Cambodia Fight against Migrant Smuggling and Crimes

By Sok Lak

The Ministry of Interior in cooperation with the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and Government of Canada organized a training course on August 25-26 to increase efforts to combat migrant smuggling and related crimes in Cambodia.

H.E. Chhou Buneang, Secretary of State of Ministry of Interior, said “the movement from one country to another country is increasing day to day. However, most of activities are illegally, Cambodia also face that kind of situation. “The fighting against human trafficking faces a lot of treatment, but we know the activities which move people from one place to another.”

She mentioned that nowadays a lot of people go to work aboard through border both legally and illegally. “They are most likely to face the dangers of trafficking for illegally workers.”

Currently, there are companies in Cambodia have been approved to send local labor forces to work at foreign countries legally, but these companies need to wait until foreign countries need workers to work there. Therefore, some people cannot wait till that time, so they go to work illegally.

H.E. Chhou Buneang also call on relevant law enforcement officers to prevent and combat trafficking of all phenomena especially border corridors.

Sjef Broekhaar, Senior Regional Immigration and Border Management Sepecialist of IOM Regional Office for Asia and the Pacific, said: “the irregular migration takes various forms such as entering a country legally with genuine document and overstay or abuse their visa conditions and some irregular migrants decide to cross the borders illegally either on their own or with the assistance of a smuggler.” “As migration policies in destination countries become tougher, criminal networks are appearing to facilitate smuggling of migrants across state borders.

As Cambodia is bordered by Laos (541 km), Thailand (803 km) and Vietnam (1,228 km) with the southern border consists of a 443 km coastline along the Gulf of Thailand, the migrant smuggling is a relatively recent phenomenon in Cambodia, he added. He stressed that to response migrant smuggling, it needs cross-border technical cooperation targeting smugglers and smuggling routes, return and assistance to smuggled migrants and awareness-raising on the risks of irregular migration and improving labor migration management.

Source: The Southeast Asia Weekly, August 28-September 3, 2011, Vol. 5, Issue 35, Page 12