A recent UN study found that hundreds of thousands of people from all around the world have traveled to Southeast Asia to commit online scams.
A recent UN study found that hundreds of thousands of people from all around the world have traveled to Southeast Asia to commit online scams. These scams have been forced onto at least 120,000 people in Myanmar and an additional 100,000 people in Cambodia.
Males from Asia make up the majority of the victims, while some have also come from farther afield regions like Africa and Latin America.
Despite the fact that the issue has been there for a while, the UN report offers the first thorough evaluation of its scope.
According to the survey, as a result of pandemic-related closures, millions of individuals were forced to stay at home and spend more time online, making them prime candidates for those running online fraud schemes.
Additionally, criminal gangs increasingly target victims with professional professions, who frequently have graduate or even post-graduate degrees, rather than preying on victims with less education who were looking to make a fast profit in the past.
According to the research, many of these locations where individuals are coerced into cybercrime are those where power is disputed, governance is shaky, and the rule of law is weak.
Volker Türk, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, said, “We must not forget that this complicated problem involves two sets of victims in order to continue calling for justice for those who have been victimized by online criminality.
The UN believes that these fraud-related businesses bring in billions of dollars annually.
People who have been harmed by these criminal networks have been widely interviewed by a number of media organisations, including the BBC.
Frequently, people are duped into traveling to Cambodia, Myanmar, and Thailand by advertisements promising simple employment and lavish benefits.
When they get there, they are imprisoned and made to labor on websites that perpetrate online scams. Those who disobey risk having their safety threatened. Many people have experienced torture and other cruel treatment.
In what are known as “pig-butchering” scams, some networks also prey on those looking for love and romance. In a terrible incident that occurred last year, a Malaysian man, 25, who had traveled to Bangkok to see a “girlfriend” with whom he had only communicated online, was killed by torture.
Instead, he was compelled to work for organizations that engaged in online scams after being transported to Myanmar. He said he had been beaten up for supposedly fabricating a medical condition in one of his last conversations to his parents. After a month in critical care, he passed away.
According to the UN, existing laws in many Southeast Asian nations frequently fall short of international norms and have “in large part” failed to keep up with the development of internet fraud operations since the epidemic.
Pia Oberoi, a senior consultant on migration at the UN Human Rights Office, claims that many more incidents have gone unreported because the victims feel “stigma and shame” for the work they were made to do.
According to the research, a suitable response should “not merely [involve] addressing organized crime or enforcing border controls,” but also offer these trafficking victims safety and justice.
Mr. Türk urged governments to take a firm stance against these criminal networks.
All impacted governments must muster the political will to promote human rights, enhance governance, and uphold the rule of law, he added, notably by making substantial, long-term efforts to combat corruption.