Tin Sokhavuth
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| Five women were saved by the capital’s anti-human trafficking and juvenile protection police from being trafficked to China. National Police |
A report published last week by the UN Action for Cooperation Against Trafficking in Persons (UN-ACT) says the main cause of human trafficking from Cambodia to China was a lack of jobs and low wages, forcing many young women to look at opportunities abroad.
“In Cambodia, a lack of jobs and low wages results in many young women looking for opportunities outside their home country,” said the report.
The report was based on interviews with 42 Cambodian women between September 2014 and March 2015.
The report said many of the women, whose ages ranged from 18 to 37, were recruited by agencies working without transparency. In many cases in China, those women were forced to marry Chinese men to find jobs.
Their marriages often resulted in disappointment because they were told about fortune and opportunity, but ended up getting married to poor men living in rural areas.
Also, in China, those Cambodian women lived in captivity – food was withheld and communication and freedom of movement were restricted.
They also were threatened with paying back the travel costs to China ranging from $2,000 to $8,000. So their only choice was to get married to a Chinese man, the report added.
When the women tried to escape, some struggled to reach the Cambodian embassy or consulate which was far from where they lived.
During their escape, some women asked Chinese police to help them, but were instead sent back to their Chinese husbands.
The report concluded by recommending the two countries create better migration channels, including a marriage service.
“Current restrictions only serve to make migrants who continue to move to China for marriage purposes more vulnerable to abuse and exploitation,” it read.
Suon Bunsak, secretary-general of the Cambodian Human Rights Action Committee, said that to tackle this problem, the government was enforcing the Anti-Human Trafficking Law by punishing agencies that recruit Cambodian women to China for different purposes including marriage.
“The agencies that recruit Cambodian women to get married to Chinese men have to study the reasons for marriage carefully. If something goes wrong, they have to take responsibility according to the law,” he said.
On the other hand, according to the US State Department’s 2016 Trafficking in Persons (TiP) report in June, Cambodia was a place where men, women and children were subjected to forced labor and sex trafficking.
“Significant numbers of women from rural areas are recruited under false pretenses to travel to China to enter into marriages with Chinese men; some are subjected to forced factory labor or forced prostitution,” said the report.
However, the TiP report added that the Cambodian government was making efforts to reach the minimum standards in term of tackling the problem of human trafficking.
“The government of Cambodia does not fully meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking; however, it is making significant efforts to do so,” it added.
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