Human trafficking is a serious crime involving the deceiving or coercing of people into situations of severe exploitation. The Mekong region contains diverse patterns of human trafficking. They are internal and cross-border; highly organized and small-scale; for sex and labour; through both formal and informal recruitment mechanisms; and involve men, women, children and families.

This research is published by the United Nations Action for Cooperation against Trafficking in Persons (UN-ACT), a regional, UNDP-managed anti-trafficking project in the Greater Mekong Sub-region, as part of a series titled Human Trafficking Trends in Asia. The study draws on three datasets collected in 2009, 2010 and 2012, and thereby allows for the analysis of trends over time in the migration experiences of Cambodian workers deported from Thailand, including potential cases of human trafficking.

Some of the key findings include:

1. There were marked improvements in the reported labour migration experiences over the three years of the research;

2. Respondents that had worked on fishing boats were most likely to be coerced/deceived, exploited, and hence trafficked;

3. Gender, age, education and knowledge about human trafficking did not play a significant role in determining whether a respondent would be deceived/coerced, exploited, and trafficked;

4. Certain types of broker involvement in the recruitment and/or transportation of respondents were in some years associated with higher levels of human trafficking; other brokers, however, also played positive roles in respondents’ labour migration experiences.

The report contains an analysis of socio-economic factors and other variables going beyond migration and human trafficking, and concludes with a number of concise recommendations for action to anti-trafficking stakeholders.

With this research, UN-ACT hopes to help the counter-trafficking sector in Cambodia and Thailand to find and assist more victims of human trafficking, bring more of their traffickers and abusers to justice, and prevent more vulnerable people from being deceived and exploited in the future.

Further resources on human trafficking in the Greater Mekong Sub-region can be accessed by visiting UN-ACT’s website at www.un-act.org.