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The Interior Ministry said Friday it rescued more than 900 trafficking and sexual-exploitation victims and arrested over 400 suspects last year, in an annual briefing that comes amid rising international pressure and sweeping crackdowns on scam centers the U.N. estimates rely on at least 100,000 forced or coerced workers.
The ministry’s spokesperson Touch Sokhak said the National Committee for Counter Trafficking referred more than 270 cases to court and rescued 624 women and 282 minors from trafficking in 2025.
He said authorities handled several thousand intervention requests that year and confirmed more than 1,600 trafficking cases involving victims from dozens of countries. Courts processed roughly 370 cases, while the committee assisted more than 350 victims with protection and reintegration, including repatriations.
“Cambodia has demonstrated strong determination to combat human trafficking and sexual exploitation at all levels of government and among relevant authorities, ” he said, adding that the trafficking crimes are transnational and pose major challenges for identification, tracking and suppression.
The figures come from the same year the United States ranked Cambodia Tier 3 in its Trafficking in Persons Report, saying the country does not meet minimum standards to combat trafficking and is not making significant efforts to do so. Cambodia was also labeled a “state sponsor” of trafficking in the 2025 report.
U.S. criticism centered on Cambodia’s long-documented harboring of the online scam industry and its reliance on forced labor. Authorities this year have launched a nationwide sweep, saying all scam networks will be eliminated by April, a campaign whose durability analysts have questioned.
At the briefing’s close, Prime Minister Hun Manet stressed the need to crack down on all crimes, including online scams and human trafficking.
“We must come together with the commitment to clean our house by expelling all evil from the country in order to bring back good things for our nation and people.” also urging citizens to support the mission and emphasizing that officials found involved in illicit activity will not be allowed to act with impunity.
Local rights groups have welcomed stronger enforcement but echoed the systemic concerns raised in the U.S. report.
“What’s important to note is that we rarely see the arrests of major traffickers,” said Am Sam Ath, operations director of Licadho, citing the scale of trafficking networks in Cambodia and the region. He said lasting prevention requires tackling corruption, strengthening cooperation with regional partners and ensuring all offenders, regardless of influence, face the law.
Mouen Tola, executive director of the labor rights group Central, applauded the ministry’s reported crackdowns but urged continued focus on dismantling the scam industry.
“What we are most worried about right now is that there appears to be a push encouraging Khmer people to work in the online scam sector,” he said, pointing to the recent mass exodus of foreign workers from suspected scam centers.
“I urge the government to take concrete measures to prevent and eliminate online scam operations so that they do not exist in Cambodia,” he added.
