Illegal labor

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. ...

Nearly 100 Vietnamese laborers were detained for deportation Tuesday after they were found to be working in the country illegally during a sweep of construction sites on Phnom Penh’s Koh Pich island as part of the Interior Ministry’s seemingly arbitrary enforcement of the immigration law. ...

On the southern outskirts of Cambodia’s capital, a ramshackle factory turns out tens of thousands of bricks each month. Pale rows of freshly fired bricks wait for buyers under the corrugated iron roof, while a 50-meter-long oven leaks a dull heat as it bakes a ...

Three Chinese nationals were jailed by the Phnom Penh Municipal Court on Monday for attempting to smuggle four teenage Cambodian girls to China, while the sentences of two Cambodians involved in the trafficking operation were reduced to time served. ...

The Moldovan manager of an Italian pizzeria and wine shop in Phnom Penh was on Monday charged with the “unlawful removal” of a 19-year-old girl from her home country whom she allegedly forced to work without pay and subjected to sexual exploitation, according to officials ...

Three Cambodian women were repatriated this weekend after being duped by brokers and sent to into inhumane circumstances abroad, including forced marriage and unpaid labour, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. ...

The Board of Trade of Thailand and the Thai Chamber of Commerce, along with four fishing-industry associations and leading players in the sector, vowed Tuesday to continue strenuous efforts to solve the problem of human trafficking and other labour issues, in compliance with the government’s ...

More than 200 Cambodians who were victims of human traffickers and endured years of hardship on Thai fishing boats returned home on Thursday, according to the Cambodian government. ...

A lawyer for prominent rights advocate Ny Chakrya on Wednesday confirmed that she had received a lawsuit against her client from a pair of court officials in Siem Reap province who accuse him of defamation and other crimes. ...

The labor minister said Tuesday there were so few underage workers in the garment industry that “we can count them on our fingers,” but a unionist and an NGO countered that child labor was still rife in the country’s smaller garment factories. ...

The Food and Agriculture Organisation has announced a new guide to assess child labour in agriculture and the impacts that various development programmes can have. ...

A gathering of some 50 youths from five different provinces met in Phnom Penh last week to discuss the problems of forced migration and its dangers. The Community Youth Network leaders came from provinces where migrant work is common, to discuss how to make it ...

Child-protection NGOs and government officials are urging tourists and residents of Cambodia to stop giving money to street children because these well-intentioned gestures can have devastating effects. ...

Seventeen Vietnamese construction workers were arrested and the passports of 142 Chinese construction workers confiscated when immigration officers raided a building site in Phnom Penh on Tuesday afternoon. ...