South Korea called for stronger global cooperation at the United Nations to combat human trafficking tied to online scam operations. On Thursday, a South Korean government response team, led by Second Vice Foreign Minister Kim Jina (C), inspected an online scam complex in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. Photo by Yonhap/EPA
Seoul called for stronger global cooperation at the United Nations to combat human trafficking tied to online scam operations, as concern mounts at home over the kidnapping and abuse of South Korean nationals in Cambodia.
South Korea’s Deputy Permanent Representative Kim Sang-jin raised the issue Thursday at the U.N. General Assembly, warning that trafficking networks linked to scam centers have become a growing transnational threat.
“This crime is increasingly intertwined with emerging forms of transnational crime, such as online scams as seen in the recent surge in cases targeting citizens of the Republic of Korea and other nations in Southeast Asian territories, underscoring the need for stronger international cooperation,” Kim said during an interactive dialogue with the chair of the Human Rights Committee.
“Human trafficking endangers the right to life and security of person, and [is] a grave violation of international human rights law,” Kim said. “Turning a blind eye to it is an abdication of our collective responsibility, leading to lifelong harm, disappearance and even death of countless victims.”
His remarks come amid escalating concern in South Korea after reports that hundreds of citizens have been kidnapped or forced into labor at scam compounds in Cambodia.
Most of the cases are linked to transnational crime gangs running large-scale voice phishing rings and illegal gambling operations. Victims are lured with fake job offers and then held against their will.
Seoul says that the number of South Koreans kidnapped in Cambodia has soared over the past two years, with a reported 220 in 2024 and 330 through August of this year. Previous years had seen between 10 and 20 kidnapping cases on average.
The issue sparked public outrage when the body of a Korean university student was found in August near Bokor Mountain in Kampot Province after allegedly being tortured to death. Three Chinese nationals were indicted on murder and fraud charges by Cambodian prosecutors, state-run news agency Agence Khmer Press reported last week.
South Korea’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday issued a “code-black” travel ban, its highest alert level, for several Cambodian regions, including Poipet, Bavet and the Bokor Mountain area. The government dispatched an inter-agency joint response team to address the crisis and oversee the repatriation of South Korean citizens.
Four Koreans have returned home this week, news agency Yonhap reported Friday, with another 59 still awaiting repatriation.
On Tuesday, Britain and the United States announced they had imposed sanctions on the Prince Group, a Cambodia-based transnational network accused of operating criminal cyber-scam compounds.
U.N. human rights investigators say scam centers in Cambodia and neighboring countries are part of a broader regional human-trafficking network involving hundreds of thousands of victims from across Asia, many subjected to violence and forced labor.
“The situation has reached the level of a humanitarian and human rights crisis,” a team of human rights special rapporteurs said in May.
Amnesty International said in a June report that the Cambodian government has been “deliberately ignoring” human rights abuses, including slavery, human trafficking, child labor and torture, at some 53 scamming compounds in the country.
Amnesty’s findings also suggested “coordination and possibly collusion between Chinese compound bosses and the Cambodian police, who have failed to shut down compounds despite the slew of human rights abuses taking place inside.”
