Human trafficking

Even by his own admission, it is an extraordinary change in fortunes for Adam Whittington. Eight months ago, the so-called “child recovery agent” was languishing in a stark Lebanese jail facing kidnapping charges after a failed attempt to snatch two children from the streets of Beirut ...

Cambodian and Japanese authorities have rescued seven Cambodian women forced into sexual slavery after being lured to Japan with the promise of restaurant jobs. ...

Interior Minister Sar Kheng blamed the country’s continual problems with trafficking on porous borders and local government officials, who he said during a speech yesterday were frequently ignoring edicts from the national government and even orders he personally delivered himself. ...

The NGO Open Institute has launched a new online service that aims to help Cambodian unskilled labourers find jobs within the country as part of an effort to discourage worker migration in hopes of reducing human trafficking. ...

A report published last week by the UN Action for Cooperation Against Trafficking in Persons (UN-ACT) says the main cause of human trafficking from Cambodia to China was a lack of jobs and low wages, forcing many young women to look at opportunities abroad. ...

A new report detailing the experiences of 42 women trafficked from Cambodia as brides to China found that officials in both countries were largely unsupportive in helping women escape once they were caught in unwanted domestic captivity. ...

The number of Cambodian women now thought to be caught in Saudi Arabia’s sex industry after being trafficked in the past year has risen to more than 20, officials said on Wednesday. However, the government remained tight-lipped about its efforts to rescue the women, while two ...

A California judge has ordered lawyers representing two US seafood companies to appear in court for a scheduling conference following a lawsuit filed on behalf of seven Cambodians who claim they were duped into a life of servitude working in factories that supply the firms. ...

Widespread corruption among government officials is thwarting Cambodia’s efforts to combat human trafficking, the U.S. State Department said in an annual assessment that upgraded the country’s ranking, but found that it still failed to meet minimum standards.   ...

Keo Rotha was sitting in his small brick house in a quiet village in Pursat province, surrounded by coconut trees and a bamboo fence, looking at his old phone while waiting for a call to tell him the results of the court case he and ...

Malaysia and Cambodia are working to conclude negotiations for an agreement on tackling human trafficking.   ...

Military police have identified the suspected leader of what they believe to be a sex trafficking ring masquerading as a masseuse-training agency as a 40-year-old businesswoman with Cambodian and Thai citizenship who owns karaoke parlors in both countries.   ...

The Cambodian embassy in Thailand has come to the aid of its citizens after authorities caught two Thai fishing boats over the past month carrying 15 Cambodian laborers that they believed to be trafficking victims, according to a Foreign Affairs Ministry statement yesterday. ...

Human trafficking out of Cambodia is on the rise, according to an Interior Ministry report released on Thursday, and is being fueled by relaxed border controls and economic disparity in the region, according to a separate U.N. report.    ...

The National Committee on Combating Human Trafficking released its annual report yesterday, with figures showing an improved effort by authorities since 2014 to crackdown on the trade. ...

Two Cambodian women will return home tomorrow after spending almost two years each living in China with abusive husbands, officials said yesterday.. ...

As many as 60,000 Cambodian deportees from Thailand are expected to cross back into Cambodia this year, according to Samaritan’s Purse, an international NGO that works with deportees and migrants along the border with Thailand. ...

Four suspects in a human trafficking case were tried by Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday over allegations that they organized the forced marriage of a 21-year-old woman to a Chinese husband in 2015. ...

Cambodia signed an agreement with Vietnam and Laos during a meeting on Thursday to enhance efforts to fight human trafficking—with Vietnam reporting at the meeting that police discovered nearly 90 human trafficking rings along its border with Cambodia last year. ...

Some 3,000 Vietnamese women and children were suspected to have been trafficked to Laos and Cambodia in 2015, the Tuoi tre (Youth) newspaper reported.The women were sold into prostitution and children were forced into hard physical labor. ...

A group of seven Vietnamese and Cambodian girls were freed during a raid on a brothel in Battambang province on Wednesday night in which three suspected brokers were arrested, according to anti-human trafficking police. ...

At an event marking National Anti-Human Trafficking Day in Phnom Penh on Saturday, Prime Minister Hun Sen warned that officials who collude with traffickers must be punished. ...

Four women are on their way back to cambodia after being forced to work under brutal conditions in malaysia, the foreign ministry said yesterday. The four had fled their workplace and sought help from the cambodian embassy. ...

Six Cambodian women were convicted by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court and sentenced to seven years in prison each for conspiring to traffic three Cambodian girls to be sold as brides in China. ...