Under Canberra’s deal with Phnom Penh, Australia would resettle residents currently living on the islands of Nauru and Papua New Guinea to Cambodia. Cambodia’s foreign ministry says that it is currently reviewing the proposal, and will only accept refugees who voluntarily agree to come to the country.

Human-rights groups say that impoverished asylum-seekers may be no better off in Cambodia than in the countries they fled. The poor Southeast Asian nation ranks 138 out of 186 countries on the UN’s Human Development Index, which evaluates residents’ standard of living.

Cambodia isn't the only surprising and troubling new destination for the world's persecuted. Here are three others:

Hungary

A member of the European Union that sits along its eastern border, Hungary has always been a thruway for migration in central Europe, but had never appeared among the world’s top receiving countries for asylum-seekers until last year.

Against the backdrop of continuing civil war in Syria, the number of asylum-seekers in the country rose six-fold in 2013, to an all-time high of 18,600, according to the UN. Aside from Syrians, applicants are mainly from Russia, Afghanistan, and Serbia.

Authorities regularly detain asylum-seekers for illegal border entry and, according to Human Rights Watch, the country has been known to send asylum-seekers back home despite evidence of ill treatment.

Last year, Hungary passed new rules to improve the detainment process, but the European Court of Human Rights says detainees are still not informed of their right to challenge detention, and applications for release are rarely granted. Between September 2012 and September 2013, only three out of about 8,000 applications for release from detainment were granted.

Serbia

A country perhaps best known for forcing millions of ethnic Albanians out in the late 1990s has become the 20th-largest recipient country of asylum-seekers, mainly from Africa and the Middle East. Serbia’s registered asylum claims have jumped from around 52 in 2008 to an all-time high of 5,100 claims in 2013, according to the UN.

As in Hungary, asylum-seekers are often detained in Serbia. Asylum centers in the country have been known to fill quickly, forcing hundreds to sleep outside in tents. Migrants are also sometimes sent on to Macedonia and Greece, home to overwhelmed and chaotic asylum systems, where seekers face the threat of being deported to the countries they escaped from. As of the end of 2012, Macedonia had not granted asylum to anyone since 2008, according to the Center for Research and Policy Making.