The Australian Ambassador to Cambodia told Minister of Interior Sar Kheng that Australia was prepared to offer Cambodia additional support in its fight against human trafficking. The Australian Federal police have been running training sessions for the Cambodian police forces, in particular in collaboration on anti-money laundering, cybercrime and digital forensics.
The remarks came as Australian ambassador Pablo Kang met with Sar Kheng to discuss the work on October 13.
Sar Kheng thanked Australia for its continued support for Cambodia, especially its contribution to the fight against Covid-19 in Cambodia and many other important areas.
He said that the Ministry of Interior and the Australian side were cooperating on security affairs. Both sides had signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on cooperation on a number of important issues, such as the fight against human trafficking, transnational crime and drug trafficking.
Sar Kheng applauded the excellent cooperation that had been achieved under the MoU framework. He said the results of the cooperation would make Cambodia safer, particularly important when one considered the number of important events that Kingdom is slated to host.
Kang noted the government and interior ministry’s efforts to step up anti-trafficking campaigns, saying Australia would continue to support Cambodia in this work.
He added that Australia had not only provided training to Cambodian police officers, but had provided specialised equipment which increased their capacity to conduct forensic and travel document inspections for immigration work.
Kang hoped that this work would contribute to seeing the Kingdom’s removal from the anti-money laundering gray list, telling Sar Kheng that the fight against human trafficking was a global and regional issue, not just a Cambodian one.
He hoped to increase cooperation, so the two nations could work together to tackle this complex transnational crime.Sar Kheng agreed with the ambassador and confirmed that combating trafficking requires close cooperation between nations, both regionally and globally.
Sar Kheng also noted that the police had recently made several large drug seizures. He hoped that under the MoU, Australia would continue to support the Kingdom’s fight against rising drug crime
