A new type of victim? Profiling survivors of modern slavery in the online scam industry in Southeast Asia

Abstract

In recent years, the online scam industry has experienced massive growth in East and Southeast Asia. What used to be scattered operations largely located in apartments, villas, and hotel rooms mostly in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, and the Philippines, began to scale up and move into bigger ‘scam compounds’ hosting dozens of different companies. There is now substantial evidence of thousands of people being deceived and trafficked into scam operations located in these facilities. Many of them fall for fraudulent job advertisements; others are enticed or duped by friends, relatives, or acquaintances; others again have been outright kidnapped. While the media have extensively reported on this new ..