list,” and Burma, which is a major source of trafficking. Other Tier 2 countries in Asia include Indonesia, Laos and Singapore.

Friday, 01 July 2011

Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer | Phnom Penh

“Cambodia does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking. However, it is making significant efforts to do so.”

Cambodia remains both a source and destination for trafficked persons, especially for the sex trade, fishing industry and increasingly labor export to Malaysia, an annual US report says.

“Cambodia does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking,” according to the US State Department, which issued its annual human trafficking report this week. “However, it is making significant efforts to do so.”

The country remains a Tier 2 country, putting it in a category above China, which is on a “watch list,” and Burma, which is a major source of trafficking. Other Tier 2 countries in Asia include Indonesia, Laos and Singapore. “Endemic” corruption remains a major problem to curb trafficking, the report said.

Trafficking a Global Threat: US

By Taing Sarada, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
09 June 2008

Cambodia may have moved out of US "watch list" status for its efforts to combat human trafficking, but it still must improve its efforts, US officials said.

The US moved Cambodia onto its list of "tier 2" nations last week, saying it had improved its efforts but still fell short of US standards for combating trafficking.

“Globally, human trafficking is a multi-dimensional threat," US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in the State Department's annual Trafficking in Persons report. "It deprives people of their human rights and dignity. It increases global health risks. It bankrolls the growth of organized crime and it undermines the rule of law. In recent years we’ve witnessed a hopeful global movement uniting civil society, governments, and international organizations-not just to confront this crime, but to abolish it.”

Ambassador to Cambodia Joseph Mussomeli, who is currently in the US, said Cambodia had shown a clear commitment over the last two years to fight trafficking, though the government does acknowledge it has a "serious problem."

Nation’s human trafficking reputation climbs a notch in US eyes [... but still not good enough yet]

Friday, 06 June 2008
Dan Poynton
The Mekong Times

Cambodia’s notorious international reputation for human trafficking is gradually improving, although both the US and Cambodian governments agree that a lot of work needs to be done before the Kingdom can truly shake off one of its worst stigmas.

On Wednesday the US government released its annual Trafficking in Persons Report (TIPR), announcing that Cambodia’s human trafficking status has improved according to the US’s official ranking system.

“The upgrade reflects our recognition that the Cambodian government is engaged in combating trafficking,” said US Embassy Charge d’Affaires Piper Campbell, speaking yesterday at a joint US Embassy and Interior Ministry press conference discussing the TIPR. “Trafficking in Cambodia is still indeed a problem. [However] it’s an international problem; it also occurs in the US,” said Campbell, adding that the US has spent over US$14 million on anti-trafficking in Cambodia since 2003.

This year, the US’s TIPR said Cambodia is not fully complying with minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking, but it is making significant efforts to do so. It ranked Cambodia as Tier 2 in its three-tiered ranking system for countries with significant numbers of trafficking victims. For the last two years, Cambodia was ranked Tier 2 Watch List, which is a probation list for Tier 2 countries which are not increasing their efforts to improve or whose number of trafficking victims is significantly increasing. In 2005 Cambodia was relegated to the most egregious level of Tier 3.

“Despite the success we have attained, we understand we have much work to do,” said Interior Minister Sar Kheng at the event. “I cannot make a guess on how many years before Cambodia reaches Tier 1 [the most favorable ranking] ... but we know we have work to do.” He said that, due to the government’s efforts, Cambodia has reached Tier 2 for the first time since 2004.

The TIPR cited the government’s new national anti-trafficking task force, increased law enforcement against traffickers, and February’s new Law on the Suppression of Human Trafficking and Commercial Sexual Exploitation as being notable improvements in Cambodia’s anti-human trafficking stance.

The TIRP said, however, that because of the pervasive corruption in Cambodia, “it is widely believed that some individuals, including police and judicial officials, are involved in trafficking.”

Trafficking Efforts Improving: US

By Heng Reaksmey, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
05 June 2008

Click here to listen to the program in Khmer

Cambodia does not fully comply with US standards on curbing human trafficking, but it has done enough in the past year to be taken off a "watch list," officials said Thursday.

In the US State Department's annual Trafficking in Persons report, Cambodia was upgraded to "tier 2" status.

Cambodia "is making significant efforts" to comply with minimum standards, according to the report. Cambodia has not enjoyed "tier 2" status since 2004, but was raised due to "increased engagement in combating trafficking in persons over the previous year," the report says.

Interior Minister Sar Kheng said he appreciated the evaluation on human trafficking, and he said the government planned to do more in the future to curb the illegal practice.

Cambodian minister promises action against sex workers' abusers

Friday, June 6
By KER MUNTHIT, Associated Press Writer
AP

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia - A Cambodian Cabinet minister said Thursday he would take legal action against law enforcement personnel if there was evidence that they misused their authority to abuse local sex workers.

Interior Minister Sar Kheng made the remark a day after about 200 Cambodian sex workers claimed their colleagues had been physically and sexually abused in custody. The female and male sex workers made the allegations during a peaceful protest Wednesday against a recent crackdown on prostitution.

Police began rounding up workers from brothels, bars and parks in March, detaining them for a week to 10 days at a rehabilitation center for sex workers on the outskirts of the capital, Phnom Penh.

Cambodian law does not explicitly define prostitution as illegal, but authorities frown upon commercial sex and routinely launch such sweeps.

During the recent protest, sex workers said that many of their colleagues had been unlawfully detained and that some guards at the rehabilitation center had abused them.

In the recent protest, 32-year-old prostitute Chan Dina, a member of the sex workers' advocacy group Cambodian Prostitutes Union, said some of her colleagues "were beaten and gang-raped by the center guards." She said they did not use condoms.

Sar Kheng said the government "will take legal action against any official alleged to have abused sex workers."

"We have asked for evidence about any official or group involved in abuse or mistreatment of sex workers, but so far we have not received anything concrete about that yet," he said.

He was speaking at a news conference about the release of the Cambodia chapter of U.S. State Department's 2008 Trafficking in Persons report.

The report gave Cambodia an improved ranking of "Tier 2," up from levels it had held for the previous four years, when it had been described as "a source and destination country for trafficked persons" due to the government's allegedly inadequate efforts.

Sar Kheng said Cambodia would not allow its rating to slip down again.

US upgrades Cambodia's anti-human trafficking rating

Once a teeming red light district, Street 70 in Phnom Penh is mostly quiet today. Authorities in recent weeks have pushed to rid the city of visible signs of the sex trade. (Tracey Shelton)

Thursday, 05 June 2008
Written by Seth Meixner
The Phnom Penh Post

The US government has upgraded Cambodia's anti-human trafficking rating for the first time since 2006, saying that the Kingdom has made a significant effort to combat people smuggling.

The country has been placed this year in Tier 2, the middle category in the US State Department's annual Trafficking in Persons report, putting it alongside countries like Chile, Angola and El Salvador, which are among the 170 countries assessed.

Since 2006 Cambodia has languished on the Tier 2 Watch List after being relegated to the lowest category, Tier 3, in 2005.

"The Royal Government of Cambodia does not fully comply with the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so," said the State Department in its report released on June 5.

"Cambodia is placed on Tier 2 for the first time since 2004 due to the government’s increased engagement in combating trafficking in persons over the previous year," it added.

The assessment follows Cambodia's passage of new anti-trafficking legislation which criminalized all forms of human trafficking, as well as the formation in April 2007 of a national anti-trafficking taskforce.

"This legislation provides law enforcement authorities the power to investigate all forms of trafficking and is a powerful tool in efforts to prosecute and convict traffickers and have them face stringent punishments," the State Department said.

"High-level government officials have spoken publicly about a 'zero-tolerance' policy for officials profiting from or colluding in trafficking in persons," it added.

But the new legislation has been sharply criticized by advocates for commercial sex workers who say the law has also led to an increase in abuses by authorities cracking down on prostitution.

Many sex workers, advocates claim, have been beaten, raped or robbed while in police detention, and the mass closure of brothels has hindered efforts curb the spread of HIV/Aids and other sexually transmitted diseases.

"This law ... increases violence, discrimination and human rights abuses against sex workers. It allows for corruption to spread among law enforcers," said Pich Sokchea of the Women's Network for Unity, who was speaking June 4 at a rally by sex workers against the legislation.

"Many times, when the brothels are raided police rape the women before arresting them," added Sokchea, who is also a sex worker.

Despite its progress, Cambodia remains a source and destination country for persons trafficked both for sex or labor, the State Department points out.

"Women and girls are trafficked for commercial sexual exploitation to Thailand and Malaysia.... Some Cambodian male migrant workers returning from India, South Korea, and Malaysia reported being subjected to conditions of forced labor and debt bondage," it said.

"Children are trafficked to Thailand and Vietnam to beg or work on the streets selling candy or flowers or shining shoes," it added, recommending that the government increase anti-trafficking training for authorities and step up court prosecutions of people smugglers.