Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet. - Photo: Xinhua
PHNOM PENH: Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet on Thursday (Dec 12) vowed to fight all forms of cross-border crimes and human trafficking, warning that perpetrators would face harsh punishment in accordance to the law.
Addressing more than 3,000 participants at the 18th National Day Against Human Trafficking in Phnom Penh, Manet said Cambodia had applied a zero-tolerance policy against human trafficking in all images.
"The royal government will continue to maintain its high commitment to combat all forms of transnational crimes, especially human trafficking, in order to promote the respect for human rights," he said.
On Dec 2, the Kandal Provincial Court in southern Cambodia sentenced each of 13 pregnant Filipino women to four years in jail for acting as surrogate mothers.
They were arrested in September and charged with attempted cross-border human trafficking as they carried babies for foreign clients and would sell them to a third person in exchange for money after the babies were born.
"They carried babies for foreign clients, with poverty as their reason," Manet said. "This was a human trafficking case, so we had to enforce the law against them in order to prevent such cases in the future."
Cambodia banned commercial surrogacy in November 2016, defining it as a form of human trafficking.
In August 2017, the Phnom Penh Municipal Court sentenced an Australian nurse to 18 months in prison for operating commercial surrogacy services in the kingdom. - Xinhua
