UNIAP Cambodia

Who is being trafficked in Cambodia?

Of the officially repatriated cases, almost all victims repatriated from Thailand and Vietnam were children identified as being trafficked into begging or street selling and were from localized areas in key border provinces of Cambodia. The Cambodians repatriated from Malaysia and the Vietnamese repatriated from Cambodia were all women trafficked for the purpose of commercial sexual exploitation. While men are only newly acknowledged as victims of trafficking in Thailand with the passing of the new Thai human trafficking law, counter-trafficking NGOs report receiving increasing numbers of complaints from Cambodian men trafficked to Thailand to work in the fishing industry over the last few years. Within Cambodia, trafficking is predominantly women for commercial sexual exploitation and children and women for domestic work.

 

Source Provinces in Cambodia

Source provinces for domestic trafficking are usually highly populated rural areas in close proximity to urban/tourist centres, especially those susceptible to economic downturn such as that caused by severe droughts and flooding. Provinces commonly perceived by the NGO community in Cambodia as source provinces for domestic trafficking are Kampong Cham, Prey Veng, Kandal, Takeo, Battambang and Phnom Penh (particularly from fast developing urban slums).

 

Destination Cities in Cambodia

The most common destination provinces in Cambodia are: Phnom Penh (for commercial sexual exploitation, begging, domestic work, and labour exploitation); Koh Kong (for the fishing industry, construction and commercial sexual exploitation); Sihanoukville (for begging and commercial sexual exploitation); Siem Reap (for commercial sexual exploitation, begging, domestic work and construction) Poipet (for begging and commercial sexual exploitation); and Battambang (for commercial sexual exploitation). These trafficking destination hot-spots are specifically urban areas.

 

Cross Border Trafficking out of Cambodia

• Trafficking to Thailand of men women, children and for labour exploitation (especially begging and fishing), sexual exploitation, and domestic work.
• Trafficking to Vietnam of children for begging.
• Trafficking to Malaysia of men, women and children for sexual exploitation, labour exploitation (especially factory work and construction work) and domestic work.
• Trafficking further abroad to countries as far away as Saudi Arabia for domestic work, Taiwan and Korea for marriage, United States for adoption and Somalia for labour exploitation in the fishing industry etc.
• Vietnamese and Chinese are also trafficked through Cambodia to locations further abroad

 

Internal Trafficking Into and Within Cambodia

• Trafficking from Vietnam of children and women for commercial sexual exploitation. Vietnamese communities living within Cambodia are also particularly vulnerable to internal trafficking.
• Trafficking from further abroad (from countries such as China and Eastern Europe) for commercial sexual exploitation.
• Trafficking within Cambodia, largely from rural to urban areas of children and women for commercial sexual exploitation.