Border guards of Kien Giang, a southwestern province of Vietnam, have received 226 Vietnamese citizens who had been tricked into taking ‘high-paying easy jobs’ in Cambodia by human trafficking rings, a border official has reported. 

These citizens were handed over by Cambodia authorities to the Ha Tien Border Guard Station at the Ha Tien International Border Gate in Kien Giang on Friday, said Nguyen Huu Viet, deputy head of the station.

They were rescued during a campaign launched by Cambodian agencies concerned in Preah Sihanouk Province to crack down on human trafficking organizations from September 18 to 22.

The campaign, with the coordination of the Vietnamese Consulate General in Preah Sihanouk, focused on three foreign companies operating in the province.

According to initial reports, all these rescued people had been duped into going to Cambodia to get ‘easy jobs with high pay’ but they turned out to work as illegal or forced workers under the scams by human traffickers.

Most of these citizens have personal identification documents, except for a few who have lost them or had them retained by their employers.

Among the repatriated, those who had exited with legal passports will be eligible to make entry normally, while those who were sent to Cambodia illegally had to submit reports about their cases to Vietnamese authorities for verification, Viet said.

Border guard forces, local authorities, women’s unions, and other related regencies will provide necessary supports for all the repatriated victims, the officer added.

Earlier on August 29, the same border station received 63 other Vietnamese victims who had been rescued in Cambodia through a joint effort of Cambodian authorities and the Vietnamese Consulate General in Sihanoukville.

Three days later, the Vietnamese Embassy in Phnom Penh, the Cambodian capital, repatriated an additional 26 Vietnamese citizens through Tinh Bien Border Gate in Vietnam’s An Giang Province, which also border Cambodia.

By joining hands with Cambodian authorities, Vietnam’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs has so far this year repatriated more than 600 citizens who were tricked by human traffickers into working in Cambodia in miserable conditions, the ministry reported recently.

Thousands of Vietnamese people may have been smuggled to Cambodia in such scams, Senior Lieutenant Colonel Khong Ngoc Oanh from the Ministry of Public Security’s Criminal Police Department told Tuoi Tre (Youth) newspaper.

A striking event happened on August 18 when 42 Vietnamese nationals fled the Rich World Casino in Cambodia’s Kandal Province and tried to swim across the border Binh Di River into Vietnam’s southwestern province of An Giang.

Among these runaways, 40 reached Vietnam, one died during the river crossing, and the remainder was recaptured by the casino guards, though he was later rescued and repatriated.

Currently, continued efforts by both Vietnam and Cambodian authorities are underway to crack down on human trafficking rings that cheated Vietnamese into going to Cambodia in their ‘easy- job, high-pay’ scams.

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