300 Taiwanese Victims Trapped in Cambodia Seek Rescue
Summary Report by Taiwan Weekly
Recently, it has been reported that Taiwanese youths who were lured to work in Cambodia by fraudulent organizations, have suffered inhumane treatment such as trafficking, sexual assault, and forced organ harvesting. It has aroused national attention. Three opposition Kuomintang (KMT) legislators rescued a 19-year-old man from Cambodia on August 18. According to statistics, at least 300 Taiwanese were trapped there. The Cambodian authorities have launched a comprehensive investigation and arrest action. Both the ruling and opposition legislators in the Legislative Yuan demanded that the government promptly to take action to rescue those stranded in Cambodia.
KMT legislators Hung Mong-kai, Cheng cheng-chien, and Wu Si-huai went to Cambodia a few days ago and successfully rescued a 19-year-old man surnamed Chen who was trapped. Legislator Cheng stated that Mr. Chen was deceived by a friend to work in Cambodia, and Chen’s family members anxiously petitioned to him for help. Three legislators then went to Cambodia to find rescue channels through Taiwanese businessmen and various contacts. The process was very difficult. Yet fortunately, the victim was rescued and safely went back home.
Legislator Cheng indicated that many Taiwanese businessmen, social figures and religious groups have launched rescue operations in Cambodia, and have rescued Taiwanese nationals one after another. The Tsai administration has established a special task force at the cabinet level, but there has been no specific rescue operation.
The Executive Yuan recently set up a special task force, and the National Police Agency launched a nation-wide home-visit investigation in order to comprehensively check whether any Taiwanese citizens who have traveled to Cambodia, Myanmar and other Southeastern countries in the past two years but lost contact or have not returned to Taiwan in due time. Spokesman Luo Ping-cheng of the Executive Yuan stated on August 18 that 4,679 households have been surveyed. A total of 373 may be victims, and their ages are concentrated between 20 and 45. Thirty-nine people returned to Taiwan through assistance or on their own, and more than 300 people may still be trapped. Since some family members are unaware the whereabouts of those missing ones, there may be some more potential victims.
The Department of East Asian and Pacific Affairs of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) stated that in the first half of this year, more than 6,000 Taiwanese went to Cambodia, and only more than 3,400 returned to Taiwan, of which 300 have filed cases for help.
The Ministry of the Interior issued a press release on August 19 and pointed out that so far, about the “Cambodia Case”, all police offices nation-wide have received a total of 420 reports, of which 46 people have returned to Taiwan safely due to the efforts of the government and many other channels. In addition, from now on all the police offices and national procuratorate will integrate all intelligences in order to comprehensively clean up the underworld gangs and human trafficking organizations.
In response to the request from Taiwan that seeking Cambodian government’s assistance to rescue those more than 300 citizens who have been lured by criminal groups and trapped in Cambodia, the Cambodian Interior Minister Sar Kheng said on August 19 that the authorities are conducting a large-scale investigation of foreigners who may be victims of human trafficking and sexual exploitation. There are currently 83 suspects been sent to the court, including 12 foreigners from four countries involved in crime cases. There are 156 victims been rescued, in which 106 were women.
MOFA stated that it has instructed its Ho Chi Minh City Office in Vietnam to strengthen ties with the Cambodian police and judicial authorities. (Currently Taiwan has no Representative Office in Cambodia.) Once a Taiwan national is arrested by the Cambodian authorities, we must try to seek the Cambodian government’s cooperation, as to applying the principle of “repatriation by nationality”, to send the suspect back to Taiwan for investigation and trial.
Legislator Hong Meng-kai of the KMT stated that it is a good thing to be able to crack down on the fraudulent organizations, but as early as the end of last year, some Taiwanese businessmen in Cambodia have revealed that there were many this kind of criminal cases one after another. What has the MOFA done in the past eight months?
Legislator Tseng Ming-chung, whip of the KMT caucus of the Legislative Yuan, stated that the caucus will demand that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs increase manpower and resources when the next session opens at the Legislative Yuan. It must increase the manpower and resources of relevant foreign missions, and establish a rescue channel, with cooperation of government and private sector, in the Southeast Asia region. With such rescue channels, those victims may soon break the control of fraud mafia and human trafficking groups, regain freedom, and return to Taiwan safely.
In discussion of the incident of Taiwanese nationals trapped in Cambodia, Premier Su Tseng-chang and Minister of Foreign Affairs Joseph Wu both stated that it was the aftermath of China's “Belt and Road Initiative” that led to the victimization of Taiwanese people. Scholars questioned that the government's statement was all prevarication. If the "Belt and Road Initiative" brought Cambodia's development and crimes, would Taiwan's "New Southbound Policy" be criticized for the same reason? The government's focus should be on actual rescue efforts, and seeking cooperation with Mainland China on rescue remedies.
This wave of turmoil was started by Cambodian government’s establishment of special zones, including the Sihanoukville Autonomous Port, in Cambodia in 2017 supporting the gaming industry. It has attracted hundreds of thousands of mainlanders. Some Taiwanese nationals cooperated with mainland Chinese nationals in gaming industry. Everyday there were several dozen million RMB cash flow in the on-line gaming business, and it became a money-laundry haven. The Chinese government has noticed this loophole and its damage, then, in 2019, after Chinese President Xi Jinping negotiated with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, Cambodia began to prohibit online gaming. The banning of online gaming made the Taiwanese fraudulent organizations, which have been transformed into gaming business, decided to switch back to their old tricks of fraud and scam activities.
The analysis of some prosecutors, who have been investigating cross-border fraud cases for many years, shows that mainland China has implemented a "Big Go-home Persuasion " policy to fight organizational fraud crimes last year. It helped tens of thousands of members of the fraudulent organizations, who have engaged in fraud business in Cambodia, returned to mainland China for trial. Such policy caused a “shortage of manpower” in Cambodia, thus it started to aiming Taiwan as to recruiting young men and women who wanted to go abroad for gold.
The Associated Press reported that recent victims are mostly well-educated young people, who misbelieved the promises of high-paying tech jobs, then been lured to work in Cambodia, and eventually ended up as the phone scammers in the scam syndicate.
In order to combatting fraud cases in Cambodia, the Executive Yuan recently launched a special inter-ministerial meeting to implement on four aspects: prevention, dissuasion, rescue, and investigation. Spokesman Luo stated that in recent years the human trafficking cases, apart from traditional sexual and labor exploitation, the number of telecommunication frauds has gradually increased. After sporadic cases in March this year, it has risen in July. Luo stated that almost 99 percent of the victims were telecommunication fraud, and only one case was sexual exploitation.