"U.S. Reprimands Cambodia’s Trafficking, Online Scam Response:  Report", 26 June 2024

Cambodia was ranked lowest for its response to human trafficking by the U.S. for the third year in a row, with a new report saying that Cambodian officials have not done enough …

The report ranks countries based on their acknowledgment, response to and prevention of all forms of trafficking, and Cambodia has retained the lowest ranking – Tier 3 – as foreign workers in particular have increasingly been trafficked, detained by and tortured in shadowy online businesses conducting various forms of financial fraud, from the now-illicit online gambling industry to forex schemes, crypto investment frauds and online shopping scams.

This diverse palette of scams has been broadly called “pig butchering”, as international news outlets cover stories of victims in other countries who lose large sums of money after chatting with a scammer who have been traced to the Mekong region, including forced workers in Cambodia…

The report also noted other forms of trafficking that target Cambodian citizens have persisted with insufficient government response, including debt bondage in the brick kiln industry, trafficking into deep-sea fishing fleets, and sex trafficking within Cambodia’s border.

… Chou Bun Eng, permanent vice-chair of the National Committee for Counter Trafficking, defended Cambodia’s response to the alleged trafficking into the cyberscam industry, saying the country struggled to keep up with the cross-border and technical nature of the crimes…

The State Department noted that there are reportedly some 100,000 workers trafficked and forced to work in the online gambling and scam industry, citing a UN Human Rights report last year that the government also denied...