PHNOM PENH– Cambodia has put together a 14-person working group to fight online scams in cities and provinces to step up its efforts to deal with the problem, as U.S. report continues to rate the country low in terms of human trafficking and online fraud.

Touch Sokhak, spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said that the major job of this committee is to look into internet scams and stop human trafficking, labor or sex exploitation, and any violence against the victims.

The Interior Ministry issued an order on June 30 that set up a committee to fight online scams. The committee's job is to investigate all types of online scams and take legal action against the criminals. 

The group also must carry out the tasks listed in Government Guide No. 07 from August 18, 2019, which is about strengthening the management of the domestic and international electronic gambling business.

The US State Department's global "Trafficking in Persons" report, which came out at the end of last month, says that Cambodia's government is not meeting minimum standards for ending trafficking in persons for the second year in a row and is not making significant efforts, so the country stays in Tier 3.

Tier 3 countries, according to the US State Department, are governments which do not fully comply with the minimum standards and are not making significant efforts to do so.

“The government consistently failed to screen foreign and Cambodian workers for trafficking indicators and selectively intervened in cases involving foreign victims from online scam operations, and often only when foreign governments applied consistent advocacy for their citizens,” the report read.

But however scathing the US State Department report might be, it also acknowledges Cambodia’s efforts to deal with the problems, such as its victim support centre, its work with other countries on anti-trafficking investigations, and its start of an online course for government officials on how to identify trafficking victims. 

Touch Sokhak from the Interior Ministry stressed the need for international unity to fight human trafficking and online scams. He suggested that authorities work together instead of putting pressure on each other.

Sokhak said, “We are working on it because it is an international problem that affects not only Cambodia but also each other.” We shouldn’t put political pressure on any countries to solve this problem; instead, we should work together to solve it. 

The Interior Ministry spokesperson emphasized that the 14-person committee was not just created.

Sokhak pointed out that the same problems were worked on by a committee during the government’s Sixth mandate. He said that changes have been made to the committee’s members and tasks to make sure that the work gets done well.

“In the Seventh mandate, Interior Minister Sar Sokha set up this working group to look into online scams in the future, especially in Preah Sihanouk province,” said Sokhak. “This is what you were told here [in the committee] is to make the working group more effective.”

As of this April, 250 Indian nationals who were believed to be the victims of online scams in Cambodia were rescued, with 5,000 Indian citizens allegedly being forced into cyber-slavery in the country. This was reported by the Indian Express on March 29.

In 2023, the UN Human Rights Office reported that 100,000 people were forced into online scam centres by organized criminal gangs, and had to work in romance investment scams, crypto fraud, and illegal gambling in Southeast Asia.

Sokhak said that Cambodia is trying to stop all scams in the country so that people no longer say, "Cambodia is a haven for criminals."