Vietnam-Laos-Cambodia joint campaign curbs rise in human trafficking

Participants at the conference (Source: VNA)

The conference took place in Champasak province of Laos on March 14 with the participation of representatives from the Ministry of Security and the General Department of Police of Laos; the General Department of National Police under the Cambodia’s Ministry of the Interior; and the General Police Department under the Vietnamese Ministry of Public Security. Participants stressed that human trafficking remains a serious problem in the region and the world, with increasingly sophisticated and cunning methods and tricks. Human traffickers have taken advantage of the open-door and international integration policies of the three countries as well as the close socio-economic relations of communities along their shared borderlines, to organise human trafficking activities, they noted. Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia have also become transit places for taking victims to third countries. Human-trafficking rings and gangs mainly operate in areas bordering China. In the joint campaign, Vietnamese police uncovered ten cases of transporting Cambodian women to China through Vietnam. At the same time, participants said coordination between the three countries in border areas has remained limited, so many violations related to illegal immigration and cross-border human trafficking have not been detected and handled strictly. The situation has increased the risk of cross-border trafficking crime between the three Indochinese countries. They agreed to extend the campaign in 2018, focusing on raising public awareness of the work and measures to combat the crime, and further promoting cooperation among relevant agencies of the three countries in the work. It was also agreed that police forces of border provinces and districts in the three countries will hold bilateral or trilateral meetings to seek effective ways to fight the crime. The conference to review the 2018 work will be held in Vietnam.