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. (Photo: AP)

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.

“Cambodian men, women, and children migrate to Thailand, Malaysia, and other countries for work, and many are subsequently subjected to sex trafficking or forced to labor in the Thai fishing and seafood processing industry, on agricultural plantations, in factories, in domestic work, or for begging and street selling,” the State Department found.

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