Mekong Migration Network

SIX Cambodian women trafficked to Thailand under the pretext of receiving legitimate jobs and later forced into prostitution were rescued last week in a raid on a karaoke parlour in Thailand’s Trat province.

Ly Sotheary, executive director of the Healthcare Centre for Children in Koh Kong province, said the six victims – including one minor – were being sheltered at the Ban Krettrakarn Girl’s Shelter in Nonthaburi province. She said the women were being cared for by employees of the Labour Rights Promotion Network, a Thailand-based organisation.

A seventh trafficking victim escaped the karaoke parlour last month, she said, and provided information that led to the raid, which took place on August 5. The raid resulted in the arrests of 21 people, including the victims, other Cambodian prostitutes, customers and two brothel owners.

Thai police eventually released everyone except a Thai man and a Cambodian woman, who owned and ran the karaoke parlour.

The pair have been remanded in custody while awaiting charges in Trat province, which is adjacent to Koh Kong province.

Ly Sotheary said the six Cambodian women would remain in Thailand to provide evidence in the case against the two brothel owners.

The women were “cheated”, she said, after they were promised jobs as maids or in garment factories, fisheries or restaurants.

She said that representatives from HCC would visit the six victims in the coming weeks and observe the trial if the suspects were charged.

Speaking under the condition of anonymity, a 30-year-old prostitute who worked at the karaoke bar in Trat province and returned to Cambodia last week said that she felt sorry for the victims, especially the underage girl.

“I was very embarrased when we were arrested, but I really pity the true victims,” she said.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Koy Kuong said that he was unaware of the case. Bun Leut, Koh Kong provincial governor, could not be reached for comment

Friday, 13 August 2010 15:02 Kim Yuthana

Two Vietnamese nationals appeared at Phnom Penh Municipal Court yesterday on charges of procuring prostitution for allegedly running a brothel out of a coffee shop in the capital’s Daun Penh district.

Chang Ty Hok, 35, and 23-year-old Un Samnang were arrested on Street 63 in Daun Penh’s Chaktomuk commune in October by police who discovered 25 Vietnamese prostitutes at the scene.

Un Samnang, who also holds a Cambodian identification card, told the court that although he had accepted US$80 to allow the coffee shop’s proprietors to rent the facility under his name, he was not involved in the sale of sex. An elderly Khmer Krom woman named Ky Nang was responsible for the criminal activity, he said.

Judge Suos Sam Ath swiftly rejected this testimony.

“Don’t deny this and put the blame on another person called Ky Nang when there’s no one with this name,” he said.

“Based on the confessions of more than 20 Vietnamese women, it was you who served as the boss of this coffee shop and who collected half the money when the women served sex to customers for $5.”

Chang Ty Hok also denied the allegations against her, saying she had only worked as a cleaner at the coffee shop. Suos Sam Ath, however, said these statements were not credible.

“Don’t deny this, because several prostitutes told police that you always collected 10,000 riels from them on behalf of Un Samnang every time they had a customer,” Suos Sam Ath said. “You were their madam.”

In written testimony read out by a court clerk yesterday, one Vietnamese woman said she had been lured to Cambodia by the promise of a job at the coffee shop earning $50 per month. She said she was then forced to become a prostitute, serving four to five customers each day and giving half her earnings to the shop’s owners.

Another woman said in her written testimony that she had come to the shop voluntarily to work as a prostitute.

Suos Sam Ath said a verdict would be announced on August 12.

Tuesday, 03 August 2010 15:02 Chrann Chamroeun

STUNG Treng province officials released 19 Cambodians who were deported from Laos last week, and the man accused of attempting to smuggle them into Thailand has been sent to the provincial court for investigation, officials said yesterday.

Sun Leang, chief of the provincial Anti-Human Trafficking and Juvenile Protection Bureau, said the 19 would-be migrant workers, who each paid the broker 50,000 riels (US$11.80) to ensure their safe passage, were re-educated before their release.

He added that a further seven Cambodians remained on the run and had perhaps already made it to Thailand. “Cambodian and Lao authorities are searching for them to bring back to Cambodia,” he said.

He said provincial officials arrested a broker allegedly engaging in similar practices earlier in the month, along with another in May. He added that he believed migrants were increasingly being routed through Laos in response to steeper bribes charged by officials at the Poipet crossing in Banteay Meanchey province.

“Now, most people change their behaviour when crossing the border,” he said. “Before, they travelled through Poipet, but they have to spend more money.”

Hou Sam Ol, provincial monitor for the rights group Adhoc, said the 19 Cambodians likely had no other employment options apart from those
in Thailand, and called on officials to create more jobs in Cambodia.

Monday, 19 July 2010 15:01 Mom Kunthear

CAMBODIA’S migrant labourers could present a growing problem for officials in the fight against human trafficking, observers say.

Though a US state department report released last week suggested Cambodia has taken positive steps in the last year to combat trafficking, some are also warning that the issues posed by migrant workers remain unresolved.

Manfred Hornung, a legal adviser with rights group Licadho, said his group has worked with roughly 60 smuggled migrants who have returned to Cambodia over the past 18 months – people who he said represent “the tip of the iceberg” when it comes to labour trafficking.

“These guys are virtual slave labourers,” Hornung said.

Severe conditions are common; some witness frequent beatings and murder on the fishing vessels to which many are sold, he said.

“In many cases, they are really horrific stories of human trafficking involving male migrant workers for labour exploitation,” he said.

Part of the difficulty in addressing the problem lies in the fact that there are no clear statistics to illustrate it.

The World Bank has estimated there are roughly 350,000 documented Cambodian migrants abroad. Observers say the number of undocumented workers is likely just as high.

But estimates also suggest that between 250,000 and 300,000 young people in Cambodia are entering the labour market every year, according to the International Labour Organisation (ILO). If jobs are scarce, these young workers will be forced to look abroad for income, Hornung said.

“You can imagine there are a lot of young people now who have to look for alternatives,” he said.

Bith Kimhong, director of the anti-human trafficking department at the Ministry of Interior, acknowledged that many Cambodians are being trafficked into forced labour abroad, but said officials are stepping up enforcement efforts.

“The government has set out its 2010 strategy for investigating cross-border crimes,” he said.

No convictions
The US state department Trafficking in Persons report released last week cited a recent surge in prosecutions of traffickers in removing Cambodia from its watchlist of countries judged to be not doing enough to combat the problem. However, all but one of the 36 convictions reported were for sex trafficking, suggesting that legal consequences for those engaged in labour trafficking have been minimal.

“Labour trafficking among Cambodians migrating abroad for work is a growing problem that will require greater attention from authorities in the coming year,” the report states.

Monday, 21 June 2010 15:02 Irwin Loy

Human trafficking in Thailand’s fishing industry has worsened with the number of victims soaring three times higher, the Mirror Foundation revealed yesterday.
Up to 138 humantrafficking cases were reported to the foundation last year - three times more than the number of cases reported in 2008, Ekkalak Lumchumkhae, head of the foundation’s antihuman trafficking centre said at a press conference yesterday.

Since the fishing industry suffers from a severe shortage of workers - 10,000 as last reported by the Federation of Thai Industries - human traffickers it as an opportunity to make money by deceiving locals and aliens from border countries to work in extremely harsh conditions.

Moreover, Ekkalak said the shortage of workers was likely to get worse.

The centre blacklisted four seaports with severe problem of human trafficking: Songkhla, Chon Buri, Samut Sakhon and Samut Prakan.

Human trafficking in other sectors, such as prostitution and begging, remained unchanged over 2008 and 2009, the centre’s report said.

“People are accustomed to seeing child beggars who are mostly Cambodians on pedestrian bridges and prostitutes waiting to pick up customers in public areas,” Ekkalak said. “I don’t want people to ignore this, but to notify the authorities.”

Sompong Srakaew, director of Labour Rights Promotion Network (LPN), said the number of beggars in Bangkok had dropped because the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration managed to stop them from coming to the capital. However, they begged in Pattaya, Nakhon Ratchasima and Songkhla instead.

AntiTrafficking Coordination Unit Northern Thailand manager Duan Wongsa said locals had not discussed the demand or the attitude of people who use prostitutes, and also asked if it was possible to campaign against the use of young girls.

Ekkalak pointed out that some local politicians and government officials had a hand in human trafficking, but the police were not brave enough to charge them under the AntiTrafficking in Persons Act 2008. “The act is not enforced properly,” Ekkalak said.

All of them called on related state agencies to come up with aggressive plans to deal with the problem.

“The Social Development and Human Security Ministry is providing training to improve its personnel’s capacity to operate antihuman trafficking jobs, but in practice they do not work well enough. We want related ministries to come up with aggressive plans,” Duan said.

By Wannapa Khaopa