In Southeast Asia’s scam centers, human trafficking worsens

Family members and supporters of trafficking victims forced to perpetrate online scams hold a candlelight vigil in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, in October 2022. (David Grunebaum/VOA) This mother’s 24-year-old daughter is trapped in a scam compound in Cambodia where she receives frequent beatings and is sometimes deprived of food for days. “Dear Allah, please save my daughter,” she said at a recent press conference with her voice cracking and body shaking. Jake Sims, a visiting expert with the United States Institute of Peace, says the multibillion-dollar cybercrime industry in Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos “is growing and will likely continue to grow for some time.” Families of trafficking victims and human rights activists have held demonstrations, including this candlelight vigil in Malaysia.

The young man has been handcuffed to the ceiling, beaten until his buttocks turned purple, and received electric shocks to his feet. That’s how his captors treat him inside a scam compound in Myanmar where he has been trapped since October, according to his mother, who showed VOA a photograph sent by her son’s captors of what she says is his beaten body.