TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Taiwan stayed in the top tier of the United States government’s Trafficking in Persons report for the 14th year running, reports said Friday (June 16).

The report was presented by Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Washington, D.C. Thursday (June 15). The document discussed the various types of human trafficking and related conditions in 180 countries and territories around the world.

Taiwan appeared in Tier 1, the category of countries whose governments meet the U.S. Trafficking Victims Protection Act minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking. Even though Taiwan’s anti-trafficking efforts were influenced by the COVID-19 pandemic, the report still found the government and the private sector worked together to solve related problems, Radio Taiwan International (RTI) reported.

The State Department mentioned the role of Chinese-based organized crime groups in running “scam factories” in Cambodia and other Southeast Asian nations, where victims were forced to take part in online fraud. “Taiwan located and repatriated hundreds of individuals from cyber scam operations in Cambodia and indicted dozens of Taiwanese individuals allegedly complicit in their initial recruitment,” the document noted.