Photo credit: DW
African nationals now form the largest group of those trafficked to and stranded in countries like Myanmar and Cambodia.
DW Canada reports that in Cambodia, the main obstacles to facilitating any return are that many African countries, like Uganda, Liberia, and Ghana, have no consular representatives.
“But also because some countries have zero interest,” says Montse Ferrer, co-regional director of Amnesty International, who finds equal blame for the situation in many of the countries of origin.
“They’re not even picking up the phone, let alone providing the paperwork for the money for them to go back.”
Ferrer believes that keeping the situation unchanged has also been in the Cambodian government’s interest for a long time.
Many trafficking victims now have overstay fines for their visas against their names in Cambodia, reaching thousands of dollars in many instances.
“They don’t allow NGOs to provide the support these people need, and instead they have resorted to arresting and threatening them,” Ferrer told DW.
Following great pressure from the international community – including threats of financial sanctions by the US, the UK, Canada and the European Union – Cambodia did eventually agree to launch a crackdown on the scamming industry earlier this year.
According to the Cambodian Ministry of Information, the initiative resulted in many arrests and triggered a mass exodus of dubious operatives from the scamming industry.
But the crackdown also created a secondary crisis: Thousands of trafficked foreign workers remain stranded in the country without documentation or legal status; now, they also lack shelter and money in many instances, NGOs say.
Emmanuel David is one of many of the trafficking victims stuck in Cambodia. The Kiberian national arrived last year after a treacherous, irregular journey from Vietnam.
“My friend told me there was work in Cambodia, but he did not explain that it was scamming work,” David explained.
The scamming company offered him a lucrative deal of making around $800 per month, which is more than double the average wage for qualified individuals in Liberia, according to the Civil Service Agency of Liberia.
He was forced to work 14 hours a day to deceive women on various dating apps into parting with their money.
But David was initially unable – and later unwilling – to meet the set target quota of scams per day.
In response, the criminal group started billing him for food and accommodation through his wages, and later even confiscated his belongings – including his passport.
David says he also faced substantial physical violence, including beatings, for four months.
Eventually, he left “with no documents and money,” and is now hoping to find a way back to Liberia.
Pia Oberoi, chief of the Right to Development Section at UN Human Rights, told DW that “despite the promise of a good salary, most come out in debt.”
She also confirmed that more and more of the trafficking victims in Southeast Asia come from African countries, “because there is clearly a recruitment industry that’s built around Africa, targeting African nationals.”
