BANGKOK, Feb 12, (AP): US President Donald Trump’s freeze on foreign assistance has dealt a blow to organizations fighting human trafficking and forced labor in Cambodia, where tens of thousands of people are held captive and forced to work in call centers running telephone scams. Hundreds of thousands of people work in remote compounds in countries including Cambodia, Myanmar and Laos where they run online scams targeting people all over the world, including Americans, according to UN estimates. Some are trafficked and lured to the jobs under false pretenses and forced to work against their will.

A shelter for people who manage to leave these compounds run by the Catholic charity Caritas recently let some victims go and may stop accepting further victims due to the funding squeeze, two sources with direct knowledge of the situation said. The shelter, in the capital Phnom Penh is the only one not operated by the government which takes in victims of scam compounds, both foreign and Cambodian.

The sources declined to be named because they were concerned about retaliation from the Trump administration. The funding freeze has also halted civil-society-assisted rescue work and related programs on preventing human trafficking. The compounds operate with support from some local elites. Last October, the US sanctioned Ly Yong Phat, a leading member of the ruling Cambodian People’s Party of Prime Minister Hun Manet, for owning businesses that have trafficked people and forced to work in online scam centers.

The blow to civil society efforts comes as a small network of society and independent media addressing Cambodia’s scam compounds are already under intense government pressure. Independent media outlets have been shuttered, and a prominent Cambodian investigative journalist who had reported on the issue was arrested.

The Trump Administration froze US foreign assistance in January, upending projects all over the world that ranged from providing medications to HIV patients to humanitarian assistance to people displaced by conflict. While there are other shelters in Cambodia, the one operated by Caritas "is the only qualified and competent shelter,” said Jake Sims, a co-founder of Shamrock, a public-private coalition working to combat transnational organized cybercrime. It offers victims trauma-informed care, as well as help with visas and legal support so they can go back to their home countries.