Photo courtesy of IOM 2023/Kasidit Chaikaew
Human trafficking in the form of forced labour carried out by on-line scammers has significantly intensified in Myanmar and some other neighbouring countries, raising concerns among authorities and non-governmental agencies in the region.
The Bangkok office of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) has sounded the alarm after seeing a drastic surge in the number of people that it assisted in 2022.
The Covid-19 pandemic ushered in a transition towards a new normal in which more and more people have been working from home, providing on-line scammers an opportunity for their fraudulent activities. Such on-line frauds have reached an unprecedented scale, prompting the Interpol to issue an orange notice on human trafficking-fuelled frauds last June.
The pandemic forced many businesses to close, sending a huge number of people…
