Illegal labor

Less than a month after Cambodia was handed the second-lowest rating in the United States’ annual Trafficking in Persons report, a senior official is “optimistic” the Kingdom can eventually move up the ranking. ...

With the end of its four-year program to fight human trafficking approaching, USAID, partner organization Winrock International and the government’s National Committee to Combat Trafficking are taking stock of their progress. ...

Six Cambodian domestic workers were repatriated yesterday after spending three months in Malaysia where they were promised work by a broker but given only tourist visas. ...

Eight young girls were placed in the care of the Social Affairs Ministry on Thursday after Thai authorities found them begging and selling flowers in Thailand and sent them back to Cambodia, according to the ministry. ...

A suspected bride broker was arrested on Wednesday for allegedly tricking three Cambodian women into marrying men in China, according to a report filed by Phnom Penh police. ...

Human rights NGO Amnesty International on Tuesday voted to adopt a policy to “protect the human rights of sex workers”, notably putting forward suggestions to decriminalise the consensual sex trade while safeguarding sex workers from possible exploitation. ...

Six Cambodian women rescued from allegedly abusive conditions in China and Malaysia were returned home yesterday after the Ministry of Foreign Affairs intervened in their cases, officials said. ...

About 200 people gathered in Phnom Penh’s Russey Keo district on Sunday demanding the release of two women who were arrested last week for allegedly chaining up their 13-year-old niece and selling her for sex. ...

Fear of social reprisal may be causing Phnom Penh’s sex workers to seek abortions in the privacy of unregistered private clinics or at home. ...

Cambodia remains on a watch list at the US State Department, for failing to do enough to combat human trafficking. In its annual Trafficking in Persons report, the State Department kept Cambodia a “tier 2” country. ...

Cambodian human trafficking authorities charged a Chinese national on Thursday with attempting to illegally transport 18 men to work in China in what one government official said was the first such case of trafficking Cambodian men to the country. ...

More than 50 illegal Vietnamese migrant workers were arrested Wednesday while working on the construction site of luxury estates in Phnom Penh’s Sen Sok district, police said. ...

Another group of 33 Cambodian laborers, who were trafficked to work as illegal fishermen on fishing boats in Indonesia, returned home on Tuesday afternoon, Xinhua quoted Cambodian foreign ministry spokesman Chum Sounry said. ...

Amid numerous reports of Cambodian women being trafficked to China and men being used as forced labor on fishing boats, the U.S.’ latest Trafficking in Persons report again said Cambodia is not doing enough to combat human trafficking. ...

For the third straight year in a row, Cambodia has found itself on the Tier 2 Watch List of the US State Department’s annual Trafficking in Persons Report, a ranking reflective of a seeming inability to fully implement the country’s own anti-trafficking plan. ...

In their continuing effort to stop illegal fishing in Cambodian waters, the Kingdom’s Immigration Police impounded 11 Vietnamese fishing boats last week caught in Cambodian territorial waters off Koh Kong province and ordered their 39 crew members deported. ...

Authorities in Koh Kong province arrested 26 Vietnamese nationals on Tuesday after they found the group illegally living and fishing off of King Island in Kiri Sakor district. ...

Cambodia’s campaign against illegal Vietnamese workers continues with 26 Vietnamese arrested in two days of raids on furniture factories in central and southern Phnom Penh. ...

When hundreds of fishermen were rescued from a life of slavery on Thai fishing boats off the coast of Indonesia earlier this year, the world took notice. ...

Cambodian authorities must cooperate with Thailand to reform illegal fishing practices there, a lawmaker says. The governments of Cambodia and Thailand “have not been talking seriously to put strict conditions” on labor practices, she said. “They tend to deal with the problem case by casewith ...

Eight more rescued Cambodian fishermen were repatriated Tuesday from Indonesia’s Ambon Island, according to the Foreign Affairs Ministry, following the return of 230 others two weeks ago. ...

Eleven men were released and returned to Cambodia yesterday after spending more than a year in a Thai prison for illegal logging, a border official has said. ...

The International Justice Mission (IJM) yesterday lauded Cambodia’s progress in tackling the child sex trade but stressed more needed to be done, including authorising police to use undercover investigation techniques. ...

Five families whose daughters were illegally trafficked to Malaysia to serve as domestic workers earlier this year are seeking their safe return after receiving word of the mistreatment they are being made to endure, rights group Adhoc said yesterday. ...