"2024 Trafficking in Persons Report: Cambodia", 24 June 2024

The Government of Cambodia does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking and is not making significant efforts to do so; therefore Cambodia remained on Tier 3. Despite the lack of significant efforts, the government took some steps to address trafficking, including opening a victim support center, cooperating with foreign governments on anti-trafficking investigations, and launching an online trafficking victim identification training course available to government officials.

However, corruption and official complicity – including by high-level senior government officials – in trafficking crimes remained widespread and endemic during the reporting period; this included the exploitation of tens of thousands of victims in forced criminality in online scam operations in Cambodia. Officials actively impeded countervailing efforts, including reportedly undermining anti-trafficking law enforcement and victim protection efforts and dispelling reported accusations through minimization and denial in public messaging of the prevalence and severity of online scam operations, including reports of government complicity... Involvement of officials and economic elites resulted in selective and politically motivated enforcement of laws, inhibiting effective law enforcement action against trafficking crimes, which remained widespread during the year. The government consistently failed to screen foreign and Cambodian workers for trafficking indicators and selectively intervened in cases involving foreign victims from online scam operations, and often only when foreign governments applied consistent advocacy for their citizens… The government did not report prosecuting any labor traffickers despite widespread reporting across multiple industries of adult and child labor trafficking. Authorities did not investigate or hold criminally accountable any officials involved in widespread, credible reports of complicity, in particular with unscrupulous business owners who subjected thousands of men, women, and children throughout the country to human trafficking in brick kilns and entertainment establishments.