Experts from the U.S. Institute of Peace provide the latest analysis and perspective on the world’s critical hot spots, U.S. and global security and issues involved in violent conflict, based on the Institute’s work on the ground and with key individuals, governments and organizations. They give interviews and background briefings to journalists and write for news outlets around the world.
The hustle started like it often does, with a post on Facebook promising job seekers generously paid customer service positions in Cambodia, no experience necessary. Soraton Charehkphunpol, a Thai cook scraping by in a restaurant in Bangkok, couldn’t resist the offer to earn more than double his $470 monthly salary. Late one evening...
Spurred by global concern, Cambodian government leaders and law enforcement officials in mid-September 2022 launched a crackdown on largely Chinese crime syndicates that promote illegal online gambling and human trafficking in the gambling hub of Sihanoukville and the nation’s capital, Phnom Penh...
After a landslide democratic victory the military seized power with a coup in February 2021. To prevent democracy from slipping away once again, the people of Myanmar stood up against the military junta. These protests began what would spiral into a 19-month war that has shattered the country and broken...
Cambodia has long had a problem with its own citizens being trafficked into nearby countries such as Thailand and Indonesia, where they work in slave-like conditions. But stamping out foreign-run trafficking rings within its borders is a new phenomenon, and Phnom Penh's ability to...
After months of mounting reports of workers from across Asia being trafficked into Chinese cybercrime rings operating in Cambodia, the government finally conceded last week that a more aggressive approach to the problem was in order. Interior Minister Sar Kheng said on August 22 that officials were being deployed across the country...
On Aug 18, dozens of Vietnamese dashed out of a casino compound in Cambodia's Kandal province, pursued by men swinging long metal rods. They flung themselves into the Binh Di River in a desperate bid to swim to Vietnam on the other side. Forty of them got away. Of the remaining two, one was...
Kenyans and Taiwanese are among the hundreds of people trafficked to Southeast Asia and forced to work for telecom scam networks based in Laos and Cambodia. The Embassy of the Republic of Kenya in Thailand has issued an official warning to its citizens regarding the risks of...
Every year, Australians of all ages and backgrounds are scammed out of billions of dollars, with fraudsters developing more sophisticated and persuasive tactics all the time. But the financial and emotional devastation wreaked on victims of scams only tells half the story. All across...
The first punch lands on the left side of the young man’s face, the second on the right. Several more follow. Knees strike his stomach. He cannot defend himself, his hands are cuffed. His attacker, face outside the frame, has his fist wrapped in cloth. He drags his victim by the lapels into the middle of the frame...
Around six months ago, Ekapop Lueangprasert, a local government official and business owner in the Sai Mai suburb of Bangkok, was checking messages sent to his Sai Mai Must Survive Facebook page – a volunteer initiative he’d set up to try and help local people struggling financially during the pandemic – when he...